This week in TV Guide: March 6, 1965

The brooding visage of David Janssen graces this week's cover.  Janssen is in the second of four seasons playing Dr. Richard Kimball, the hero of the hit ABC series The Fugitive.  Janssen the actor shares many similarities with Kimball the fugitive, among which is a  lack of comfort with his surroundings.  His friend, novelist Bernard Wolfe, comments that "David is not a fanatically dedicated person.  If he were, all this grueling work would have more meaning for him.  But he is not dedicated.  He has great doubts as to the ultimate aim of it all, as to where it is leading him."

Janssen in fact houses a number of torments: his heavy drinking, which Janssen claims has diminished while doing The Fugitive, but would always remain a part of his life; his ulcer (caused, Janssen wryly notes, by "thinking"); his heavy smoking (two to three packs a day); and the fatigue of his grueling schedule of 14-hour days filming a show in which he is in virtually every scene.  When told that executive producer Quinn Martin "speaks grandly of five more years" of The Fugutive, Janssen dully replies, "Five more years?  Contractually, I suppose I would have to put in five more years, but -"  The Fugitive ran just about the right length of time; David Janssen, who died of a heart attack at age 48, died way too young.

***

Personally, I don't think you need a reason to show a picture of Sophia Loren, but this week we have one. On Saturday, WTCN presents the TV premiere of Two Women, the movie for which Loren won her Oscar for Best Actress.   Channel 11 advertised the movie accordingly.

Now, take a good look at that ad.  Notice anything strange about it?  The placement of that "TONIGHT 10 P.M." strip looks just a little suspicious, don't you think?  Especially when compared to the same picture, unedited:

While this picture might be considered somewhat modest today, I'm sure that 1965 Midwest sensibilities might have been offended by the amount of Sophia's cleavage on display.  Two Women was, as I recall, an art-house movie (and Loren was the first Best Actress winner in a foreign-language film), so it's likely that most people in the Twin Cities hadn't seen it; Loren's sexpot image was well-known, however, so the station might have thought a little judicious editing was in order.

Alternately, because it probably wasn't seen widely and viewers didn't know what it was about, perhaps the station wanted to create the impression that there was more to see than meets the eye.  Or is that too cynical a thought?  I'm just sayin'.

*** .

During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..

Ed Sullivan: Scheduled guests include singer Ella Fitzgerald; Duke Ellington and his band; singer Rita Pavone; singer-dancer Roy Castle; comics Stiller and Meara; the two Carmenas, balancers; and comedian John Byner.

Hollywood Palace: Host Eddie Fisher welcomes actress-vocalist Connie Stevens, comedian Jack Carter, the Marquis Chimps, the Arirang Korean ballet troupe, comedy pantomimist Ben Wrigley and the Kuban Cossacks, dance team.

This contest was pretty much over at the start.  With Ella and Duke headlining the Sullivan show, Palace was going to have to come up with something big to top it.  Eddie Fisher, Connie Stevens and Jack Carter are OK, but the royalty that the Palace needed was already spoken for.  Crown Sullivan as winner for the week.

***

The big movie of the week is a really big one: ABC's Sunday night presentation of Judgment at Nuremberg, starring Spencer Tracy, Oscar winner Maximilian Schell, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland and a cast of thousands.  It's a long movie, starting at 8:00pm CT and running for three and one-half hours.  And it's a heavy movie - preachy in parts, as one might expect from writer Abby Mann and director Stanley Kramer.  But less than 20 years after the end of World War II, it's also a portrait of a world still trying to come to grips with the horror of the Holocaust, and a country (Germany) trying to sort out its moral responsibility.

Speaking of which, there's a note that on April 11 the ABC program Discovery '65 will be telecasting David Amram's Holocaust opera The Final Ingredient, commissioned by the network*, based on the teleplay by the famed Golden Age writer Reginald Rose. "Set in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, The Final Ingredient relates the story of a group of inmates who attempt to hold a secret Passover Seder inside the camp, and their quest for the final ingredient, which lies just outside the camp walls."  Interesting, as this article points out, that ABC conceived of this as a "Passover Opera" that might be presented annually - almost a Jewish counterpart to Menotti's Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors.  But it didn't become an annual broadcast - at least, as far as I know.  It's available for viewing at the Paley Center - might have to check this out someday.

*I'm not positive, but I'm fairly certain this was the final opera  commissioned by one of the big three American commercial television networks.  After this, it would be up to PBS.

Let's see - there's also an article about CBS's series The Nurses, which has just been retooled with the addition of a couple of doctors; it's now called The Doctors and the Nurses.  The nurses (Shirl Conway and Zina Bethune) are now supporting players to the doctors (Joe Campanella and Michael Tolan).  According to producer Herb Brodkin, the move was made to improve ratings and dramatic potential: since nurses can't diagnose patients, there just weren't enough stories to carry the show. Says Brodkin, "Part of the problem was that, in making things happen in a story, nurses are handholders."

***

Johnny Carson's doing a 15-minute sit-in, in protest of the fact that many NBC affiliates around the country (including those in New York and San Francisco) don't carry the first 15 minutes of Tonight (which at the time ran for an hour and 45 minutes), choosing instead to run a half-hour of local news.  For Carson, this meant about half of the nation would miss his monologue, a situation which justifiably caused him some distress - so much so, Carson claimed, that it prevented him from appearing on-air for the first 15 minutes of the program.  His "sick-in" lasts for two nights, after which he agrees to discuss things with the network.  The short-term solution is that Ed McMahon and bandleader Skitch Henderson vamp for the opening segment, with Johnny coming on at the bottom of the hour to do his monologue.  Within a couple of years, that first 15 will be dropped altogether, giving the show a tidy 90 minute running time.

On the sports front, there's the usual late-winter fare: bowling, basketball, the odd golf tournament.  The most notable event: the "first annual" Grand Award of Sport, Wednesday night at 8:30 CT on ABC, presented live from the New York World's Fair, and hosted by Bing and Kathryn Crosby.  The format: "Panels of outstanding sportsmen have selected 20 winners" from a list of 83 nominees representing "the world's top athletes".  The nominees included football stars Jim Brown and Johnny Unitas, boxer Cassius Clay, baseball's Sandy Koufax, basketball greats Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson, and hockey stars Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe.  At the show's end, one of these winners will be chosen to receive the "Grand Award," presented by former astronaut John Glenn.  I can't find another listing for the "Grand Award of Sport"; it's my guess that it was either replaced or folded into the Victor Awards, which began (coincidentally?) the very next year, 1966.

NBC presents a news special Tuesday night entitled "The Pope and the Vatican," covering the concluding days of the Second Vatican Council and the radical changes (termed aggiornamento, or "bringing up to date") coming to the Catholic Church.  I've been on vacation lately; anything new happening with the Pope?

***

Finally, the British satirist and social critic Malcolm Muggerage has a witty, but also very provocative, article on "The British Passion for American Television,"  and what he has to say might surprise you.  Rather than lengthen today's piece beyond any reasonable measure, I've chosen to devote an entire essay to the topic.  Come back on Tuesday to see what it's all about. TV  

Around the Dial

It's a real smorgasbord on tap today, so since we're all over the place, might as well just jump in:

• First off, an update from Chip Arcuri at the great Yule Log site.  I'd talked to Chip after the fiasco surrounding TCM's December showing of Carol for Another Christmas, in hopes of finding out why Henry Mancini's theme music had been removed.  Chip now has this:  

"Felice (Mancini) has not been able to determine why the print of Carol For Another Christmas that TCM aired last December did not include her father's music. It was not a legal copyright issue because she and her siblings manage her father's extensive library of music. However, the theory that I suggested to her is probably the most logical reason for the omission. And that theory is that the copy of the print that TCM aired was probably made before her father was signed on by ABC-TV to compose an original theme for the film. If she should find out anything different, I'll certainly post it here."

Thanks, Chip.  You wouldn't think it would be so hard, would you?

• Another update, this time from reader C.D., who offers an explanation for that strange Flintstones cartoon I shared with you the other day.  "The drawings, especially Barney, are not as far-fetched as you might think.  The 1960 pilot film 'The Flagstones' has them pretty much looking like that.  I understand that the title was changed since it sounded too much like the Flagston family in the 'Hi and Lois' comic strip."
  
  Thanks to you as well, C.D.  It's great to have loyal readers out there!

• Off the classic TV beat for just a moment, Awful Announcing has an insightful piece into why NBC Sports Network has failed to become what many of us had hoped for: a real alternative to ESPN.

• Paul Hughes, writing at How Sweet It Was, has another Columbo piece, this one entitled "Why We Watch."  The ending is spot on.

• I'd not heard of Jack the Giant Killer before, but Classic Film and TV Cafe has.  It's not to be confused with Jack the Giant Slayer though, so make sure you know the difference.  Test to follow.

That's it for this week - see you Saturday with a new TV Guide! TV  

Ayn Rand on the Tonight Show, 1967

Ayn Rand's been in the news a lot the last few years, though it's likely that few of the people who read her today and debate her philosophy ever had the chance to see her live.  So let's take this opportunity to look at footage on Rand appearing with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show in 1967.

Not only does this give us a chance to hear Rand describe Objectivism in her own voice, it points out the vapidity of today's late night talk shows.  In fact, Carson's own version of The Tonight Show was a shadow of its former self by the time it came to an end, but it towers as an ivory tower of intellectualism compared to Jay, Dave, the Jimmys, Conan and the rest.


I've frequently written in the past about the decline of what Terry Teachout refers to as "middlebrow" culture on television.  Usually I'm talking about the lack of classical music, drama or documentary shows, but this reminds us that the dearth of smart programming extends to the talk show as well.  Sure, you might be able to find something like this from Charlie Rose (as a matter of fact, offhand he's the only one I can think of who would do something like this), but perish the thought that it would appear on one of the broadcast networks.  
As for daytime talk shows - well, we won't even go there.  
(Although it would be interesting to see what Rand would have done with Oprah.)

This week in TV Guide: February 25, 1961

James Hagerty, prior to becoming head of ABC News, was President Eisenhower's press secretary - so it is with this dual authority that he offers, in this week's edition, a "Creed for Television Newsmen."    There are six points to this creed:

1. TV news reporting must be "factual, impartial, free and fearless. It cannot permit itself to be dominated or even remotely to be associated with any group or faction of special interest, any political party or any government."

2.  While analyzing and explaining news developments, "it must not confuse news reporting with personal opinion of a commentator who, after all, is expressing only his own thoughts and analysis."

3. Local, regional and national news "must never be neglected or overlooked."

4. News must be reported from "all sections" of the world, regarding a larger staff of trained reporters with expertise in foreign languages.

5. TV news cameras "must have the right to cover news wherever it happens, here at home or overseas."

6. "A good reporter does not seek to fake or exaggerate his story.  He gets the news as it happens, and reports the truth, the whole truth.  That is his job."

Politics is part of the cultural history not only of this country but of television, and so I've spent a fair amount of time on it.  I've tried, however, to keep my distance when it comes to ideological interjections, although I've got a fair number of opinions (as anyone who knows me can attest).  Having said this, I find it interesting that fully three of Hagerty's six points deal with the importance of neutral and objective reporting.  Now, without injecting any partisanship, I think we can all agree on the importance of this, and I hope we can also acknowledge that, no matter which side of the political fence you stand on, television news falls woefully short not only in this area but on all of Hagerty's points.

Hagerty served as head of
ABC News from 61-63

Obviously, this isn't a new problem; Hagerty wouldn't have made such an issue of it otherwise.  But one of the more unfortunate aspects of the fragmentation of American society over the decades is that the discerning viewer can pretty much watch whichever news program slants towards his or her point of view.  Just as music doesn't need to appeal to the masses any longer, and thus shatters into a million different niche networks, there is no incentive for any news program to offer objective, unbiased coverage.  Liberal?  Watch MSNBC or CNN.  Conservative?  Fox News.  Human interest stories?  There's always the networks, who seem to have pretty much given up on hard stuff.  And so on.

This isn't the place to debate solutions to the situation, of course, but one further point before we move on: Hagerty's first point, that the news must be kept separate from special interests, is one reason why Reuven Frank, as producer of NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report, kept it commercial-free in its early years.  Frank understood that a news program had to avoid even the hint of a conflict of interest.  Considering the amount of influence sponsors exercised over programs in the early days of TV, it's no wonder Frank wanted to keep the news free of such entanglements.  Of course, today the bottom line in TV news is not journalism so much as the network's profit-loss statement.  So I guess none of us should be surprised.

***

CBS's Sunday documentary series The Twentieth Century casts a spotlight on French turmoil, and one can't help but see this as a forerunner of the chaos waiting around the corner in the United States.  The show promises to tell us about the "turbulent youth of France.  LEARN why they condemn conscription, defy [President] deGaulle, rebel against the Algerian war.  SEE if they are the sinners or the saviors of France."  We learn that amidst this tumult, "one dominant theme always recurs - Algeria."

Substitute "Vietnam" for "Algeria" and you've got almost a perfect match, don't you think?  Resist conscription, i.e. the draft?  Check.  Defy the President?  Check.  Sinners or saviors?  That's the question people would be asking here in a few years.  Certainly this country had problems in 1961; the civil rights movement was in full swing, and there was nothing tranquil about that.  And yet, Americans watching this show might well have thought that the French were going mad, the Republic was teetering on the brink, and the children were lunatics running the asylum.  Thank God it couldn't happen here.

***

Life magazine celebrates its 25th anniversary on Thursday night with a 90-minute star-studded extravaganza on NBC, hosted by Bob Hope.  It's truly a moment in time; for two decades the famed weekly picture magazine had chronicled our times, portraying life in all its various shapes, sizes and (eventually) colors.  And here it is being feted by the very medium that is inexorably taking its place.  Exotic images of foreign lands, the pomp and pageantry of coronations, the breathtaking drama of sporting events - all of this had made Life a staple of American households.  But now you can see all that on television, except for the color (and that's coming soon enough), and these pictures move!

Soon enough Life would be gone.  It folded in 1972, came back as a monthly in 1978, folded again in 2000, tried one further comeback as a Sunday newspaper supplement in 2004, and finally folded for good in 2007.  And the medium that took its place, television, now finds itself in the same position in relation to the internet.  Am I the only one who finds this moment ironic?

***

On the cover this week are the stars of CBS's Candid Camera.  If the smiles in the picture look somewhat forced, there's a good reason for it.

Candid Camera premiered on radio in 1947, where it was known as Candid Microphone.  It made the transition to television the next year where it remained, off and on, until 2004.  Candid Camera was an early form of reality television, but rather than the celebrity horror shows of today, I think you could describe it as being more like America's Funniest Home Videos.  For those of you unfamiliar with it, the premise was simple: an ordinary person walks into a seemingly normal situation, which rapidly becomes completely abnormal.  For example, a gas station attendant* fills the tank of a car, but no matter how long he's at it the tank never fills up.  The car is found to have a fake tank in it, but not before the surprised attendant is told, "Smile - you're on Candid Camera!"

The picture on the cover is taken from Camera's 1960-67 run on CBS.  The balding man in the background, looking as if he desperately wants to be seen, is Candid Camera creator Allen Funt.  He's being blocked by the legendary Arthur Godfrey, who at this time is co-host of the program.  The woman to the left is the singer-actress Dorothy Collins, who often appeared as the person who introduces the unsuspecting victim into the extraordinary situation (for example, she drove the car to the gas station in the prank listed above).

Candid Camera was Funt's baby through and through, but Godfrey was a known commodity to CBS and sponsors, and it might well be that the network thought he would be more likely to attract viewers than Funt alone. It was a relationship doomed from the start; Godfrey's ego demanded a large role, and he saw the program as a vehicle for his folksy humor and commentary, and yet at heart the show was nothing more than a collection of videos requiring basic introductions.

Funt, no shrinking violet himself, resisted Godfrey's efforts to put himself at the center of the show. He told a San Francisco interviewer "that Candid Camera would be much better if Godfrey didn't talk too much" and added that "if the Godfrey problem can't be solved, the Candid Camera company has another similar show in the works and ready to put on the air."  In one instance, Funt was said to have become so fed up with Godfrey that he stormed off the set during rehearsal, refusing to take part in the show's taping.  In the end, Funt won out.  Godfrey disappeared after the first season, replaced by Garry Moore's sidekick Durward Kirby (Camera had for several years been a regular feature of Moore's variety show).

***

Isn't this a terrible cartoon rendition of The Flintstones?  Fred and Wilma aren't bad, but Barney is terrible.  And who's that kid supposed to be?  It's not Bamm-Bamm.

I don't know where this came from; it's clearly not a network advertisement, although The Flintstones were in first-run on ABC.  I can only think that the ad came from WTCN, and despite what I've said about it, local ads like this are one of the charms of TV Guides of this era.  It's the opposite of the slick, packaged material we're so used to seeing in publication nowadays.  Considering ABC's status as the number-three network of the time (by a wide margin), I wouldn't be surprised if most of its affiliates were on their own when it came to this kind of advertising.

Speaking of advertising, let's close with this note, a very clever, very funny TV Guide parody by Checkboard Square, makers of Chex cereals.

It's not only an ingenious way to advertise Chex, but a brilliant, meticulously done spoof of television and TV Guide itself. The shows themselves are great (My Three Chex, starring Claude Grains; movies including A Star is Corn and King Corn), but best of all is the care with which the TV Guide layout was duplicated.  Had to have been done with the magazine's cooperation, don't you think?   I wonder how many people, gradually flipping through the pages, actually thought this was legit? TV  

Around the Dial

With the Oscars just around the corner, Noir and Chick Flicks provides a rundown of the greatest noir films never to have won Best Picture.

I remember watching the syndicated Beat the Clock after I got home from school.  (Although when I was able to catch the original on GSN a few years ago, I found it indescribably silly.)  Thanks to the U of Maryland Archives, you can now relive those memories with the home version of the Beat the Clock game!

Lee Marvin remains one of my favorite tough-guy actors, and for people who think the original Dragnet was tough, you need to check out Marvin's Frank Ballinger in M-Squad.*  Classic Film and TV Cafe reviews Dwayne Epstein's new bio of Marvin, Point Blank. 

I always preferred the original NBC Columbo to the ABC movies made in the late 80s/early 90s, but How Sweet it Was reminds us that even some of those later-day stories were pretty sweet.  And nothing makes a better Columbo than seeing smug killers get their just rewards!

Remember Willie Tyler and Lester?  Kliph Nesteroff does, and presents part two of a terrific interview with Tyler, who shares some great showbiz stories.

Stephen Bowie has a nice article on the recently-cancelled Leverage.  I used to be a regular viewer, but a review from a few years ago suggested the show might be losing me - as in fact it did (I recorded the first few episodes from that new season, but never bothered to catch up with it again).  To me the show became too much about the characters and not enough about the caper. (If I wanted to see depressed characters develop, I'd go watch a Tennessee Williams play.)  Ultimately Leverage lacked the intelligence of Mission: Impossible, the sheer fun of The A-Team, and the sophisticated charm of The Rogues, but judging by the comments at Stephen's blog, I appear to be in the minority.

That's it for this week - see you back here Saturday for the new issue of TV Guide! TV