The following article has been written by ROLLO GAMBLE and is about some of the incidents which hare brightened his days as a director.

I remember making a film for the Army in India called ‘Hold Your Fire’ (until you see the whites of their eyes) – this entailed among other elaborate details, a platoon of Gurkhas dressed up in Japanese uniforms (their resemblance to the Japanese is remarkable), crossing a river and being ambushed. The river I chose was only about three feet deep and 25 yards wide in the jungle near Dehra Dun. The Gurkhas were most co-operative, for when the sun started sinking below the fringe of the trees and our cameraman shouted for lights, a Gurkha would shin up and remove the obscuring branches with his kookri [more usually spelt ‘kukri’ in English, a curved knife – Ed]. Their technique filled us with admiration – they would sit on the end of the branch and hack it at a point nearer the trunk – we would shout warnings, but these were never heeded. Sometimes they were 200 feet from the ground then, with a wonderful sense of timing as the branch cracked, they would grab part of the main tree and remain aloft hanging by an arm, roaring with laughter. We siting a rope across the river and lined the bottom with small explosives to be electrically operated by the sappers. At the word ‘action’ the Gurkha ‘Japs’ emerged from the jungle and started crossing the river holding the rope and squatting to make the water seem deeper.

Then on cue orders were given for the Indian Army ambush to go into action and the explosives were detonated in the river. To avoid the explosions the actors had been told to keep strictly to the rope. However, a few decided to act the part of dying more realistically. They flung themselves away from the rope and were carried down by the stream. It was too late to stop the explosives. At the end I had half a dozen casualties, one of whom, sadly, died – a piece of metal from a detonator easing had penetrated his anus. Every reasonable precaution had been taken and the film showed exactly what had happened, so we were all exonerated at the Court of Enquiry – however, I vowed I would never have anything to do with filming again.

Of course I did.

One of the most frightening experiences was making a film on mountain climbing at Banff Springs in the Rockies. The commentary and dialogue was in French since the television film was intended for the French-Canadian population. I had two Swiss guides to assist me, Bruno Engler and Walter Lippman (not of course, the doyen of American political commentators).

The pay-off was the successful arrival on the pinnacle of the tyro, a young French Canadian called Gil La Roche. We chose one of the minor peaks and were duly roped together by the Swiss guides. The cameraman had an auricon [16mm sound-on-film motion picture camera] in a rucksack strapped to his back. In another a clueless electrician carried the battery — upside down, so that the acid ran out and ruined a suede jacket lent him by Bruno Engler. We also carried with us a large, round, empty biscuit tin.

When reaching a well-climbed summit, it is the custom among mountaineers to sign a book which is kept inside a tin ensconced in a cairn of stones, thus proving that they have been there. Though this peak was steep enough, it was not considered by genuine mountaineers to be worthy of a cairn of its own — so we provided the tin and book and were prepared to build a cairn.

I was fat and extremely out of condition in those days — so I had more or less to be dragged to the top by the guides and the rest of the crew. On the way we filmed Gil La Roche suspended over various vertiginous chasms. One was particularly terrifying. There were two pillars bending towards each other. The gap between their tops could not have been more than 3 ft. 6 in. but the drop between was at least 2,000 feet, a mere step but what a step and a step we all had to take to reach the top.

All preparations were made for the pay-off scene when Bruno had to come in on cue with the book. But Bruno, brilliantly agile mountaineer and splendid ad lib. actor, was no good at coming in on a cue. After 17 takes tempers were frayed. Exasperated beyond endurance he shouted ‘Merde’ and punted the biscuit tin high into the air. In dismay we watched it bump down the rocky slope, plunge over the precipice, to hear it no more as it dropped thousands of feet into the valley.

French-Canadians are volatile — there are plenty of Gallic elements left in their genes. This could have started a fight, which in that precarious situation could have been dangerous. Since I was the only Englishman there, and everything is blamed upon the director anyway, it could have been especially dangerous for me. If I had not exercised tact I would no doubt have been forced to follow the biscuit tin. Luckily someone saw the funny side and all ended in laughter. Our dilemma was solved by rewriting the script. To everyone’s astonishment we won a certificate from the Canadian Government – for the best television film in French Canadian made on top of a mountain by a foreign director over 45.

Talking about prizes, I remember an extremely active year, sometime ago now, when I had collaborated with Daniel Farson. We were sent letters telling us we had been short-listed for a prize at the Television Ball. In fact several people told us (on the ‘very highest authority’) that we had a very good chance and we were advised to attend. Dan and I both loathe functions of that sort. However, for my part, vanity prevailed, I got quite excited and went off to Moss Bros for the necessary clothes. Somehow, at enormous cost, we got two returned tickets at the last minute and turned up at the Ball.

We were shown to a table already occupied by rather a sinister group of middle-aged and were received, as we introduced ourselves and sat down, extremely coldly.

Opposite me sat a stout man with an ill-fitting wig, which he adjusted from time to time. Next to him a pretty, but stern woman of 45 or so smoked from a long cigarette holder. She gave me not the flicker of a smile of welcome and I quickly realised that one of her eyes, which did not move, was glass. To add to my embarrassment, I remember, something very hard kept grating me. I began to suspect that the lady sitting next to me was rubbing my shin with a metal brace attached to her leg. There were also curious squeaks coming from under the table. I was forced to drop my napkin only to discover it was the leg of the table I hail been trying to avoid and the squeaks were coming from a sort of metal fastener the lady wore on her brogues. As I rose again to my seat, she looked at me severely and said she had been ‘observing my work of late’. Whether this was intended as praise or blame it was impossible to tell. I can never forget the unfriendly stare of those eyes around that table; if there was a relenting gleam it was in only one and that was the glass eye.

Eventually the silence was broken, a few names were dropped – a very tall, very thin man, with a finely pencilled moustache winked at me evilly — the word ‘corporation’ figured from time to time – and then, sickeningly, it dawned on me that we had blundered into the case-hardened cadre of the BBC.

Alas. They have all seceded now, some to rest forever, some to retirement with the O.B.E. and others to commercial television – for the young have taken over.

Very soon the speeches began and it became apparent we had not won a prize. The lady with the brogues bent over and whispered: ‘Better luck next time – I like your shows – jolly good live.’ ‘Not live – filmed’, I hissed. With that she turned her back and I slunk away. Dan had of course made his escape long before and I joined him at the bar, horribly disappointed. So much for prizes.

If I suffer from folie de grandeur it is only in my dreams.

I am John Huston and I am getting a long shot composed of Canyons, Kraals and 40,000 cattle. My assistants are my PA, the clapper boy (a part often doubled by me) and two or three Africans who don’t speak a word of English. We are all shouting and beating reflectors to get the cattle to stampede in the right direction. The Indians on horseback (my dream is very mixed up) who are supposed to do this only create chaos. Eventually it happens, the cattle stampede – straight at the camera and we are all immolated under pounding hooves. I then wake up with a pounding heart to meagre reality – sweating and disgruntled.

One sometimes has moments of vicarious grandeur – when one visits the houses of the great to obtain interviews. Usually, of course, one is admitted by appointment through the tradesman’s entrance. The butler who lets one in, invariably expects a large tip – and who should blame him, for the disruption of the household regime will be appalling.

There is the preliminary discussion with the VIP involved. He or she will always ask: ‘How much time does it take, how much machinery will you bring and will it make a mess, etc.’

If one has any sense, one always asks for twice as much time, describes the machinery as gigantic and dangerous and the mess disgusting. Luckily for TV most people are so vain they will put up with anything, for a chance to appear – and if one can get out fairly cleanly, it is gratifying to hear one’s victim say: ‘That wasn’t so bad after all’.

An exception to this was our visit to Barbara Cartland’s country mansion. I had been received graciously in her boudoir where she was putting the final touches to her make-up. When she asked the usual questions I exaggerated everything according to plan and told her it was unlikely we could be finished before lunch time. ‘Then we’ll all have a jolly lunch together afterwards’, she added with her immense charm.

I did not reckon with the wiring of Camfield Place. During a shot there was an appalling flash, all the lights went out and we were told the cooking stove had fused. Miss Cartland, though she must have cursed us, seemed unruffled – imperiously she summoned a man from the electricity board. We lunched off cold cuts and vitamin pills and got home shattered, exhausted and filled with admiration long past midnight. That was an ill-fated story – the programme was transmitted out of sync on its first showing and it has taken me about three years to explain to Barbara Cartland what happened.

Another occasion nearly ended in a far more sinister tragedy.

With enormous difficulty we had got permission to film an actual wedding. It wasn’t so much the church service we were interested in as the wedding breakfast, which was to take place, at lunchtime, in the Dog and Fox in Wimbledon. We had two crews, one to handle the orange blossom, confetti and all that in the morning, and the other to set up in the D. & F. for the breakfast.

The breakfast, I may say, consisted of champagne, soup, turkey, gaufrettes trifle and wedding cake. I suppose there must have been places laid for 250. At any rate it was a vast area to light and we had to hire a special generator. The crew spent the whole morning trying to start the infernal thing without success. We had our camera set, the toastmaster in his special and stentorian voice was already announcing the guests – the bride, groom, mothers and fathers were all lined up to receive – but there were no illuminations and it was useless to ‘Roll’. We were all in despair, the electrician was going mad. In a paroxysm of temper he seized a hammer and clouted the generator, intending to smash it.

It started.

The lights went up and we filmed, surf-riding on a wave of elation. But sudden transitions from despair to relief in circumstances of that sort can be dangerous. The electrician was so pleased with himself that he drained all available glasses (there were hundreds) and was seen staggering about among the lights. The baby of the bride’s sister was crawling on the carpet and was just saved from instant death as someone caught a falling 2-K inches from its head. This had the effect of sobering everybody up.

But I digress – I was talking about celebrities. I once asked the Duke of Marlborough if I could film at Blenheim. He told me of a BBC crew which had been there (with Dimbleby I think) when the sound assistant pushed his fish-pole through the face of a Holbein portrait. The Duke had the canvas sewn up by a picture restorer and apparently there is nothing to be seen of the damage – accidents happen in the best regulated societies.

With this by way of warning he gave us permission to film – I’ve always regretted that we never did. The project was cancelled.

I am reminded of a great house in Smith Square, its reception rooms walled with impressionist paintings – part of the valuable Courtauld collection – and the home of the then Home Secretary.

Mr [Rab] Butler received us with his famous sophisticated charm. We had admired the pictures and punctually were all set to go. ‘Cut, I’m sorry’, called the sound engineer. There was a strange buzzing in his cans, some electronic fault we supposed. The delay was appalling, for Mr Butler is one of those politicians who is genuinely very busy. I left the engineer, his screwdriver poking about in the entrails of the tape recorder, to make my apologies. A half-hour had gone by attempting small talk, when I noticed clustered over the microphone a swarm of flies. It was obviously the fly mating season and this was the cause of the noise. We shook the mike and fanned it, but it must have been very sticky because the flies returned every time – the only answer was to get a flit gun [a hand-pumped insecticide sprayer]. After searching the house, Mr Butler produced a very rusty flit gun from his basement. I was photographed applying the flit and this photograph made the national dailies with the caption, ‘The Home Secretary gets a flitting’. I expected to be clapped into gaol, as was the Good Soldier Schweik, who remarked in a pub in Prague as he observed a portrait of his Excellency, that flies had settled on the Archduke Ferdinand.

Now from the homes of the famous to the homeless.

Without warning I was flying towards Latin America, my mission to film the 150th anniversary of the Argentine’s liberation from Spain. Large sums of money were concealed about my person – I had to find and finance cameras, crews, film and the rest. Our contact was an American beachcomber, called Rossiter. He met me in Buenos Aires, sweating with moral disintegration – no cameras were available, only a Kodak, designed for amateurs with an automatic light meter – automatic in that it was unnecessary to set the stop. The cameraman, Pepe le Moko, only had to point, focus and squirt. We were doing this at a vast, ominous, military parade, when the news of the Chilean earthquake broke. Two hundred miles of coast had dropped three metres, a great fissure in the Pacific sea-bed had collapsed causing a tidal wave and destruction never before experienced.

Michael Ingrams and I were again in the air, our Lufthansa plane soaring over the Andes and circling endlessly the aerodrome at Santiago de Chile.

The American hotel block stands in a square opposite a Ruritanian Palace – the manoeuvres of the President’s guard causing us macabre amusement as we watched from our 17th storey suite. In the foyer of the hotel highly organised American aid airmen and WACS [US Women’s Army Corps] swarmed, with a scrum of international journalists at the bar.

Our aim, therefore, was to get to the scene of destruction as early as possible. We found a camera somewhere and a cameraman, Orlando Furioso. At 4 a.m. the next morning we were on an aerodrome in the office of the American commandant asking him to let us fly 1,000 miles south in a Globemaster. The Americans with their wonderful sense of international charity had sent a fleet of these transport planes with cargoes of medical supplies, blankets, etc. There is a wide shelf behind the pilot’s cabin. Here we lay, given cocoa and cigarettes by gum-chewing airmen resembling Hollywood extras. Michael and I were in lounge suits (his Savile Row) and had urban and effeminate footwear. We had left our bowler hats and umbrellas in the Santiago hotel.

The Chileans complain they cannot have an interesting sex life because the country is so long and narrow, they all have to stand in queues. However, it’s a marvellous country to fly down. At dawn the snow-capped peaks of the Andes are rose and the range is dotted with volcanoes in semi-eruption. The lumbering plane throbbed along. Asking Orlando Furioso for pictures of passing mountains, we discovered to our horror he had no idea how to operate the camera, let alone speak English. Having read a few ‘do-it-yourself’ pamphlets on both photography and Spanish, I was able to give him rudimentary instructions. Calculating the exposure, since this camera had no built-in meter, sent the three of us into committee every few minutes.

The plane settled, a fat turkey, at a place called Puerto Mont, or Puerto Meurt – (Port of death?) if it had been called Puerto Merde it would have been more fitting.

Shivering with cold, we trudged across the aerodrome in six inches of mud, our suits and pansy shoes suffering. In the drizzle, Michael, suave and diplomatic, persuaded the Chilean Army to lend us a jeep.

It was as if the fields and woods of Kent had been shattered and rent. Huge slices had been carved out of the road. The railway line had been whipped like a child’s skipping rope and broken up in hummocks. Hillsides had slipped into the valleys, a rich man losing in three minutes his 40,000 acre ranch as it slid cowboys, crops and stock into Lake Rinnehue [sic – Riñihue].

We reached the pathetic, broken town. Resigned figures were picking in the ruins. The boulevard, a dual carriageway along the embankment had sunk into the river, the lamp-posts and trees sticking regularly through the water. Orlando filmed soup kitchens organised by nuns, relief camps, bodies collected from ruined homes, and funerals slowly processing away.

In the hotel, cracked, still standing, but disembowelled, there was a room for us. There was no electric light, no lavatory working, no water, only wine, which somehow had survived in large quantities.

In the back an electric fan, not revolving, swayed from the ceiling. Seeing it, I remarked that it must be very draughty to move such a heavy object – not at all, I was told it was the building which was swaying, for tremors are felt for weeks after a severe earthquake.

To light us to bed we were allowed one candle. Every half-hour or so the building shook and we could hear deep in the earth, a steady thrumming. We wanted to film Michael during an earth tremor in the hotel bedroom, on the site writing his report.

So we used the candle for a key light (about six inches from his nose) and Orlando persuaded the landlady, who reluctantly let us have another candle for a filler. We ran the camera at its lowest speed, wide open. Michael did the action in the slowest of slow motion and lo-and-behold the shot came out and was used in our story on ‘This Week’. The next day I was invited into a crippled house. The old couple, their faces browned like worn ivory, lined with suffering and stoicism, insisted on giving me a glass of their local liqueur. We could not talk. I filmed them in their hopeless and dimly lit kitchen and parted in tears. A rusty old taxi took us to the aerodrome. There the ever kindly Americans squeezed us into a Globemaster, already overloaded with heart-rending refugees, and flew us back to Santiago.

After this the rest of the story filmed in Santiago was as stale as margarine is to butter. The anti-climax was intense and led us to all kinds of extremes of relaxation. However, that is a story for St Peter at the Gates of Heaven.

The post Digressions of a director appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

‘I believe you are the right person I should write to on the following matter. It concerns the film entitled ‘Christmas in Cyprus’, which as you know was made out here largely under the direction of Peter Hunt, and shown over your network on Christmas Day in England.

‘You have very kindly sent us a 35 mm copy of the film and this has been seen by a large number of the security forces in Cyprus. I would like you to know what a very good impression indeed this film has made; it does not overstate the case and it shows very vividly the part played by the Security Forces. I am sure that it has been a big factor in raising the morale of the soldiers.

‘I would, therefore, like to thank you very much for all the trouble taken in preparing this film and for your kindness in letting us have a copy.’

Letter to Captain Brownrigg from Major-General Kenneth Darling, Director of Operations in Cyprus.

‘It is so very nice of you to reply to my letters. I expect you think it is quite mad for a happily-married mother to be writing after photos of TV heroes. But at least it proves what a good job you are all doing. Keep it up!’

Jean Swain, Coventry (Viewer’s letter to programme correspondence).

‘Congratulations and thanks for these very fine programmes. Daniel Farson’s interview with (R.C.) Fr. Christie; “The Killing of the King” – First Class!!!’

Edward O’Hara, Yorks. (Viewer’s postcard).

EXPRESS LIFT

‘Yet for all the fortune he has made in Associated-Television he is still a man of the people. His humour is lusty. His manners are adequate, but not impeccable. When he goes up to his close-carpeted suite in Television House he will still pat the lift boy on the back and know his Christian name.’

Extract from Daily Express story on Mr Lew Grade. We have been asked to deny reports that as a result lift boys are now going to be employed.

‘I would like you to know how much I appreciated your “Hallé at Work” programme. I thought the sound was handled particularly well.’

Viewer’s ‘phone call to Night Duty Officer.
Director: Cyril Coke; sound balancer, Tony Couch.

‘The lady in the programme should be shown off a bit more because she is good looking.’

A 14-year-old boy’s comments on Muriel Young’s appearance in ‘Lucky Dip’.

‘As it turned out we were given a production which can truly be called distinguished. Ronald Marriott directed with the deftest blending of sensitivity and passion, and the acting was good down to the humblest member of the 40-strong cast.’

Denis Thomas, Daily Mail on ‘The Killing of The King’.

‘Please forgive this rather long letter, I know you are busy, but being a strong supporter of commercial TV long before it became a reality, I feel I must let you know my observations of the viewing public.

‘I am an insurance agent and have to call on people in their homes and as my pet subject is TV I know you would be pleased to know that 90 per cent of the people who have a choice of programmes choose ITV. But the biggest let down is the much vaunted ‘‘Play of the Week”’.

‘In contrast, “Film of the Week” is very popular and the general opinion is a film is better than the average play…. So take less notice of M.P.s and enemies of ITV, many of whom haven’t a TV set.’

Letter from Tooting viewer.

‘Being a young housewife whose main pleasures are derived from a three-year-old son and a one-year-old TV set, you may be sure that my choice in programmes is confirmed to those which give the highest degree of entertainment.

‘Therefore, although I have never in all my days written to any personality (not even in my film-struck teenage days) I felt that I must write to you on a superb programme “Look In” which has only one fault – it is too short! Hoping you will continue indefinitely to give myself and others so much pleasure for many a Tuesday evening to come.’

Letter to Michael Ingrams from Mrs Lois D. Morris, Middlesex.

‘Why not have a separate channel for kids. That would suit everybody and please all of us. If that fails, the other alternative rests with the parents. Why do they allow the kids to sit up? They seem to be allowed to do as they please. That is why there is so much delinquency about.’

Letter from Redhill, Surrey, viewer complaining about ‘Mark Saber’ being taken out of the early evening because of the large number of children viewing.

‘I like “Lucky Dip” because you get so many personalities.

I have never written to “Lucky Dip” before because today was the first time I have seen it.’

Young Isle of Wight viewer.

‘Usually the show succeeds: it has some of the drive and guts of Fleet Street, and is not afraid of being brash now and again. I think most viewers would welcome a quarter of an hour’s extension here.

Henry Turton, Punch, on ‘This Week’.

“This Week” turned from men to rabbits and gave us one of those cleverly-cut interviews with children which grip the heart.’

Colin Frame, The Star.
Director: Sheila Gregg; interviewer: Michael Nelson; scriptwriter: Colin Willock.

‘… the people who put on television entertainment have a sense of responsibility appropriate to those who pour shows nightly into the home, where children may be watching. After inquiry into current stage plays I reject with scorn all complaints about TV violence and puerility.’

L. Marsland Gander, Daily Telegraph.

‘I want to hand a belated pat on the back to Associated-Rediffusion…. Associated-Rediffusion was the first company to transmit commercial television programmes in Britain and it has been well aware of its responsibilities in the field of culture from the start. One of its first acts was to place the Hallé Orchestra under long-term contract and for nearly five years it has featured this orchestra in televised performances and on the concert platform. AR-TV also embarked on the ambitious scheme for staging classical plays at the Saville Theatre and, after short runs, transferring them to the television screen. The company is now offering more life drama than any other programme contractor.

The half-hour news feature programme, ‘This Week”, has been maintained in a peak-hour time every week since January, 1956. AR-TV also introduced the first regular television broadcast for schools ever seen in Great Britain, but the Beaverbrooks and the Mayhews prefer to forget about the good things and think only of the Westerns, the variety shows and the advertisements.

‘The Beaverbrook Press has backed many losers in its time but its campaign against television may well turn out to be its biggest failure.’

Ernest Kay, Time and Tide.

With all these faults the play still had some highly entertaining moments. Gladys Young (Aunt Ben) was a delight, and the meetings of the Irish M.P.’s full of life. Costumes and camera work excelled.’

Dick Sear, Daily Mirror, on ‘Parnell’, Play of the Week.
Director: David Boisseau; Costumes designed by Ernest Hewitt; Cameras manned by Vic Gardiner, Jeff Sheppard and the rest of crew 1.

Illustrations by Geraldine Spence

The post They Say… April 1959 appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

An outsider looks at A-R … for a start, that fusion introduction makes me sound like Colin Wilson. So let’s state here and now that I’ve no intention of being horse-whipped. Still that Outsider tag is probably justified, since this article arose out of a lunch date I had with your editor. I was sounding off about A-R in the approved John Osborne AYM manner when he pulled me up.

‘Don’t waste it on an audience of one’, he said, ‘put it on paper and tell the whole company.’ Let’s get one point straight. When you’re an outsider looking in it always seems easy to do the other chap’s job. But let the theorizing end and the practical business begin and the snags queue up. We can all be Stanley Matthews until the ball’s at our feet.

My newspaper work brings me in touch regularly with four ITV companies – each of which is taking on a distinctive personality. To my mind A-R is the least easily identifiable of the Big Four.

Think of ATV and the picture is of show business, variety, gimmicks, professionalism, the big drum, visiting Americans and Val Parnell. Turn to Granada and you sec Sidney Bernstein ruling the roost and hatching out a lot of good ideas and programmes, with here and there a bad egg in the entertainment basket.

ABC conjures up fast-talking Howard Thomas, a mixture of good and indifferent shows, and a general air of slow but steady progress.

Which leaves A-R. How do you sum up the company? It gives no impression of onemanship. Who is the single individual who can be cornered and asked for a quick answer to the 64,000 dollar question? This is important to everybody writing about TV because when key questions are being asked we look for an answer today. Tomorrow or later on is useless. And by answer I don’t mean a diplomatically phrased ‘it could well be that…’ or ‘when the consideration arises A-R will take due notice’ piece of nonsense.

Of course there are times when A-R prefers to play it strong and silent. However, when facts are getting out and questions being asked then let us please have a quick and definite answer. That way A-R will get a better Press than by letting limited information and guesswork produce half a story.

TEAM SPIRIT?

Does the same team spirit and enthusiasm exist inside A-R that is found in your competitors?

This isn’t a matter of individual outlook. Some of the nicest people to be met in TV nestle under A-R’s wing. But collectively does the vitality and urgency which marked those invigorating early days of Channel Nine still exist?

Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that the spirit is there and kept for private consumption rather than the public gaze. I hope it is so.

For my money you’ve slowed down. Some of the fun seems to have gone from life – which is surprising to an outsider when TV is so obviously one of the most alive-o industries with thousands of lookers-on-and-in only too keen to break into it.

Ignoring the financial side of things A-R snatched the viewing plum when it landed the London Monday-to-Friday contract.

But what unique contribution has the Company made to the service? Whatever your answer, here is a further question – has that contribution been as important as you expected?

I’ve been disappointed. A-R as one of the pioneering companies had to pay the penalty for the many and expected mistakes. It seems you stockpiled too much and these ‘canned’ shows played too big a role in your programme schedules. If you’re loading schedules with film it doesn’t leave much space for the live products of your staff.

So the impression gained from the screen was that A-R was more interested in the ready made product than in do-it-yourself shows. This impression remains. I’d like to sec A-R come out with a lot more live shows devised and mounted by the staff.

They couldn’t all be winners but a fair proportion might ring the bell.

HOLBORN AT EIGHT?

It is in variety that I believe A-R needs a boost. Where is your Palladium show or ‘Chelsea At Eight’? Where are your Maria Callas’s or Bob Hope’s?

From time-to-time you get the celebrity names but usually it is left to ATV or Granada to scoop the pool.

Where’s your comedy rival to ‘The Army Game’? I’m not forgetting those Top Ten quizzes ‘Double Your Money’ and ‘Take Your Pick’. A-R screens them, yet can hardly claim credit for either.

I’d like to see better scripting in variety, better productions, less tclcrccording, more showmanship and, well – glitter.

You’ve had your successes with offbeat shows like ‘Fred’, ‘Son of Fred’, etc. – but they are no longer around. More’s the pity.

Drama has hit the heights. I remember Pete Murray in ‘The Last Enemy’ … some of the Ted Willis plays. Lately, the impact has seemed less strong.

I don’t put that forward as a necessarily correct view. However, it’s mine. I realize that A-R’s drama maintains a good standard and it’s not easy finding unusual stories popular with the mass.

In documentaries and features A-R has been seen at its best. Here you have had intelligent, first-class programmes which other companies must have envied and which assaulted the BBC where it thought itself unchallengeable.

You found an outstanding interviewer-reporter in Michael Ingrams, screened two talked about and enjoyed ‘Look Out’ and ‘Look In’ series and promptly forgot about him.

I’m not forgetting those major documentaries of Russia and America – both highly praised but using him once every six months or so seems a waste.

I’d also like to mention Caryl Doncaster, Dan Farson and Nick Barker. They’ve all added to A-R’s reputation.

Do you recall the documentary that the Company did on fan fever? I still remember it and I’d like to know why A-R hasn’t turned out many more like it.

Can I pay a well-earned tribute next to weatherman Laurie West? It’s not the easiest of jobs telling viewers why it was wet yesterday, was wet today and it’s going to be wet tomorrow.

I like Mr West’s friendly personality, his commonsense and understandable explanations about deep depressions and the like, and I’m sure the majority of viewers prefer his performance to that of the BBC’s weather team.

But let’s take a look at the programmes which follow him in a typical week this summer. On Mondays the London viewer gets two Granada shows and one from ATV.

A-R’s contribution? The ‘My Wife and I’ series, the American originated ‘Wagon Train’, ‘Murder Bag’ and ‘Undercurrent’ – I’m leaving out advertising magazines. That’s a reasonable bunch. Three live shows and one film.

Tuesdays it’s not so good a story. Two live shows from Granada and two more from ATV. A-R chips in with youth-club show ‘Who Knows?’, Bob Cummings and Late, very Late Extra.

Better on Wednesdays – two from Granada and three from A-R. A play, a quiz and musical variety.

Thursdays? Equally good. Two from Granada and the rest from A-R. These are ‘Cool for Cats’, ‘San Francisco Beat’, ‘This Week’, a ‘Jack Hylton Half-hour’ and ‘Palais Party’. Finally, Friday. Three from ATV, one from Granada, and ‘Gun Law’, ‘Turnabout’ and a Jack Hylton show out of the home stable.

Where is the highlight to the A-R week? Where are the shows that are adding something lasting to the development of TV?

Maybe I’m being too critical? A-R is pleasing millions of viewers with the existing schedules. I believe it could please many more and give fresh incentive to the staff by working on new shows and ideas.

However, until you strike your own path and present many more live programmes I don’t think A-R will increase its stature.

Jogging along in the middle of the road with a passable but not exceptional collection of shows makes for an easy life.

Personally, I’d like to see the resources of writers, designers, directors and the rest tapped much more frequently.

Does it matter that some ideas might fall by the wayside? Much more likely is that half-a-dozen shows will emerge which are worth staying home for.

Do I qualify for that horsewhipping?

The post They Say… James Green appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

If I thought that Good Taste in TV was a difficult subject to tackle, I can tell you I just didn’t know what I was talking about… this one is a real stinker! I’ve trudged the length and breadth of TV House, questioning the weak and the strong, burning up the wires between here and Wembley and have ended with a bulk of statements either too libellous to print or too technical to understand, but despite this, I managed to salvage a few serious opinions and at least one so unnerving, so night-marish, as to shake the knees of the most hardbitten TV Mogul. George Orwell’s Big Brother concept is about as lethal as Brer Rabbit, compared with our lot under the iron heel of mass TV. As one overwrought PA put it ‘There won’t be any Big Brother, just a world of people with pin heads and enormous eyes’.

Michael Ingrams has very definite ideas. He visualizes round-the-clock viewing, with the screen hanging on the wall like a picture; a vast number of channels, an automatically timed telerecording system in the home, so that any householder can go out for a whole day and still be able to play back any particular programme in his own good time, with library companies doing flourishing business in Teletapes. There will be worldwide TV links, and complete evenings or even days will be given over to integrated, planned-in-the-round programmes from one particular country (so you can watch out for a whole evening of Kabuki from Japan, or corn on the cob from just anywhere). He feels there might well be a strong cultural renaissance, because ‘coin in the slot’ viewing will enable small specializing managements to profitably give minority viewers the chance to see the non-pop type programmes, such as ballet, Greek tragedies and documentaries. Apparently we must expect sponsorship in TV, but through the back door – recorded programmes from the States will be beamed direct or via ‘pirate’ Continental masts and this inevitably will lead to a cry of unfair competition from the British counterparts, who will demand more say in the actual content of the programmes. Sports promoters please note, climb on the wagon now, give up this petty carping about TV affecting the Gate, or you are likely to find it very cold outside. For by 1984, opines Ingrams, all major sports will be run and owned by TV promoters, so that we shall have the A-R Rattlers playing in the World TV League against the Moscow State Moonrakers.

Next I visited the seat of Engineering to get Bill Cheevers’ more technical views. There was much that sailed over my head like one of Wordsworth’s clouds, but I’ll give you the gist of what I think he said. We shall certainly have colour 3-D TV, and multi-channels. We can expect a tremendous revolution in equipment, the miniature camera, weighing 4 to 5 lb. [1.8 to 2.3kg], which naturally allows for greater mobility. This increased mobility will allow us to get farther afield with our ‘Remotes’ teams, and open up unexplored vistas, a fixed centre for channelling programmes to viewers will probably be of relative unimportance. With the establishing of space stations, we should get excellent TV reception for nationwide hookups, and intimate looks at the moon may well be part of our daily viewing diet. We must expect a lot more automation and a great improvement in presentation. At the moment we are still too tied to the camera techniques of the film industry, a live show still looks as if it had been edited, by the film method of cutting from one camera to another, and the multi-camera method must be developed. Asked if everything would be pre-recorded, he gave me a very definite negative. The actuality programme must remain, because it holds more impact than the prerecorded, which often loses its bite by striving for perfection. Because of the speeding up in the tempo of life, he thinks an hour will then be the maximum length of a programme. Once again we have the picture frame screen and the ‘coin box’ viewing, and the quality of the programme content improving … the rest I must leave to your technical imaginations, … because this is where I have to opt out.

Another technical advance, culled from Wembley, that I vaguely understood was that programmes would be recorded on nylon thread, of course in 3-D colour, but this time projected onto a wide home screen … There will be interplanetary news and sports programmes, linked by Space stations…. Dave Vigo pointed out that with the advent of colour, the whole concept of set design, wardrobe and make-up would have to be revised, but that we would still have les girls … other comments made by those-who-shall-be-nameless varied from ‘Palais Party will still be with us, but Lou Preager will have a beard’ … to … ‘It will still break down just the same’ … and … ‘There will still be scheduled Amendments’ …!

I met Harry Hart in the Editor’s office, so he didn’t really stand a chance, with us both gazing at him earnestly, but he was game to the last and came up with one or two off-beat ideas. He naturally accepted 3-D colour, picture-frame screens and limitless channels, but he thought that instead of a ‘coin in the slot’ scheme, you would dial some central depot, and ask them to punch up on your screen your choice of programme, in fact, specialized viewing on each channel. Whereas light entertainment and drama would be pre-recorded and shown at some later date, reportage would be recorded as transmitted. Television will be used for traffic control, and Secretaries will have to hide their bosses under the desk, while saying they are out, because our phones will be equipped in glorious television. The art of reading and writing will virtually disappear, as the TV will be used as a visual dictaphone, so presumably we shall have to transmit our innermost thoughts to our nearest and dearest, visually; I feel it’s all going to be rather exhausting … imagine writing a visual love letter…. Apparently life will be so hectic, that all viewing will be done whilst travelling, or having a bath, there just wont be any other time for it … and get this … all advertising will be subliminal … so look out for the modern version of the pin and the wax image.

I asked Caryl Doncaster for her ideas on 1984 viewing. Newspapers in printed form will disappear, and will be replaced by a system whereby any viewer at any time can punch up the news, which will be recorded direct on to the individual screen. By then she hopes that the TV Acts will be modified to allow for a definite editorial line to be taken on everything that affects us. (I myself envisage that the Press Barons of today may well be superseded by the Visual Press Baron, and all Conservatives will automatically tune in to the Visual Times, and so through every political colour, to the Communists who will view the Daily Worker.) By the way, she thinks that cinemas will just become car parks!

The whole system of education is almost certain to be revolutionized and the standard will become exceptionally high; the best brains in the country and the world being channelled to schools on closed circuits, controlled by the Ministry of Education. The role of the present-day teacher will be reduced to that of a governess or nursemaid, present merely to keep order while the TV lesson is in progress. Sound radio will be a thing of the past, as extinct as the dodo.

And now I come to the last and most horrific suggestion of all; I may have caught Elkan Allan in an unconscious moment and I am still unable to decide whether to take him seriously or not, but he gave me these ideas with a completely dead-pan expression. He once read a Science-Fiction story by Ray Bradbury, in which everything was completely dominated by TV, there was an actual TV room, with all four walls a TV screen, so that they stood as if on the set, and the programme companies sent each viewer a script so they could take part in the programme themselves. Just think of all those hammy Hamlets and overblown Ophelias gesticulating in that nightmare room. As if this isn’t enough, Elkan added a few choice thoughts of his own. There will be no newspapers or books and each room will have a picture-frame TV to churn out the appropriate programme, so that in the kitchen there will always be a cooking demonstration in progress, done slowly enough for the mesmerized housewife to follow instructions while cooking the Sunday lunch. The nursery will have a perpetual game going on, and the bedroom a sleep-inducing theme … ye Gods, ‘The Day of the Triffids’ was never like this.

The post Television in 1984 appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

THAT was a decade that was. That was a decade that was…

Oh, put the emphasis where you like. The fact remains that all of us who were there on the night when Rediffusion and ITV first flickered on to the screen are now 10 – no, 11 – years older.

I’ve changed. How about you?

Rediffusion has certainly altered. For a start it is no longer ‘Associated’.

Incidentally, dear editor, it would be interesting to find out just how many people at present on the pay-roll were with the company on Night One (still known to some as the night they invented champagne).

The answer is 252 – Editor.

From my own memory book I recall Sally Sutherland, Red Lyle, Dennis Atherton, Richard Hawkins, and the late Hugh Finlay – all part of the Press Office over the years.

Where the nostalgia really hit me was at the ITA’s white-tie Guildhall banquet when 10 glorious years and all that were celebrated.

It might have been the wine and brandy but sitting there under the stony stare of Gog and Magog I suddenly realised that 10 years (and part of a hair line) had vanished since I was in almost the same seat for ITV’s curtain-up.

The instant reaction was to check for ‘old familiar faces’ along the tables around me. Of 40 or so TV ‘professionals’ within range only four, perhaps five, had been there back in ’55.

Now I know how Greybeard felt. If my memory is right was Lord Hill, now ITA chairman, at that September 22, 1955, dinner as Postmaster-General?

And at that time didn’t ABC TV consist of just Howard Thomas and a secretary?

Before quitting that particular celebration I wonder if the champagne would have flowed so freely had it been known that within one year Rediffusion would be over £3 million down?

By the way, hasn’t that been perhaps the most important change of all – turning those colossal losses of the early years into a profit?

As a privileged spectator seeing much of the game from close quarters it seems to me that Rediffusion’s development has been in three stages.

The first, naturally, was that somewhat daffy unreal period when the newly recruited army worked excitedly to get the company on the air and keep it there.

Forgive me if there is an overlap for so many shows have been crammed into the decade, but those were the days of Gordon Harker and ‘Sixpenny Corner’. Of Ralph Reader’s ‘Chance Of A Lifetime’.

The weekly sports magazine. The Granville Melodramas. And of Sgt ‘I Only Want The Facts, Mam’ Webb and ‘Dragnet’.

Wasn’t there a freakish series called ‘You’ve Never Seen This’? Book reviews in the morning. Sheila Matthews as Friday’s Girl. Wasn’t this, too, the Jack Hylton variety era… the names which occur being Arthur Askey, Tony Hancock (he once did a one-man show in an emergency), Rosalina Neri, Bryan Michie, Ivor Emmanuel, the Crazy Gang and the Water Rats?

Roland Gillett was the programme controller, Lloyd Williams was on the production staff, and the whole period was like the froth on top of a pint.

The second stage was marked by the appointment of Paul Adorian as managing director and John McMillan as programme controller.

Now the workaday face and output of the company was being established. On went the old originals in ‘Take Your Pick’ and ‘Double Your Money’.

But morning TV disappeared. Much of the early pioneering excitement went with it. And the staff settled down to a more orderly existence.

Schools programmes started – remember Enid Love? Was it in this spell or even earlier that we had those Michael Ingrams’ series? How about those Goonish shows like ‘A Show Called Fred’, ‘Son of Fred’, and ‘Idiots’ Weekly’? Not only Sellers, but Milligan, too.

The work of putting in the foundations went on continuously.

‘Cool For Cats’ caught popular fancy and brought Joan Kemp-Welch’s name to the forefront. ‘This Week’ was going strong. Somewhere around this point Cyril Bennett and Elkan Allan began contributing to the company’s fortunes.

Peter Cotes is one more name I associate with this sector of Rediffusion’s fortune. And was I alone in liking America’s ‘Johnny Staccato’ jazz-thriller series?

I went down the Thames on one Rediffusion birthday party – and across to Paris for another. That was the day that George Sanders, then working on a special programme called ‘Women In Love’, helped to play host. Although only a voyage down the Seine, Captain Tom Brownrigg was also on hand.

So we had ‘No Hiding Place’ and ‘Intertel’, ‘Wagon Train’ and ‘Rawhide’. But where was Tig Roe? Whither Alan Morris? Goodbye Kingsway Corner.

Out went advertising magazines. Out went ‘Jim’s Inn’ – after setting the standard for all shows of this type. But in came the many successful Pinter plays.

The most successful, of course, being ‘The Lover’, with Alan Badel and Vivien Merchant. It must have won almost every award possible… actor, actress, author and director. Surely Rediffusion’s most successful production in all those 11 years?

Just as the TV scene was growing contentedly sedate on came ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ to give half the nation convulsions and the other half blood pressure.

Visiting the ‘RSG’ studio at TV House brought back all the din of 1955 and that drilling year when Adastral House was being converted.

By now Rediffusion was part of life. Dan Farson, always prominent in company affairs on the screen (his ‘Time Gentlemen, Please’ show was not only entered at Montreux but must have been responsible for the introduction of ‘Stars and Garters’), was a notable departure.

But phase two was drawing to a close too. On went John McMillan to general manager and in came Cyril Bennett as the new programme controller.

This is now part of the latest story… come in David Frost, Stella Richman, Benny Green, ‘Three After Six’, ‘The Rat Catchers’, and David Jacobs.

Pausing only to nod a farewell to Buddy Bregman and a friendly greeting to Europe’s favourite TV ‘uncle’ Eric Maschwitz, it scarcely seems credible that Monica Rose was hardly walking when ‘Double Your Money’ was first televised.

Yes, you’ve changed all right. Some more memory jogs… Stuart Hood, that ‘Arabian Nights’ opening for Wembley Studios, ‘Hippodrome’ in colour, the American deal with David Susskind, ‘Dial M For Music’, ‘Alfred Marks Time’, Keith Fordyce, Groucho Marx, Dickie Henderson, and on, and on.

It’s been a long time. Perhaps after all it should be that was a decade that was? What’s more Gog and Magog are still waiting.

The post That was the decade that was appeared first on THIS IS REDIFFUSION from Transdiffusion.

The last time I saw President Diem in Saigon he took me aside and said – ‘What programme is this one?’ And when I said ‘This Week’ he considered the words rather carefully and came back: ‘You are lucky to be thinking of this week.’

A few weeks later he was dead. I talked with the priest in Cholon, who saw him go through the process of ‘accidental suicide’; Diem and his brother-in-law, Nhu. The two had worked their way from their palace to the Chinese quarter and the little Roman Catholic church there. I had the impression, from what I was told, that Diem knew that he had come to the end of his particular road.

Diem was dead. The street was empty. People took care not to be around. They were watching but they were not going to get involved. A Vietnamese friend of mine said: ‘You may not have thought much of him. Now wait and see what happens.’ And we have waited, and we have seen. That was my last assignment with ‘This Week’. The producer who asked me to go back to Saigon is now with the BBC; so is the reporter. There may be a moral in this somewhere, but I doubt it. There is a wonderful line from Don Ameche in Silk Stockings.

‘What is your theory?’ asks the Russian girl.

‘My theory is that there is no theory!’

This renders the approach to the world we live in empirical and I suppose that this is a fair assessment of the way we used to and indeed had to organise ourselves when ‘This Week’ started, in 1955.

There were no rules; only ‘Panorama’.

The assignment given us by the then controller, Roland Gillette, was to produce a lively half-hour (minus commercials) for January ’56. There were to be many items, some political, some social, some lighthearted. It was agreed that we would try to end with a short ‘sting’, a one minute semi-sardonic commentary on our ways of life.

Just after the kick-off we had a major accident. Our man in Paris phoned me (in what is now the canteen) to say that he had found a night-club in Paris, already made famous by Time magazine, in which French waiters were dressed as cowboys.

Later, Caryl Doncaster, then producer of all features and I viewed the ‘rushes’ in ITN. These consisted of some 40 minutes of synchronised and beautifully lit extracts from the club’s cabaret. There were girls undoing zips everywhere. It was riveting stuff and I was later to be amazed by the number of people who felt that the film had to be seen. That item was a hard night’s day.

A jolly time was had by some when we took the programme to Paris for our first Eurovision link. Stephen MacCormack, now in Mauritius, was location producer. The programme was sent out from the Palais de Chaillots, into which Stephen cheerfully imported some Bluebell girls. That caused a tableaux with the diplomats. We also learned, on the day of transmission, that the French had views about the use of commercials. This, in turn, had repercussions in our own network. As a result I as editor, was instructed to provide two separate programmes for simultaneous transmission. This turned out to be a record, if not necessarily an achievement.

There can be a lot of fun in a programme if you have to learn as you go along. When we started the staff couldn’t be assembled according to experience in television because there were limits. Some of us came from the BBC, some from films, some from Fleet Street. We had to shake down as best we could.

One transmission day Mrs Alfred Hinds sent us (through Geoffrey Hughes) a taperecording of her husband’s voice. He was currently on the run from gaol. There were no rules. We didn’t know whether we should use it or not. There were risks. Scotland Yard was interested. I consulted the one man who could give us a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It was ‘yes’ and we were plastered all over the front-pages next morning. That was the first time I met John McMillan. The rules evolved. One particularly exasperating one was the 14-day rule governing comment on things to be dealt with in the Commons. We ran into a blow-torch over this during the Suez affair. Two particularly prominent politicians had to be told that they could not discuss what they had come to discuss. One left. The other one stopped and temporised. He is, at the time of writing, Chancellor of the Exchequer. There have been embarrassing moments with politicians. One such, who has since been a prime minister (and demanded cash as soon as the programme was over) was invited to cross our red carpet into the studio, via, as was intended, one of the five star offices in Television House. I posted ‘sentries’ at both entrances. At one I eventually met the august gentleman. At another my sentry welcomed a coloured gentleman, took him upstairs to the five star area, handed him over. This was, in fact, an Egyptian journalist, destined for another item in the programme. That took some sorting.

The Prime Minister of Australia came in to see the interview we had filmed between President Nasser and Frank Owen. It was a good interview. When it was over we had the impression that the Prime Minister was about to say something fundamental – like ‘thank you’. At that point a voice in the dark said – ‘You can’t trust these politicians can you?’ When the lights went up I noticed that Mr Menzies looked amused.

I went to Athens with Elkan Allan, to interview Archbishop Makarios. Staying in the same hotel were Elizabeth Taylor and the late Mike Todd. It seemed a good idea to try something with him. We were invited to the Todd suite and bedroom in particular, where we found Miss Taylor less than dressed. Her husband was pacing the room using the dialogue from Lady C. ‘Liz,’ he said, ‘here are two English Lady C’s.’

‘Yeh!’

‘How do you do, Mrs Todd.’

‘Hih!’

Says Todd – ‘Sit down on that Lady C bed over there.’

Later that day I was on the roof of the hotel with his beautitude.

Todd comes out on the roof and says, in his not less than megaphonic voice – ‘Who is the Lady C with the hat!’

Such situations are delicate.

All this might suggest that we acted more frivolously than now seems evident. That is not so. Our brief was different. ‘This Week’ has not grown up to be 10 years old: it has grown to be different from what it was. All my ex-companions on the programme can probably top the trivial stories I have told, and they would all have to stop short of some of the truths we could all tell. I refer to Michael Ingrams, Dan Farson, Ludovic Kennedy, Richard Gould Adams, Michael Westmore, Tom Hopkinson, William Hardcastle, Jeremy Thorpe, Rollo Gamble, Cyril Bennett, Elkan Allan, Kenneth Harris, Al Capp, and so on and on. In more than 500 issues there is a lot of heat, some dust, occasionally a lot of fun.

A lot of people cut their wisdom teeth on ‘This Week’, and some got them knocked out. The programme has come a long way from the days when Spike Milligan sang ‘I’m Walking Backwards For Christmas’ and Peter Sellers did time as Professor Smith Grant Hetherington, having seen, heard and secured hairs from the Abominable Snowman. We even once tied ‘This Week’ to ‘Late Extra’, which has its own story. I wrote and spoke the commentary for the yearly report on Noisivelet and a few people spotted how we had found the country.

Serious things happened. We have, after all, been living in the latitude of great events. I think that most were faithfully recorded. So long as you don’t take yourself too seriously you stand a good chance of staying short of a rest-cure.

I remember in the studio, Dr Verwoerd and Sir Roy Welensky, Khrishna Menon and Yehudi Menuhin, Harold Macmillan and Dr Banda, Father Huddleston and so many others.

One event I remember with personal pleasure, since this is only my version of ‘things wot used t’be’ as editor and producer and executive producer and head of features, and all that. I was sent, to my utter delight, to Monte Carlo, to interview the glittery Tina Onassis. The now Duchess will excuse me if I refer to her as a ‘dish’. However, we talked of Grace Kelly and life as lived by those who want for nothing. In my pocket I had a letter from my mother saying that my father was very ill in Canada and needed comfort. I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t afford the air fare to go out and was floundering for an answer when I saw someone at Nice airport whom I thought could help. This particular VIP was first on our plane and, incidentally, occupied the little room to the discomfiture of the other passengers for a very long time.

During the flight home I wrote him a note and asked if he would consider sending my father a word of encouragement, since they knew one another well. A day later I received this letter to send on –

‘My dear Commander Hunt,

I am indeed sorry to hear from your son of your illness. I hope you will accept my earnest good wishes for your recovery. I remember well the good work that you did in the War Room.

Yours sincerely,
Winston Churchill.’

I am grateful to ‘This Week’ for that opportunity. And it helped.

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