On Television

...Miss Novak singing Given the roar of the waves and her wispy voice it was hard to make out all the words But it seemed to be a protest song against the fickleness of the tide It always goes in and out, she observed "Watching our love come out/ watching our love go in," went one moving refrain Whatever good Miss Novak did the fight against water pollution at Santa Barbara (I put her in the antipollution camp by the time the song was over), she tailed to solve the noise pollution problem at Big Sur "Kim Novak is an actress," the abc News narrator explained for the benefit ot a generation of hearts unbroken by her Jeanne Eagels "She is in love with the sea and the land This is the story of a love affair " Well, that answered the faithful's questions about whom she has been dating lately As the documentary moved restlessly across the mountains, deserts, coasts, and plains-in search of the vast amount of natural beauty remaining—I couldn't help marveling at Kim Novak's condition Although a bit heavier than the last time I saw her on film, she has withstood the ravages of man better than the rest of our natural resources But This Land Is Mine added little to the television audience's body ot knowledge about the Grand Canyon, Martha's Vineyard, the Georgia marshlands and Jackson's Hole In fact, some viewers may have concluded that the producers were having a love affair with old picture-postcards I preferred to think of the documentary as a special on Kim Novak activist Fortunately the cameras, like the tide, kept coming back to Miss Novak's rocks "When I found this place," she said in a whisper, flinging her hands out toward her house nestled in the foothills of Big Sur, "I knew it was really for me When I was a kid in Chicago, I used to write poetry You need inspiration m life The sea is for me It's just wild and free Not endangered " In the old days when Miss Novak spoke breathlessly and incoherently, I used to think that was just her thing as an actress Now that programs like hers have made me aware of the dangers of the environment, I found myself troubled by her shortness ot breath Did she have emphysema...

...Which of the hazards of the old rotten way of city life in Beverly Hills had forced her to move to the country for her health the stale air at cocktail parties, the incessant ringing of telephones, the pressures of having to go to work at 6 am to earn a living...

...Things that are important to me," she explained, derailing my train of thought, "are animals Maybe it's because I never married My horse My donkeys I like to ride The deer-some free The only thing I can't eliminate aie the jets " I didn't understand what she was talking about, but I didn't want her to stop And she never did in the all-too-bnef moments the cameras were on her, saying things like, "The place for me is out in the wild with my animals" It was poetry as sublime as Rod McKuen's, the standard by which highbrow stuff is judged in television "Who does she dress like that for...

...On Television KIM NOVAK ON THE ROCKS BY MARVIN KITMAN when i asked an abc public relations man what Kim Novak would be doing in This Land Is Mine-the network's documentary study ot all that is still beautiful in America-he told me she opens the show standing on the rocks off the coast ot California and shouting at the waves, "Marvin Kitman, Marvin Kitman " I decided to watch the April 6 program anyway Miss Novak hadn't been on television lately As I recalled, her previous role in public was that of a sex symbol, Harry Cohn's answer to Rita Hayworth She certainly was never known for being involved in politics like, say, Angie Dickinson So it took my breath away to realize that Kim Novak was into ecology, even though I had no way of telling whether she really was for or against it Actually, the publicized shouting match with the surf at Big Sur turned out to be, on closer inspection...

...asked a more objective authority on Kim Novak, my wife "Her cats or her dogs7" For a woman who only lives with animals, I had to admit she did seem to dress like a movie star The actress, her tv special implied, was now in mid-career, what could be called the Sandpipei stage As she wandered over her rocks, lapped by her tides, in the company of her animals, one expected to see a Richard Burton-figure leap from a crag on yon distant hill and wrest her from the arms of the ecology movement Yet at moments, as she talked profoundly about her love for the land and sea, she seemed truly wedded to nature "There is so much beauty m the world," she gasped "No man can ever recreate a tree The redwoods They must have seen and heard so much They just stand there If man could learn the tolerance of the tree Maybe Kim Novak is preparing to run for governor ot California in the upcoming election The popularity of ecology these days is most impressive The list of prominent people executive producer Lester Cooper was able to put together in support of conservation read like a Who's Who of 20th-century do-gooders from Teddy Roosevelt, the old white hunter (whose words were read by an actor, I think), to Stewart Udall, the former Secretary of the Interior who gave a lot of my land away during his eight years in office The only prominent names missing were Walter Hickel and Richard Nixon The President already told us he cared in his State of the Union message and probably did not want to repeat himself But why television should go along with this popularity is something of a mystery to me This Land Is Mine is merely the least successful of dozens of network programs on the subject this season And abc alone again demonstrated its concern for the environment by presenting four more ecology shows during the week of April 20-26 I trust this is only a shallow attempt to curry favor with the youth of the nation, who are into ecology simply to save our natural resources There's far more material for commercial television in the destruction of our natural resources That's what the industrial revolution was all about Hardly a quarter of an hour goes by without a tv viewer seeing a potential conflict of interest in the medium's alliance with the antipollution do-gooders o ne of abc's ecology programs on April 20 was No Deposit, No Return The title reminded me of a number of commercials I recently saw urging viewers to buy six-packs ot Pepsi Budweiser, 7-Up, and Schhtz, they never explained what should be done with the empties Gas company commercials also urge us to pollute the air But why go on Pettifogging kids today can find every advertiser on television guilty of destroying the environment in some far-fetched but real way And the pro-pollution people have yet to be meaningfully heard The Fee's fairness doctrine provides that on controversial issues of public importance a station must present all points of view I would be surprised if the National Association of Manufacturers did not demand equal time to give their side of the story Without air pollution, the whole country would be as underdeveloped as Big Sur I'm into smog myself, for nostal-2ic reasons Having been raised in Pittsburgh, I know what happens to a place when industry eliminates pollutants It's never the same When I see the smog in an antipollution show like nbc's A Clear and Present Danqei (March 21), it brings tears to my eyes A case could even be made at the fcc for that old whipping horse of television documentaries, the automobile junkyard They are museums of Americana, memorials many of us have grown up with and want to preserve in their natural state so our children can have them, too A good junkyard is a learning experience, it makes one think about the meaning of life and death in an industrial society, the hopes and ambitions of Everyman in America, the payments that went to financing those cars tv made us want Anyway, the suburban junkyard is a better place for abandoned cars than the city streets or virgin countryside The fcc could save commercial television from the public interest by formulating a new policy The Unequal Time Doctrine As flexible as the regulatory body is, it is slow Hopefully, some bright Right-wing scientist will come up with a theory that environmental hazards have been overrated If fluorides are good for people in the water supply, his reasoning might run, all cities would have to do to make breathing safe is release fluorides in the air Then television could get off pollution the same way it avoided cigarettes in the 1960s The scientific evidence that it may be harmful is still not conclusive...