Customer Reviews

Studio One: The Laughmaker/Square Pegs

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

As mentioned in another review, this DVD does not play well. However, if you play program one without the commercials, it plays fine. The real treat is the programs, which were recorded live on Kinescope the night of their original airing. The performances are fantastic, and it only makes you wish this type of gripping programing isn't being done on TV today. The a/v quality isn't very good because they are preserved on Kinescope. This medium involved pointing a 16mm film camera at a TV moniter and recording whatever they got. Since videotape was a few years away, this is the only way the networks could record live programing. If you can get passed this fact, I would highly recommend this DVD. An added bonus is the original Westinghouse commercials, most likely also performed live.