Product Details

• Actors: Betty Furness, Mary Sinclair, Maria Riva, James Daly, Charlton Heston
• Directors: Fletcher Markle, Norman Felton, Tony Barr
• Writers: Agnes Nixon, Alfred Harris, Alfred Lewis Levitt, Anthony Spinner, Arden Casey
• Format: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Video Service Corp
• DVD Release Date: October 1, 2002
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00006RJH9
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,317 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Studio One: The Laughmaker/Square Pegs" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Live Television, Circa Early 1950s, April 17, 2006

By 

Robert Huggins (Suburban Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Studio One: The Laughmaker/Square Pegs (DVD)

Here's a fascinating look at live television from the early 1950s with two hour long productions from the CBS dramatic anthology series "Studio One." Despite the presence of Jackie Gleason and Art Carney (from "The Honeymooners" fame), there aren't too many laughs in "The Laugh Maker" (season 5 - 1953, episode 34), a drama about the rise of comic Jerry Giles (Gleason) in the then new medium of television and the newspaper writer (Carney) assigned to profile Giles. The second episode, "The Square Pegs" (season 5 - 1952, episode 2), is about an industrial psychologist (Orson Bean) who takes a job with the mob. Thomas Mitchell portrays the head mobster and the episode plays a little like "Analyze This" (could this have been the inspiration?) with the psychologist finally realizing who his employer is.

Considering that both of these episodes were sourced from kinescopes that were around fifty years old at the time of this DVD's original release, both episodes look and sound reasonably good for their age and there is an option to play each episode with or without the original Westinghouse commercials with Betty Furness. The extras include fairly typical, static biographies/filmographies for Gleason, Carney, and Bean but, of greater interest, is the short (10 minutes) documentary on "Studio One" with some great clips of actors like Charlton Heston, James Dean, Joanne Woodward, Elizabeth Montgomery, Jack Palance and others who would go on to greater fame. Director John Frankenheimer, who worked on this series, recalls the very fluid movement of the cameras in these live shows and both episodes vividly demonstrate Frankenheimer's comments. One wishes that the documentary was longer, but what's there is fascinating and I do recommend watching it before you view the episodes, especially if you are viewing "Studio One" for the first time.

Jackie Gleason/Art Carney fans will certainly enjoy seeing them paired together in dramatic roles, but this DVD is also recommended to those who enjoy live drama, especially from the early days of television.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Badly produced DVD?, July 19, 2005

By 

Looking for Quality (Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Studio One: The Laughmaker/Square Pegs (DVD)

I hoped for an actual complete program and it was, start to finish. However the disc doesn't play right. Since you can play the disc with or without commercials, the commercials on program one do not play where they belong. Twice the screen freezes during a scene and a commercial plays. After the commercial the screen freezes at the start of a different scene and then resumes on yet a different scene. I'm waiting to hear from the maker of this disc if it's a bad run or just badly produced. I'm anxious to actually watch the program! Program two plays just fine.

5.0 out of 5 stars JG and AC in rare form, September 24, 2007

By 

Andre M. "brnn64" (Mt. Pleasant, SC United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Studio One: The Laughmaker/Square Pegs (DVD)

A very young Jackie Gleason and Art Carney are in rare form in THE LAUGHMAKER. Instead of their usual comic turns, things get a bit serious as JG plays a neurotic comic wrestling with his demons (it is speculated that this was based on JG in real life) who's sour persona contrasts with his public jolly face. Art Carney is the cynical reporter out to expose the "real" comedian to his readers.

JG fanatics will appreciate the POOR SOUL skit that is included (it is said that this was the debut of this classic Gleason routine before it became a staple of his variety show), and some of his classic bug-eyed shtick near the end. Fans of 1950s TV dramas will notice the similarities between this and THE COMEDIAN with Mickey Rooney and Mel Torme about four years later (which is also now available on DVD) and (to a lesser degree), Andy Griffith's A FACE IN THE CROWD.

The Westinghouse refrigerator commercials are also quite a hoot. A great time capsule. See TV as it used to be.