What's on TV? Wednesday, February 23, 1955

Tonight's highlight is the Kraft Television Theatre presentation "The Emperor Jones" (9:00 p.m., NBC), Eugene O'Neill's 1920 tragedy about a Pullman porter who winds up being dictator of an island in the Carribbean. Ossie Davis stars in the title role, with Evelyn Ellis and Curtis James making up part of the predominently black cast; Everett Sloane costars as a white trader who appears at the beginning and end of the play. It would have been unusual for a television drama in 1955 to feature an almost entirelly black cast, let alone one with a black actor in the starring role (and believe me, Jones dominates the play); I wonder if there were stations in the South that refused to show it? That wasn't a problem in this Philadelphia edition.

What's on TV? February 19, 1955

At this point in time, television, as we know it, has been around for less than a decade. TV Guide, the arbiter of such things, published its first national issue less than two years ago. So when the topic of global television is brought up, it's an understandably awesome concept. And yet, as Herman Lowe points out this week, it might be closer to happening than you think.

The exciting prospect of television being beamed across the Atlantic via a series of microwave relay stations is thought to be four to ten years away. It won't be easy, nor will it be cheap; construction costs are estimated at a minimum of $75 to $100 million. AT&T's Ultra High Frequency microwave, which could cast signals as far as 300 miles, could expedite things, in terms both of cost and time. (Of course, the Early Bird satellite is still ten years away, and it is this satellite technology that revolutionizes the industry and makes live worldwide broadcasts possible. Given that Sputnik itself is two years in the future, it's no surprise that satellites don't enter the discussion.) Assuming that the technology works, Lowe wonders just what pieces need to be filled in to make global television a reality.

Western Europe has made great strides with its eight-nation Eurovision network, which has transmitted several simultaneous transmissions to Britain, France, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, and Switzerland. There are hopes that Sweden and Spain will be able to join before the end of the year, and as soon as Luxembourg and the Saar get up and running, they should be easy to add as well. The Soviet Union has, it is believed, seven stations, and they've enquired about joining Eurovision; Poland, with one station, and Czechoslovakia, which hopes to be on the air before next year, could join them. French Morocco has started a television operation at Casablanca, and it would be easy enough to connect North Africa to the continent via coax cable or microwave; Egypt and South Africa are expected to have operational stations sometime this year. See how easy it is?

In the Western Hemisphere, last year's World Series was broadcast to Cuba via microwave, with the signal being extended via a relay facility on a DC-3—a forecast of satellite technology, in a way; experiments are continuing to see if regular service can be supplied without benefit of the relay. (I wonder what difference that might have made in terms of Castro and the Cuban revolution.) The U.S. is already linked with Canada, and a link that runs from Dallas to Mexico City would connect up stations in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. The Philippines and Thailand each have a station, and Japan is expected to join them shortly; discussions are already in progress to link Japan and the Philippines. India, Turkey, and Australia expect to be on the air later this year.

Nowadays we'd call this the Global Community, and what I find interesting about all this is how far along it already is, and how fast it seems to be progressing. I'm old enough to remember the awe inspired by Early Bird, and the sporting events that came to us Live via Early Bird Satellite. Believe me, it made any event special, and in the 1960s, there were a lot of them—not just sports but news, town hall meetings, cultural events, and more. I suppose it must seem terribly ho-hum to those who have grown up with the internet and cell phones, but in reading this article, one can sense that the anticipation is palpable, that the possibilities from such technology are unlimited. It may well be that technology will yet turn out to be the instrument of our destruction, either literally or figuratively, but back in 1955 the sky was the limit.

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Also on the cover this week is the reigning king of comedy, Sid Caesar. After catapulting to fame with Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, and Howard Morris on Your Show of Shows, he's now moved on to a show of his own, Caesar's Hour, along with Reiner and Morris; Coca's place has been filled by comedienne Nanette Fabray. But what's it like now that Sid is his own boss?

The cast of Caesar's Hour

For one thing, says Kathy Pedell, an $85,000 a week budget has allowed him to indulge some of his whims, such as sharing a stage with Benny Goodman, which he accomplished earlier this season. Music has always been a passion of his; growing up, friends recall him as being somewhat morose, with only two real interests in life: astronomy and music. Back then, he studied at Julliard for six months and aspired to play the clarinet in a symphony orchestra, but most of his professional experience came playing the sax for Charlie Spivak, Shep Fields, and Claude Thornhill. Things changed during World War II when he met composer Vernon Duke, who urged him to accept a part in his musical review—not as a musician, but as a comedian. You know the rest.

Friends say he's more relaxed since splitting with Coca and producer Max Liebman to go on his own; although the ratings were beginning to slide, he says that what made the split inevitable was "the indicision that tied me in knots." That relaxation doesn't seem to extend to his home life, though; he works from 10 a.m. to midnight, and when he gets home, he's so tired that "I won’t walk from here to there. Not unless I can calculate what it’s worth and am sure it’s worth it."

Throughtout his life, Caesar has been an astute observer of fhuman behavior, which he has translated to his skits. He generally relies on physical humor—gestures and grunts—to convey comedic situations, but he's also a master of doublespeak, able to mimic the sounds of a foreign language after hearing it for as little as 15 minutes and make it sound convincingly like actual words. But for all his success (Pedell describes it as "enough statuettes, ribbons, scrolls and citations to stock a dozen mantelpieces."), he still seems driven, immune to the pleasures which that success should have brought him. Says a former associate, "You know, he’s the kind of a guy who sits in the back of his chauffeur-driven limousine and says, 'Gee, I wish I had a hot dog.' The funny thing is—he really means it."

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On the Teletype, reports that CBS's Father Knows Best was slated for a March cancellation appear to be uncertain; the report is that the series "may get another chance." The series survives due to a new  sponsor, Scott Paper, and resumes in the fall on a new network, NBC; it runs for another five seasons, and finishes up back where it started, on CBS. 

NBC says Groucho Marx will be appearing in one of the spectaculars produced by the aforementioned Max Liebman in April, but if that ever happened, there's no record of it in the files of the series Max Liebman Presents. What's that they say about the best-laid plans?

In Washington, House Speaker Sam Rayburn remains adamant that there will be no television coverage of House sessions or committee hearings. He believes that cameras would be a distraction to members of the House, and perhaps for good reason: during last month's telecast of President Eisenhower's State of the Union address, cameras picked up "a foreign Ambassador obviously sleeping during the message, another of the dignified Speaker scratching his nose, and still others of Senators talking together during the speech." (Your tax dollars at work.) Ironically, when C-SPAN comes along with gavel-to-gave coverage of Congress, it's the Senate, not the House, that initially balks. Eventually, the Senate goes along, on C-SPAN2.  

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You may recall that Lincoln's Birthday was celebrated in last week's issue; this week, it's George Washington's turn. The Father of Our Country is feted on The Christophers (Saturday 9:30 a.m., WFIL), as John Daly, Fred Allen, Ella Raines, and Thelma Ritter provide dramatic readings using Washington's own words. If that's too early in the morning for you, stick around for Texaco Star Theater (9:30 p.m., NBC), as host Donald O'Connor welcomes Boris Karloff—song-and-dance man. 

The WFIL studio is taken over by cars on Sunday for the third annual Auto Show (2:00 p.m.), showcasing "America's smartest cars, along with sleek European cars" such as Jaguar, Volkswagen, Hillman Minx, Triumph, Sunbean, and Porsche, are on display during the two-and-a-half broadcast. Wouldn't you like to see some of those old beauties? Later in the afternoon, the George Washington tributes continue with Hallmark Hall of Fame's presentation, "Martha Custis Washington" (5:00 p.m., NBC), which tells the story of the young widow and mother of two who becomes America's first First Lady.

Colgate Comedy Hour comes to us from New Orleans this week (8:00 p.m., NBC), with host Gordon MacRae celebrating Marti Gras with Louis Armstrong, Peggy Lee, and comedian Gene Sheldon. Meanwhile, on Toast of the Town (8:00 p.m., CBS), Ed Sullivan is in London to host a tribute to the great English actress and musical comedy performer, the late Gertrude Lawrence, with an all-star lineup including  Helen Hayes, Metropolitan Opera star Lily Pons, actress Judith Anderson, actress Sarah Churchill, and others. 

One thing I don't think you can argue about is that early morning television was much more interesting, not to mention more fun, back in the 1950s Take Monday morning, for example; our cover star, Sid Caesar, is one of Dave Garroway's guests on Today (7:00 a.m., NBC), while Johnny Desmond and Edie Adams are the vocalists on Jack Paar's Morning Show (7:00 a.m., CBS). I'd take that over today's morning shows anytime.

We're back on the early morning beat Tuesday, as Today honors Washington's Birthday with its annual trip to Mount Vernon, Virginia. (I've been there myself; terrific place to visit.)  In primetime, Boris Karloff makes his second appearance of the week in the comedy-mystery "A Sting of Death" on the anthology series The Elgin Hour (9:30 p.m., ABC). In his review of the season's drama anthologies, Robert Stahl calls Elgin "one of the brighter series" of the season, with an "adventuresome spirit." (By the by, Stahl rates Philco Television Playhouse as television's top anthology series; Philco, in its final season after a seven-year run, can boast Paddy Chayefsky's original version of "Marty" and the Broadway productions of Horton Foote's "Trip to Bountiful" and N. Richard Nash's "The Rainmaker" as successes.

Wednesday's highlight comes courtesy of Disneyland (7:30 p.m., ABC). It's "Davy Crockett at the Alamo," the third of five Crockett adventures made by Disney between 1954 and 1955. Fess Parker stars as the great frontiersman, with Buddy Ebsen as his sidekick George Russel, and Kenneth Tobey as James Bowie. "Davy Crockett at the Alamo" is, appropriately, the final segment of Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, the theatrical movie made from the first three Crockett stories. And opera star Robert Merrill, who appeared on The Milton Berle Show on NBC Tuesday night, spans nights and networks to play the celebrity with the secret on I've Got a Secret (9:30 p.m., CBS). 

David Niven, one of the four stars of Four Star Playhouse, plays author Robert Louis Stevenson in "Tusitala," the story of the author's life on Samoa. (Thursday, 9:30 p.m., CBS) "Tusitala" is Samoan for "teller of tales," which certainly describes Stevenson. And on WCAU's Late Show (11:30 p.m.), it's the 1937 movie You Only Live Once, directed by Fritz Lang, with Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney. Only don't tell James Bond.

In the sports netherworld, between the end of football and the start of baseball, boxing dominates the scene, and on Friday the main event pits world featherweight champion Sandy Saddler*, making his first title defense in three years, against the number one contender, Teddy Davis, live from Madison Square Garden. (10:00 p.m., NBC) It's not that Saddler was inactive; he fought a a total of 163 times, winning 145 times. Most of his fights during his time as featherweight champion were 10-round non-title bouts, sometimes against fighters from other weight classes.

*Fun fact: Sandy Saddler's nephew is Grandmaster Flash.

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Having looked at the King of Television Comedy earlier in this issue, it seems appropriate to wrap things up with the "Grand Old Lady of Television," Faye Emerson. Unlike Sid Caesar, who remains a legend in comedy circles even though he may have been forgotten by the general public, I'm not sure how many people know, or remember, Faye Emerson. The "Grand Old Lady" title comes honestly, though: she's been on television for more than five years, and, as she points out, "that's about the length of television's own career." During that time, she's been "a panelist, moderator, critic, interviewer, accessory and actress."

Emerson started out in show business when she was still in her teens, making her first movie appearance in 1941. Her transition "from actress to interviewer" came in 1948, while she was married to Elliott Roosevelt, son of FDR. (The two were brought together by Howard Hughes.) She was interviewed at the Democratic National Convention and found the questioning so banal that "As far as I could see, all you had to do was talk. So I figured this was for me." (She didn’t think of Eleanor Roosevelt as a mother-in-law, she said, but more as "a woman of the world who belonged to the world." She never gave up on acting, thought, with appearances on various dramatic anthologies and Broadway productions, as well as hosting her own interview shows. (She also found time to divorce Roosevelt and marry bandleader Skitch Henderson.) Last year, she added the title of columnist to her duties, writing a nationally syndicated column. She reads all the daily newspapers, a habit she got into when she was a panelist on the quiz show Who Said That? "But I’m no intellectual; just curious."  

These days, she's a regular panelist on I've Got a Secret. She has also, unexpectedly, turned up as something of an arbiter of women's fashion on TV. In those early days, she was known as "the girl with the plunging neckline," a label she vehemently rejects. "I wore my own clothes when I started on late evening shows, and they were clothes appropriate to that time of day. Evening clothes, of course, are cut low; but I also wore a lot of high necklines. And I never wore anything in bad taste." Unlike some of today's stars, she might have added; in one of her recent columns, she said that "TV isn't necessarily like a Turkish bath," and that "The less said, the better, about some things that go on after 10 P.M." It's an issue she'd rather stay out of, though, "because it is keeping alive what is distasteful to me. I can well remember the days when people said all a girl had to do was to 'cut her dresses low like Fayzie' and she was an actress." But would they have wound up as the Grand Old Lady of Television? TV  

Around the dial

A Happy Valentine's Day to one and all. In the spirit of the season, so to speak, the picture above personifies me spending quality time with my first love. And where has it gotten me, you ask? Of course, if you're reading these words, you already know the answer.

Onward to Cult TV Blog, where John continues "Private Detective Season" with the mid-80s British series Bulman, and the episode "Pandora's Many Boxes." Bulman's one of those maverick P.I.s who don't follow the rules, which is just fine with me, and it provides an excellent snapshot of its time, which the best shows always do.

Garry Berman returns with the third in a series of stars who've gone "from hits to flops," and there are more than you might think. Of course, you don't get to be a star unless you take chances, and some of them don't work out. How many of these failed series do you remember?

Roger continues his recap of The New Avengers at A View from the Junkyard with "To Catch a Rat," another quality episode in the series revival. In addition to being a thriller revolving around amnesia, it's a philosophical reminder of just how important one's memory is to their own identity.

There was a time when Susan Oliver seemed to be on just about every television show you tuned in to, and Travalanche looks back at her road to success, including some of her more memorable roles (including, of course, the "Green Chick" in Star Trek).

One of the great things about the Criterion Channel is the access it gives you to movies and genres you might never have known about, let alone watched. For me, the great revelation was Japanese Noir, and Maddy writes at Classic Film and TV Corner about one of the best, Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog, with the great Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura.

On the subject of movies, at Classic Film & TV Cafe, Rick looks at Buchanan Rides Alone, one of the six "Ranown Cycle" Westerns made by Randolph Scott, directed by Budd Boetticher, and written by Burt Kennedy. Merits of the movie aside, I'm reminded of the night of the 1992 New Hampshire Presidental Primary, when Pat Buchanan was running against Bush Sr. and the GOP establishment. TNT was airing this movie, and I wondered then if they appreciated the irony of the title. TV  

If I ran the network, part 6

When the idea first came into my head, there weren't a lot of series about serial-killers on television. (That there's even such a genre says something about our society, I think, but we'll save that for another day.) I was sure, however, that there was a place for the idea, if it were done correctly, in a manner that would confound those thinking they were getting something more conventional, more in line with what they were used to seeing.

Thus was born "Jack the Ripper: The Series." 

That wouldn't have been the final title, of course. For one thing, I wasn't interested in doing a period piece, at least not that period. I also wasn't interested in a series set in England. And anyway, what more is there to say about the real Jack the Ripper that hasn' t already been said? I mean, if the idea that the Ripper might have been a member of the royal family doesn't shock you, then what's the use? It made for a good working title, though, and as far as explaining the concept goes, it'd be a great elevator pitch. So it stays as a place-holder.

In rejecting a period piece, I also rejected setting it in a contemporary timeframe, when so much of modern investigative and forensic work is conducted in the lab, online, or through psychological profiling. No, what I wanted to see was good, old-fashioned police work, where pavements are pounded and shoe leather is worn out, where informants are consulted and every lead has to be followed up. As for the location, probably a nameless American city with a population of several million people, as opposed to a small town where the character pool would be relatively limited and the focus of the investigation would narrow rapidly. Both of these were details to be determined later.

The series would work something like this: in the pilot (a two-hour special), we'd meet three or four characters, people from various walks of life. We'd learn about them: what they did, what their lives were like, what they did at home and on the job, and how those factors might possibly bring them within the circle of a serial killer. At first, as each one is murdered, the crimes are investigated as unrelated killings, but by the end of the pilot, the police realize they're dealing with a serial killer. For however many epsodes the series runs, we'd see the investigation progress, through the eyes of the task force formed to coordinate the strategy, the detectives looking for clues, the reporters covering the story, or some other aspect of the case. 

In the meantime, the killings continue, usually at the rate of one per episode, but never more than two. Each week we'd be introduced to two or three potential Ripper victims. As in the pilot, they'd be the focus of the episode, similar to character-driven dramas like The Untouchables, Naked City and The FBI. Sometimes their activities would be shown simultaneously on split-screens (a la 24), other times we'd switch between their stories and the progress of the investigation. Throughout the episode, viewers would be left wondering what threat might be waiting around the corner, at a dark bus stop, or in the shadows next to the garage. 

As for the identity of the Ripper, it could be male or female, one person or two—we wouldn't know until the final episode, although sharp-eyed viewers would pick up clues after every murder that would allow them to play along with the detectives in creating a profile that would suggest various suspects. Along the way there will be false leads, red herrings, and brick walls encountered. It could be that one of the guest stars, one we feared might be a victim, becomes a suspect instead. It could be the delivery person who brings coffee or donuts to the detectives, one of the reporters, or even one of the detectives. We might receive glimpses of the killer in various episodes without realizing it, and we might have some parts of the story seen through the eyes of the killer, without revealing their identity. 

As the murders continue, the detectives would begin to establish a pattern, that would produce a list of suspects; that list would be added to or narrowed down over the course of the series. Some suspects might reappear in multiple episodes, while others come and go in the course of an hour. There could be cliffhanger endings in which the detectives pursue a suspect who eludes them; that suspect might be cleared later, or remain on the list. In one of those episodes where we see things through the eyes of the killer, we might see him come close to being captured, have the intended victim escape, or have the plan inadvertently thwarted, with the intended never knowing how close he or she came to becoming a statistic.

There'd also be room for some episodes that break the mold. For instance, there might be an episode in which, with the killer not having struck for several months, the case appears to be on the verge of going cold. There could be a story in which a psychic is brought in to try and identify who might be behind the crimes. We could see a reporter working on a trap that would catch the killer; and there'd probably be one illustrating the pressure mounting on the department to capture the Ripper, with that pressure being passed down to the detectives. Speaking of which, since in real life these crimes often take place over extended periods of time, we'll probably see three or four years pass over the course of the series, during which time new detectives come on the case while others are transferred, get killed on the job, retire, or otherwise move on.

Admittedly, there are some ideas that have to be worked out before we can go into production. For one thing, we'd have to give the viewers characters they can care about, to keep them tuning in each week; therefore, the potential victims have to be compelling, fully-formed charcters, with viewers becoming invested in their stories (some of them might be real SOBs, people you'd want to be victims). And there'd have to be characters among the detectives that would be the main protagonists, people the viewers would be rooting for. Unlike The Killer, under no circumstances would the Ripper ever be considered the protagonist, even if he did wind up killing someone who deserved it.

To be sure, "Jack the Ripper: The Series" is a long way from being a polished idea, although that never stopped a network from greelighting a series. There are some things about it that I really liked, though: the way it combined serial storytelling, with the arc continuing through the whole series, and episodic television, with a new victim being killed each week. And while we've seen serial killers come and go on TV in the years since, I don't know how many Rippers have carried that series without being the lead character—or, for that matter, without even being identified. And how many series have carried such a serial killer investigation through an entire season, with the killings continuing each week?

It might not be an idea a network would pick up today, but there would always be a place for it on HBC. No matter what it was called. TV  

What's on TV? Monday, February 7, 1972

One of Edwin Newman's guests on this morning's Today is former British politican Sir Oswald Mosley, promoting his autobiography My Life, a man whose life would make a terrific miniseries. He was, over the years, a member of Parliament; leader of the British Fascist movement (for which he spent time in prison); married Diana Mitford, sister of writer Jessica Mitford (their 1936 marriage was held in Joseph Goebbels' home in Berlin); was an early proponent of European nationalism; and was father to Max Mosley, the future head of the governing body for Formula 1 auto racing, who himself became involved in a Nazi-themed sex scandal in 2008. How could that interview have fit into a ten-minute segment? The listings come from the Eastern New England edition.