Warner Bros. Presents A Failure - Pt II

 Original 1955 "Kings Row" publicity headshot from the La Bartista Kellection. Caption: "Jack Kelly, who has served an acting apprenticeship which included movies, television, stage and radio will appear as Dr. Parris Mitchell in 'Warner Bros. Presents' TV series 'Kings Row' for ABC-TV"

Our examination of "Kings Row" continues:

Into A Spin

Aside from the show’s bland scripts (which were churned out mostly by less experienced and thus less expensive writers), the promotional aspect of Warner Bros. Presents was another annoyance.

TV Guide concluded its review of the series by noting, “Actor Gig Young, a personable host, serves as guide on the studio tours that wind up each week’s show. Some behind-the-scenes techniques are engrossing. But, Young’s interviews with Warner stars would be more interesting if they weren’t such blatant commercials for new movies.”

Douglas Kirkley of the Baltimore Sun noted, "The 'hour' program is overburdened with what amounts to long commercials for Warner Bros.' film department."

The show’s sponsors were also unhappy. In return for letting Warner Bros. toot its own horn, advertisers expected Warner Bros. Presents to be of the same caliber as Warners’ top-flight feature films. (The series had been sold to sponsors solely on the Warner name and reputation, without even a pilot episode.) Instead, they got a schlocky infomercial for Warner Bros. for their advertising dollars.

  

Warner Bros. Presents was plagued by problems from the start. Filming began in June for the September premiere. I own an original final copy of the script for “Lady in Fear”, the very first episode of “Kings Row”. It shows a completion date of June 10, 1955, with filming completed on June 24.  A Screen Actors Guild strike that August shut down production for twelve days, throwing a monkey wrench into the already hectic filming schedule. In September, Los Angeles was broiling with a late summer heat wave (which prompted JK to install an air conditioner in his WB dressing room, one newspaper reported). 

Other issues, such as spiraling episode costs, were caused by Warner’s lack of experience with television production. Columnist Aline Mosby reported, “At Warner studio, ‘stepchild’ television is causing more headaches. Budgets of $65,000 per episode were set for the studio’s three series, ‘King’s Row’, ‘Cheyenne’ and ‘Casablanca’. But, the cost has soared to around $72,000 [per episode]. Two producers on the Warner series resigned in mid-stream. ‘They’re behind schedule and confused’, says one executive at ABC-TV, which is releasing the show. ‘TV has thrown them into a spin. They’ll come out of it eventually, after a shake-down process.”

Quality control was another casualty of the rush to get Warner Bros. Presents on the air. Warner's film editors and technicians were still learning the ropes of network television, where the break-neck pace often left little margin for error. Mistakes weren't always caught before air time. As a result, some episodes of Warner Bros. Presents were broadcast with major editing gaffes.  

For example, a viewer wrote to entertainment columnist Sidney Skolsky that they'd noticed repeatedly that the sound on Warner Bros. Presents was sometimes out of sync and wondered how this was allowed to happen: 

“I would certainly like to know how a thing like that could get by unnoticed, especially when the announcer stresses how great and qualified they are at Warners. It must be embarrassing for the people connected with putting together the reel and releasing it for TV.” 

Naturally, ABC demanded changes. Among other tweaks, it was decreed that the stories on "Casablanca" and "Kings Row" should contain more action to attract male viewers.  

Unfortunately, "Kings Row" was anchored to its small-town setting. By contrast, "Cheyenne" was the name of the title character (played by Clint Walker) and not the town, which opened up the entire Old West as a setting. Cheyenne Bodie could become involved in action-packed adventures in different locales, whereas Parris Mitchell and friends were confined to Kings Row.

Warners toyed with the idea of revamping "Kings Row" with new characters, varied locations and heightened tension in the stories. A script was even written in which an escaped killer terrorizes a teacher and her pupils in the Kings Row schoolhouse.

In the end, however, it was easier (and cheaper) to just cancel “Kings Row” rather than fix it. It disappeared from the Warner Bros. Presents lineup in January 1956. 

So, now you know why "Kings Row" was such a dog. ;)

Original 1955 "Kings Row" still from the La Bartista Kellection. Caption: "'Dr. Parris Mitchell' (Jack Kelly) plays with 'Little Doc' in this scene from 'Kings Row', to be presented on Warner Bros. Presents, Tuesday, October 4, 7:30 pm, EDT, over ABC-TV."

THERE'S STILL MORE TO THIS STORY--PLEASE STAY TUNED!

Warner Bros. Presents a Failure

I purchased this rare original "Kings Row" wardrobe test photo of Jack Kelly a number of years ago--sharing it here in TDS for the first time

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!

Page-ing Doctor Mitchell :)

Happy Friday Everyone!

You know the old saying: "April showers bring May flowers". Well, where I live, April showers brought May showers in addition to flowers. Hopefully it will stop raining by June! :)

Anyway, here's a wonderful photo from the Kellection of Jack Kelly and Joy Page enjoying some flowers in an episode of the very short-lived 1955 TV series Kings Row:

 

This episode is called "Ellie" and Ms. Page plays the title role, as the info on the back of the photo explains: "Lovely Joy Page appears as Ellie, co-starring with Jack Kelly, as Dr. Parris Mitchell, in the third Kings Row offering of Warner Bros. Presents, Tuesday, October 25, at 7:30 p.m., EDT, over the ABC-TV network. Dr. Mitchell uses his knowledge of psychiatry to reveal to Ellie Banning that she is being destroyed by her mother's possessive love."

 

Incidentally, Joy Page had very strong ties to Warner Bros. Her stepfather was none other Jack L.Warner, head of the studio. She married actor William Orr, who later became the first head of television production at Warners. If you've watched Maverick or virtually any other Warner Bros. TV series from the mid-1950's through the mid-1960's, you've seen his credit as "Wm. T. Orr".

 

I shared some British lobby cards for "Ellie" in one of the earliest posts in TDS. In fact, I thought the photo above was on one of the lobby cards, but it's actually different:

 

 

Please stay tuned for more about Kings Row next time in TDS...and stay well. :)

 

Dr. Mitchell's Bedside Manner :)

Happy Friday!

Two rare stills from Jack Kelly's short-lived 1955 television series Kings Row recently joined the Kellection. JK starred as "Dr. Parris Mitchell", an American psychiatrist trained in Vienna who encounters small-minded opposition when he brings his big-city treatment methods to his hometown of Kings Row in 1905.

These stills are from the show's very first episode, "Lady In Fear", which premiered on September 13, 1955. They illustrate Dr. Mitchell's thoughtful bedside manner as he evaluates his patient, a young wife named "Eloise" (Peggy Webber). 

The doctor suspects that the root of Eloise's invalidism is emotional rather than physical:

However, as this original newspaper ad for the episode says, "If he couldn't break through her curtain of fear--no doctor could help!"

"Parris was sure he could cure Eloise...if only he could talk to her, win her confidence! But how...with her husband and all of Kings Row against him?"

Well, I'm sure if Parris was my doctor, he'd cure me of whatever was ailing me! :)

BTW, I've seen JK steeple his fingers like that in at least a couple of other photos:

And, I noticed how opulent the furnishings look in those two Kings Row stills, which seemed unusual for a TV show. I found the explanation in a newspaper story which quoted actor Paul Stewart, who directed "Lady In Fear": "Stewart proudly displayed the Kings Row sets, which fill Stage 16 on the Warner lot. 'Everything is done in the authentic 1905 era,' he remarked. 'Some of the stuff is fabulous. I'd estimate we have $30,000 worth of furnishings here.'"

Alas, Stage 16 would soon be used for other productions as Kings Row was quickly canceled. The final episode aired in early 1956. Fortunately, JK had his eye on the future. Another newspaper item reported that "Jack Kelly of Kings Row has invested all of his earnings in a Hollywood tailor shop."

We'll revisit Kings Row soon in TDS--please stay tuned! :)