Television: Out of the Closet

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For reasons of realism as well as low costs, Hollywood directors have for years sought their scenery abroad. But television, content to develop its talent for staging the eruption of Vesuvius in a studio closet, has rarely ventured far afield. Next season, viewers will see a brave pioneer bust out of the closet onto the Còte d'Azur and points north. The pioneer: a hammy comedy serial about an American nightclub act in Europe titled Harry's Girls (NBC), which is filming 13 of its 26 half-hour shows on the French Riviera.

On hand will be a team of nine Americans, eight Englishmen, 50 Frenchmen and one Spaniard. Some will do the acting; others will handle the cameras as they sweep across the endless strips of white sand and incredibly blue bays. But the producer of Harry's Girls, Bill Friedberg, is less interested in the terrain than in the kind of girls he wants for Harry — the mostly bikinied, unemployed actresses and models who are found in abundance on the beaches of Cannes, Juan-les-Pins and Monte Carlo. They should make most viewers forget about Harry.