Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1955-04-26
ON THE AIR
ON THE AIR
Stewards Approach
Marked by Integrity
BY HARRY MACARTHUR

James Stewart has made his
debut as a television actor and
again has demonstrated himself
to be a man of integrity. He
obviously approached the max
ing of a $4,000 film for &c. E
Theater" (WTOP-TV-Sunday,
9 PM with the same respect
with which he approaches the
making of a S3.5-million movie
for Paramount.
The half-hour drama was
titled Windmill" 1t presented
Stewart as a small-scale rancher
who tried unsuccessfully to bor-
row $500 to sink a well, erect a
windmill and save the cattle on
his burned-out land. In desper-
alton, he entered a marksman-
ship contest at the local rodeo.
He could have won, but there
he was on the horns of a
dilemma. To take the $500 prize
money, he would have had to
shoot better than the known
killer who was in the competition.
And that would have tabled him
as the gunfighter he had been
before turning respectable with.
ranch, wife and two children.
Naturally, it all worked out all
right in the end. Stewards man
lost the pistol match, retained
the respect of his children and
by his show of stubbornness to
the town banker got his wind
mill, too, which could have sur
prised almost no one.
1t wasn't monumental drama
but it was Sticky put together
and suSpenseful. Stewards per-
Torrance was a solid one rather
than the tintype you too often
encounter in the half-hour tele-
play. The whole thing was
eminently satisfactory.
X X
&c. E. Theater," as a matter
of fact. is doing more than any
other entry in the field to alter
this viewers prejudice against
the half-hour dramas. Well, it
isn't exactly a prejudice. Rather
it's a feeling that these minor
f1ctions are more often soporif1c
than not. Too many times the
only conclusion they reach is
that there surely must have
been some more rewarding way
to have employed the preceding
80 minutes.
The Sunday night CHS show
often manages to make its half
hour time we'll spent, however.
Mr.. Stewards acting exercise
was not the first. Only a few
weeks ago Henry Fonda was on
hand to star in a truly fine,
circus-flavored dramatic vign-
cite culled from Emmett
Kelly's book. Clown And
there have been others.
There may be some signifi-
canoe in the fact that &C. E.
Theater" is more costly than
other shows of its type. That
$35,000 mentioned back there
was not the actual cost of
Windmill" but an average
struck from the $1,750,000 pro-
duction cost for SO &c. E. Thea
ter shows listed in Television
Data Book for 1855.
For comparison. the same
table of advertiser expenditures
shows the average production
cost OF Playhouse of Stars" to
be $4,000. Ford Theater" and
-Four Star Playhouse are
filmed for an average 100000
per show.
Money is no guarantee of
quality, of course, but somebody
around &C. E. Theater" obvi-
ously knows how to get his
moneys worth in return for that
higher production expenditure.
SYNTHESIZED - Remember
that electronic southeastern of
music which the Radio Corp. of
America recently announced as
one Of the triumphs of the cleo
tronic age? Well, WGMS will
give the Washington radio audi
ence its first synthesized music
tomorrow night at 7:05, "all in
the cause of scientific research"
-.