num_pages: 232
description: On February 15, 1958, writer Ben Hecht (1893-1964), a flamboyant and caustic social critic, appeared on The Mike Wallace Interview . Wallace and his producer, Ted Yates, agreed that Hecht's personality was provocative enough to be the basis of a television show. The Ben Hecht Show was born. For 22 weeks, Ben Hecht held forth on a variety of subjects, enraging some, engaging many. Here is a sample of Hecht's stories and essays from his short-lived television show. Entertaining, defiant, realistic, and iconoclastic, these are the impolitic thoughts of a man who tried to awaken the public from the "optical opiate" of 1950s television.
language: English
title: The Ben Hecht Show: Impolitic Observations from the Freest Thinker of 1950s Television
titlecomplete: The Ben Hecht Show: Impolitic Observations from the Freest Thinker of 1950s Television
ratings_count: 3
publisher: McFarland Publishing