MEDIA: America's Big Ben
Murray, Michael
AMERICA'S BIG BEN MEDIA Well, we are approximately one-third of the way through the Bicentennial celebration now; only two more years to go. There haven't been many big, noisy festivals yet, but a...
...One hesitates to imagine what it will be like a year from now...
...It now appears that "The Waltons," "Little House on the Prairie" and other nostalgic TV excursions into the American past were really Bicentennial warm-ups, thrown in while we weren't paying attention, all honoring American virtue as it certainly should have been, and American warmth, which grows toastier in memory every time we hear about it...
...Most important, Mr...
...MICHAEL MURRAY...
...Now we are starting to get the specifically historical and biographical programs— specials, "mini-series," and even a daily feature which CBS calls "Bicentennial Minutes"—short announcements, dropped into prime time, about events which took place on the same date 200 years previously, narrated by a bewildering assortment of celebrities: a recent week included Carroll O'Connor, Mickey Spillane, Lucille Ball, and Norman Cousins, among others...
...CBS promises another "mini-series" on Sam Houston in the near future, and more after that, and if the quality holds we may learn something from this Bicentennial after all...
...Douglas also conveys the fundamental seriousness and intelligence of this peculiar and fascinating fellow, so that the central issue of the plot— his anxiety over whether or not the thirteen states would ratify the Constitution—maintains credibility and suspense...
...Douglas' honest excitement is, I think, too real to shrug off...
...It is always difficult to take a basically impersonal act of state and transform it into intensely personal drama: the character who walks into the room, eyes brimming with tears, and announces, "It's done...
...Franklin this time is Melvyn Douglas, and the story here concerns the great man's last years, when he was in his eighties and putting most of his finally flagging energies into lobbying for ratification of the new United States Constitution...
...I am happy to say that it provides a dignified conclusion to what has been, on the whole, an interesting and dignified series...
...The Monroe Doctrine has been promulgated...
...But fortunately the show manages to step past these sticky spots almost every time they threaten to gum things up...
...has a hard time moving his audience...
...They have more or less turned Ben Franklin loose without trying to mold his life into an epic...
...But the rounded character of Ben Franklin, particularly for the viewer who has seen more than one of the series, provides a context for the large emotions which erupt here, and even for those who may have missed the earlier programs, Mr...
...The last of these, "The Statesman," will be broadcast on January 28...
...Douglas gives a splendid performance as Franklin—tumbling from one project to another, interminably rebuilding his house, dictating disjointed memoirs, besieging Congress for money owed to him, lecturing to everyone on anything that comes to mind, running his family ragged with pointless errands, crochety demands and whining complaints about his health...
...Louisiana has been purchased," or, at perhaps a happier moment, "Drinks all around...
...The most ambitious of these projects so far has been a CBS "mini-series" on the life of Benjamin Franklin— four ninety-minute dramas focusing on four episodes in Franklin's life, with Franklin himself played by four different actors...
...They do constitute an appropriately patriotic TV series for this year, in that they frankly aim to educate, but modestly—without apology but without stiffness...
...The scriptwriter, Edward Adler, has not been afraid to show the irrascibility, the arrogance, and the growing senility of his man, an approach which engages our interest and most of the time leaves our cockles happily unwarmed, and Mr...
...There haven't been many big, noisy festivals yet, but a sort of slow, creeping Americana, barely perceptible at first, is now invading bookstores, museums, concert halls, and most of all television networks...
...The ratification of the United States Constitution might appear to fall into this category, and indeed occasional sections of "The Statesman" are lumpy with historical data— conversations which one doubts could ever have taken place...
...There is no pretense that any of these dramas, or all of them together, constitute the definitive Franklin (a point nicely underscored by the use of many actors in the role...
...The production does not entirely escape the obvious trap of presenting Franklin as an eccentric but wise and lovable old Gramps, straight out of "The Waltons" (all the more so because he is called "Pappy" by his relatives—which may have been true but it's still too bad—and because an actress called Michael Learned, a "Waltons" regular, is here cast as the old codger's long-suffering daughter...
...The good thing about this Bicentennial series is that those in charge have not been over-awed by the Bicentennial...
...The series might simply be called "Aspects of Ben," and there could easily be four or eight more of them...
...The character, conscious of history, is deeply moved by these events, and thus so are we...
Vol. 101 • January 1975 • No. 13
