CBS is running a promo for Super Bowl 50 featuring Jackie Gleason.
The clip, according to Newsday, a Long Island, New York newspaper, is from Gleason’s show Saturday night, Jan. 14, 1967, when he closed by reminding viewers to tune in the next day for the first Super Bowl. Newsday said the clip also proves the big football game was called “The Super Bowl,” from the start.
For me, it was a treat to see “The Great One” again. My folks watched "The Jackie Gleason Show" every week and I have some fond memories of it.
Comedian Jackie Gleason was one of the biggest stars of American television in the 1950s and 1960s. He also did some fine dramatic work in movies like “The Hustler” with Paul Newman, and “Requiem for a Heavyweight” with Anthony Quinn.
“The Crooked Frame,” the live
television play, is a fascinating example of TV in its infancy.
Freely adapted from William P.
McGivern’s novel of the same name, with many changes and compressions to fit
the 30-minute time-slot of the CBS series Suspense,
this 1952
episode drains almost all the mystery and – OK – suspense, out of
the story.
So, what is so interesting
about it?
First, the show was directed
by 27-year-old Robert Mulligan, who labored for years in live television before
directing movies. Ten years after doing “The Crooked Frame,” he directed
Gregory Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Mulligan, here, seemed to have a cast
of stage actors who did not quite grasp the concept of acting for the camera.
The only exception was…
The second interesting thing
about this show: Actor Richard Kiley. Kiley, who later won a Tony for Broadway's "Man of La Mancha," here, at age 30, had
done a fair amount of TV work and a movie or two, and he plays the lead in a style far more suitable to…
The third interesting aspect
of the show: The staging and camera work. Mulligan, like other directors of
live television dramas in those days, kept his actors close to the
camera. Sometimes his blocking is almost comically tight, clustering his
players together into a sort of football huddle. Most likely, this was to keep the actors' faces visible on the small screens of early television
sets. But Mulligan is also clever in his staging and in the freewheeling way
he wheels his camera in and around and through the tiny sets.
All in all, a fascinating
look at early television and a fairly harmless presentation. But be warned: If
you have not read the book, this ancient video will spoil the plot. So, read McGivern’s
novel first.
