Hello Everyone!
We all know that the 1955 series "Kings Row", in which Jack Kelly had his first TV starring role as “Dr. Parris Mitchell”, was a colossal flop. But, you may not know why the show laid such an egg.
I’ve researched this subject and have learned that "Kings Row" was doomed to failure. It was part of a hastily developed concept which was run up the proverbial flagpole to see if TV viewers would salute it. (They didn’t.)
So, please sit back and discover why "Kings Row" didn't have a snowball's chance:
Ballyhoo
“If we may believe the ballyhoo, television history will be made tonight.”
So wrote television critic James Abbe in the Oakland Tribune on September 13, 1955.
The “ballyhoo” was for the anthology series Warner Bros. Presents, which would debut that evening with the first episode of "Kings Row".
Warner Bros. Presents even had a Hollywood-style premiere, but with a twist: there were actually five premieres held simultaneously around the US, with the stars of "Kings Row" and "Cheyenne" appearing in the homes of private citizens chosen at random from phone books! Jack Kelly popped up at a home in New York:
Abbe continued, “At 7:30 our time KGO-TV will relay the first of a three-part series of hour-long movies tailored to televiewers by that old established firm of movie-makers, the Warner Brothers."
He concluded, “This surrender to new-fangled TV by the firm that pioneered talking pictures back in the Twenties exemplifies that old saw ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’…tonight’s premiere should not be missed by televiewers. Especially viewers who eagerly scan the TV horizon for evidence of new ideas, new blood and new approaches.”
However, Warner Bros. Presents was cobbled together from old ideas. The three rotating segments of the anthology—"Casablanca", "Cheyenne" and "Kings Row"—were based on vintage Warner Bros. feature films. This approach was nothing new for Warners, which often recycled material from its vast library of properties.
Actually, the primary purpose of Warner Bros. Presents was to promote Warners’ theatrical films. The “hour-long movies tailored to televiewers” (which were really only 45-minutes long) were considered less important by WB than the interviews with movie stars such as Alan Ladd and glimpses of the Warner Bros. backlot which were presented at the end of each episode.
Actor Gig Young—who wasn't associated with any of the three dramatic segments—served as the series’ host and interviewer for the promo inserts. Instead of talking about the stars and stories of Warner Bros. Presents, Young talked up the studio’s upcoming feature films.
Another function of Warner Bros. Presents was to help the studio and the ABC TV network gauge which segments “clicked” with viewers. Each segment was chosen for its familiar title and its appeal to fans of different genres. "Cheyenne" represented the western; "Casablanca", intrigue; and "Kings Row", melodrama.
According to Christopher Anderson in his book Hollywood TV—The Studio System in the Fifties, “The alternating format of Warner Bros. Presents offered both the studio and the network a chance to test the prime-time waters. In fact, the production agreement assumed that not all three series would find an audience; in case any of the series failed in the ratings, the contract specified that ABC and Warner Bros. would substitute one from an entirely different genre.
“As far as both companies were concerned, Warner Bros. Presents was something of a fishing expedition in which alternating series, identified with specific genres, would be used to attract certain elements of the TV audience. The alternating format represented an unsystematic effort to acquire greater knowledge about television viewers through a process of trial and error. Variety’s review of the series speculated that 'Cheyenne' was designed for children, 'Casablanca' for teenagers and 'Kings Row' for adults.”
Indeed, the feature film version of Kings Row was pretty adult for its time (1942). Based on a popular novel by Henry Bellamann, Kings Row explored the dark side of an outwardly upright community. It gave Ronald Reagan his famous line “Where’s the rest of me?!” after his character’s legs are amputated by a sadistic doctor played by Charles Coburn.
Soap Opera-Ish
Nothing remotely like that happened in "Kings Row" the TV show, which was basically a soap opera aimed at female viewers. Critic James DeVane wrote in the Cincinnati Enquirer after viewing the first episode, "So suds-like was it that someone chuckled while watching it that it should have been called 'Young Doctor Mitchell'". Unlike daytime serials, though, each episode of "Kings Row" was self-contained, without continuing storylines.
The plots centered on progressive young psychiatrist Dr. Mitchell (JK, whose role was played by Robert Cummings in the film), his life-long friends “Drake McHugh” (Reagan’s role in the film, played here by Robert Horton) and “Randy Monaghan” (played by Nan Leslie here and by Ann Sheridan in the film), plus other denizens of quaint Kings Row in 1905.
The first airing of "Kings Row" got decent ratings, but the ratings fell with each successive episode. Viewers, critics, sponsors and the network quickly became disenchanted with the lackluster writing and plodding plots typical of Warner Bros. Presents teleplays, especially where "Kings Row" and "Casablanca" were concerned. The scripts for this "prestige" project were strictly builder grade.
Donald Kirkley of the Baltimore Sun wrote after "Kings Row" premiered, "There have been so many alterations to the [original] characters and situations that it would be confusing to list them. This is a watered-down, simplified and sentimentalized adaptation, made, apparently, in the fat-headed belief that the television audience is less discriminating than the movie audience, and may be treated with condescension and contempt.
"If this theory is to be followed all through the series, it may well be that [Warner Bros.] is in for some costly disillusionment. The opener, despite shreds of quality carried over from the original film, was not good television. It was slick and smooth, all right, and full of handsome young men and pretty girls, but it had the lack of depth which marks the Class B feature, and can't compete with the better TV drama shows. It was pat and corny."
And, as TV Guide’s review of Warner Bros. Presents stated, “The Hollywood studios may know how to turn out movies for theaters, but Warner Brothers, for one, still has much to learn about producing movies for TV. ABC’s hour-long Warner Bros. Presents is no better than most of the half-hour telefilm dramas turned out regularly in Hollywood. It is well-produced and competently acted, but the producers seem to have forgotten that the play’s still the thing…The 'Kings Row' regulars—Jack Kelly, Nan Leslie, Robert Horton and Victor Jory—are good in soap opera-ish stories about a young psychiatrist struggling against the superstitions and tradition-bound medical practices of a small town in the early 1900s…Each film reflects a lavish budget and technical skill. The same cannot be said for the quality of the scripts.”
COULD ANYTHING HAVE BEEN DONE TO SALVAGE "KINGS ROW"? FIND OUT NEXT TIME IN TDS!
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