The Week in Review

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On the drama front, Eileen Heckart achieved a considerable tour de force on Philco TV Playhouse as a servant who chooses her employer's family over her own mother. ABC's U.S. Steel Hour captured much of (the bestselling novel's fun in an adaptation of Mac Hyman's No Time for Sergeants; Andy Griffith was convincing as the Georgia rookie with two left feet and an unconquerable spirit. Probably the week's most convincing drama was found on another pair of ABC shows. Pond's Theater proved again that Britain's late great John Galsworthy is one of TV's most serviceable playwrights: his The Silver Box carried a charge of stinging social criticism (a rich man and a poor man steal the same purse in turn; the rich man repays the money, the poor man goes to jail). Roddy McDowall was excellent as the troubled man of wealth, and J. Pat O'Malley had a field day with his muleheaded part. On Star Tonight, a 30-minute program aimed at giving actors their first starring TV roles, young Charles Aidman managed, without any Brando mannerisms, to play a hillbilly who pins the murder of his wife on the local sheriff (Buster Crabbe).

There were some off-the-air items of note: 1) Patterns, the hit Kraft TV Theater show written by Rod Serling (TIME, Jan. 24), is scheduled to become a movie produced by Broadway's Jed Harris; 2) TV Producer Lou Cowan depressed sensitive viewers by announcing that a new quiz called The $64,000 Question is being readied for June. The gimmick: a lucky contestant, by continuously doubling his stake, can run $1 to a maximum of $64,000. This will take weeks, and when the money gets big enough, the contestant will be imprisoned in a glass-enclosed room to prevent coaching from the studio audience.