Evening star., 1954-05-12
On the Air

yOu COu1O WA1OC o OCt0C4 OC4CN4~
sion drama than that one you
Just watched, don't quit your job
and set out for Hollywood.
Maybe your could turn out a
better script, but there are some
tricks you will have to learn.
TV writing is not so simple.
Even such a writer as Andre
MauroiS had to have help.
MauroiS, it must be admitted,
was not aiming directly at tele-
vision a quarter of century
back when he wrote THE Dollar
Bill" The yarn did get to TV
eventually, however, as Back
stage" starring Charles Boyer,
on -Four Star Playhouse"
(WTOP-TV - Thursday, $3.50
p.m). 1t was telecast originally
in November, 1852, and will he
repeated on May 20.
It became a telefllm because
Boyer remembered having read
it Is years ago and suggested to
Producer Don Sharpe that it
would be a good -Four Star"
story. Sharpe took him at his
word and bought "The Dollar
Bill"
Boyer turned out to be right
In essence, if not in detail.
Translated from French to Eng
lish as the first step, "The Dol
lar Bill" proved in need Of con-
siderable adaptation.
Set in New York, it was the
story of a man of no specific oc-
cupation who encountered a girl
about to leap off a bridge. He
gave her a dollar bill to get a
hotel room, planning to help her
the next day. Turned out that
he unwittingly gave her a coun-
terfeit bill and she wasn't avail
able the next day.
You might think you had a
fine televiSion yarn there, but
Mr.. Sharpe knew what he had.
He called in Gwen and the late
John Bagni, a TV writing team.
who subsequently wrote Is -Four
Star" shows. There had to be
some changes made.
The title quickly was lost.
Hotel rates went up during the
25-year lapse between the
Maurois story and TV. Then
something had to be done about
the hero. 1t wouldn't do for the
leading man, like the World
War II B-26, to have no visible
means of support. He had to
have a respectable position in
life.
y y +
Here the Bagnis posed a prob
lem Of their own. A respectable
man would not be likely to pass
out counterfeit five-dollar bills
to girls whose suicide he wished
to prevent. But the solution was
easy. The hero became an actor
producer and the queer f1ve-spot
became stage rather than coun-
terfeit mney.
This provided not only access
to the phoney lucre, but also
gave the hero glamour and pro-
vided the new title, Back
STAGE"
Then some minor matters had
to be cleared up. That bridge
had to go. Too expensive for
teleViSion. A lot of other scenic
expense was saved by shooting
vignettes. under street lamps and
in no identif1able location, what
the TV people call Gin limbo"
So Mr.. MauroiS would hardly
have recognized his story about
a man with no specific occupa-
ton who slipped a girl a coun-
terfeit dollar on a bridge. The
actor-producer, in Chicago with
his company of New York &C.
tors, has quarrel with his lead
Ing lady one night, decides to
walk back to his hotel through
the mist and rain and meets the
girl.
Why Chicago? Mr.. Sharpe
neglects to pass along the pre-
else reason, but it should be
fairly obvious. In New York an
actor who had a fight with his
girl friend would not go walking
In the rain. He'd storm over to
Sardi's and meet a non-suicidal
girl in a Scotch mist.
X X X \
DISNEY'S FAIR That 50
million Disneyland, part of the
union between Walt Disney and
ABC-TV, will grow up on a tract
OF 100 acres which used to be
part of the historic Rancho San
Juan Cajon de Santa Ana. It's
In Orange County, California,
on the border of Anaheim, which
you used to meet in the radio
jokes along with Azusa and
Cucamonga. It will be, in Dis
ney'S description: "A combina-
ton of a World Fair, a play
ground, community center, a
museum of living facts and a
showplace of beauty and magic.
Once you walk through its
portals you leave today behind,
and enter a world of yesterday,
tomorrow and fantasy" Chats
a world you also can flnd at
times In q Senate committee
room.)
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