Radio: The Week in Review

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The two best TV shows of last week—and perhaps of this year—originated in Hollywood and were created by veteran moviemakers. In Diamond Jubilee of Light, Producer David O. Selznick (Gone With the Wind) had a chance to show what he could do on TV—and it was plenty. Sponsored, but unobtrusively, by U.S. public-utility companies to celebrate Edison's invention of the electric bulb, the two-hour program began a little pompously with a Biblical quotation (naturally —"Let there be light!"). But it soon came down from the clouds with an amusing review of early disasters in the appliance field (e.g., washing machines that shredded dresses; refrigerators with unmovable ice cubes). The filmed portion of the show included a lively excerpt from Tom Sawyer (the scene where Tom dupes his friends into whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence); an old but still very funny Robert Benchley short about the care and feeding of infants, and the dramatization of an inspirational John Steinbeck story, starring Brandon de Wilde and Walter Brennan.

In the live TV numbers, George Gobel, with a brilliantly conceived monologue on electronic "brains," again proved that he is the best of the new TV comics; Lauren Bacall and David Niven co-starred in a surprisingly successful adaptation of Irwin Shaw's memorable short story, The Girls in Their Summer Dresses, while Helen Hayes and Thomas Mitchell gave a professional tug to viewers' heartstrings in a Max Shulman playlet. The show closed with a well-staged and effective few words from President Eisenhower. Jubilee was easily the best single TV program since the Ford anniversary program of last year starring Mary Martin and Ethel Merman.

But shows of this excellence require staggering amounts of money and exhaustive preparation: Selznick put in four months of planning and three weeks of intensive rehearsals with work days of "seldom less than 18 hours." Ordinary TV is not geared to operate on this kind of schedule, nor can ordinary sponsors regularly pay this sort of money. It is probably just as well. If viewers saw more than one or two shows a year like Jubilee, they would become badly dissatisfied with their regular fare.