Evening star., 1951-10-14
On the Air
7eIevision Entrances q Man
IOn q 7hree-Weeks' Visit
By Jay Cormody

Living more intimately with
television than usual during q
three weeks interval of writing
another mans column about it
ones attachment for it.
It's follies become a little more
tolerable, its virtues more engag-
ing. Or, at least so it seems to
the visitor saying goodby on the
threshold before he goes back to
the older, more life-sized arts of
the drama and the movies.
Three weeks is a short interval
but it is enough to give any fairly
'diligent observer a few impress
sions, ranging from the awkward
shyness Of Sportscaster Dean
Luce's sign-off gesture to the ma
Jestic simplicity of Helen Hayes.
That those two names can logi-
Ically find their way into the same
sentence is itself a flattering re-
Election on television's scope. II
gets everywhere and everybody
and no other medium of communi-
cation can make this claim, even
III it wanted to.
There Are No Surprises
In Such q Brief Visit
There are no genuine surprises
IN looking more closely than usuaI
Iat television. Not unless one
wants to be surprised that an ac.
tress calls her husband in a mys.
terry play Dick" when everyone
IN the audience knows his name |.
rat: This happened the Other
night but it was a mild mishap q,
compared with one sometime aee
wnen a tired. aging stage acto,
gave his housekeeper three diff.
rerent names in a one-hour plav
A drama critic moving over intf
teievision for visit is quite likel,
10 focus his interest on it's version
OF his subject. The impressior
that he gets is that it really IS not
the same thing at all that II
never could be a competitor This
Is as it should be. Television
drama is one thing and the full
scale living drama is another
Ihere clearly is room in the
world for both and there is nr
logical occasion to compare the
one with the other. Teleyision
drama is getting better than ear
ller televisien drama was and this
should be enough. It is making
Tar greater strides, in production
and direction at least. than any
other variety Of drama. The tele-
vision audience can be greatful for
this and the legitimate theater
audience need not bother it's head
about 1t.
Oddly enough. the biggest fault
OF television drama seems to lie
in its quantity more than in its
quality. There is simply too much
OF it. Compared unit for unit, OF
play for play, television produces
more in q week than Broadway
ooes IN a season. The merit of
this is that it gives the set owner
an enormous range of choice, its
defect that too much of anything
lis likely to choke him to death.
Television Writes Its
Own Worst Criticism
1t is interesting to observe also
that television is constantly writ
ing. in effect. its own most deadly
dramatic criticism. It is in the
nature Of the medium that this
afternoon 1t will show Hank Bauer
hitting q World Series winning
triple with the bases full and to-
might a wan little fictional play
so trite that any one could have
written 1t. or acted it. The dra-
matte contrast between the two
things is grotesquely unfair to the
latter.
They compare as people caught
lin "The Web" to the best day in
the televised life of the Kefauvel
Committee.
The older entertainment medis
have no such problem. They
steer clear OF life instead of mix.
ling a dramatic batch of Ii init
1.-THE middle of every other few fic'
i tional moments. The stage ant
amovies are lucky this way. On