1948 - Theater, Film

Theater, Film

Theater: The Antigone of Sophocles (Die Antigone des Sophokles) by Bertolt Brecht 2/15 at the Stadttheater in Chur, Switzerland; Mister Roberts by Fort Dodge, Iowa-born novelist-playwright Thomas Heggen, 26, and Texarkana, Tex.-born director-writer Joshua (Lockwood) Logan, 39, 2/18 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Henry Fonda, David Wayne, Robert Keith, William Harrigan, Brooklyn-born actor Eli Wallach, 32, Seattle-born actor Steven Hill, 25, 1,157 perfs.; The Lady's Not for Burning by Christopher Fry 3/10 at the London Arts Theatre, with Gordon Whiting, Alec Clunes (who also directs), Hughie Raeburn, Andrew Leigh, 22 perfs.; The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Der kaukasische Kreidekreis) by Bertolt Brecht (based on the Chinese drama The Circle of Chalk) 5/4 at Carleton College, Northfield, Minn. (in English); Tit-Coq by Canadian playwright Gratien Gélinas 5/22 at Montreal's Monument National Theater; Mr. Puntila and His Hired Man (Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti) by Bertolt Brecht 6/5 at Zürich's Schauspielhaus; Summer and Smoke by Tennessee Williams 10/6 at New York's Music Box Theater, with Allegheny, Pa.-born actress Anne Jackson, 22, Margaret Phillips, 100 perfs.; State of Siege (L'état de siège) by Albert Camus 10/27 at the Théâtre Marigny, Paris; The Cry of the Peacock (Ardele, ou La marguerite) by Jean Anouilh 11/4 at the Théâtre de l'Atelier, Paris; Playbill (The Browning Version and Harlequinade) by Terence Rattigan 11/8 at London's Phoenix Theatre, with Eric Portman, Peter Scott, Marry Ellis, 244 perfs.; Light Up the Sky by Moss Hart 11/18 at New York's Royale Theater, with Glenn Anders, Audrey Christie, Sam Levene, Barry Nelson, Philip Ober, 214 perfs.; Anne of the Thousand Days by Maxwell Anderson 12/8 at New York's Shubert Theater, with Joyce Redman as Anne Boleyn, Rex Harrison as Henry VIII, 286 perfs.; Break of Noon (Partage de Midi) by Paul Claudel 12/16 at the Théâtre Marigny, Paris.

Japan's Kabuki drama begins to revive under the aegis of Gen. MacArthur's Oklahoma-born former aide-de-camp and interpreter Faubion Bowers, 31, who taught at Tokyo's Hosei University from 1940 to 1941 and serves as civilian censor as well as sponsor under the U.S. occupation authorities.

The Margaret Webster Shakespeare Company founded by director-producer Webster will tour the United States for years, performing in high school auditoriums, university theaters, and public halls.

French Radio director Vladimir Porche decides at the last minute to cancel poet-playwright Antonin Artaud's To Have Done with the Judgment of God (Pour En Finir Avec le Judgement de Dieu) scheduled for broadcast at 10:45 in the evening of February 2. Jean-Louis Barrault, Jean Cocteau, René Clair, and Paul Eluard have all supported the project, commissioned last year by French Radio's director of dramatic and literary broadcasts; he resigns in protest, and Artaud dies of cancer at Ivry-sur-Seine outside Paris March 4 at age 52, having been released from a mental asylum 2 years ago after 9 years' confinement.

Radio: Our Miss Brooks 7/19 on CBS with Eve Arden, now 36, as schoolteacher Connie Brooks (see television, 1952).

Television: The Ed Sullivan Show (initially The Toast of the Town) 6/20 with syndicated New York Daily News columnist Edward (Vincent) Sullivan, 45, as master of ceremonies. CBS program development manager Worthington Miner has hired the awkward, wooden-faced Sullivan to emcee the Sunday evening variety show, whose first program features comedians Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, composer and lyricist Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, a ballerina, a pianist, a boxing referee, and a troupe of crooning firemen (to 6/6/1971; see 1955); Texaco Star Theater 9/21 on NBC with comedian Milton Berle, now 40. The Tuesday evening show is soon so popular that NBC does not cancel it for election-night coverage, stores close early for patrons and employees to watch their TV sets, and more people buy sets to watch "Uncle Miltie" (to 1954); Philco Television Playhouse 10/3 on NBC with a 1-hour live version of the 1932 George S. Kaufman-Edna Ferber comedy Dinner at Eight. Mississippi-born producer Fred Coe, 33, has developed the show (to 10/2/1955); Westinghouse Studio One 11/7 on CBS with Dean Jagger, Margaret Sullavan in a drama series by Worthington Miner that began originally on radio (to 9/29/1958); Hopalong Cassidy 11/28 on NBC with Ohio-born actor William Boyd, 53, in television's first Western series, created from re-edited westerns made between 1935 and 1948 with some new material (to 12/23/1951); Kukla, Fran, and Ollie 11/12 on NBC with Fran Allison, puppeteer Burr Tillstrom, Akron, Ohio-born announcer Hugh Downs, 28 (to 6/13/1954, and on ABC from 9/6/1954 to 8/30/1957); The Perry Como Show 12/6 on NBC with singer Como, now 36, in a series that will move to CBS in 1950 and return to NBC in 1955 (to 11/22/1961).

Films: Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief with Lamberto Maggiorani; Laurence Olivier's Hamlet with Olivier; Joseph Mankiewicz's A Letter to Three Wives with Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Philadelpia-born actor Paul Douglas, 41; David Lean's Oliver Twist with Alec Guinness, 33, Robert Newton, 42, John Howard Davies; Howard Hawks's Red River with John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, West Virginia-born actress Joanne Dru (originally La Crock), 26; Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes with Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Scottish ballerina Moira Shearer (originally Moira Shearer King), 22; Fred Zinnemann's The Search with Montgomery Clift, Ivan Jandl, Aline MacMahon; John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt; Preston Sturges's Unfaithfully Yours with Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell. Also: Giuseppe De Santis's Bitter Rice with Sylvana Mangano, 18, Genoa-born stage actor Vittorio Gassman, 23, journalist-turned-actor Raf (originally Rafaele) Vallone, 31; Sam Wood's Command Decision with Clark Gable, Walter Pidgeon, Newport, R.I.-born actor Van Johnson, 31; Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair with Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich; George Stevens's I Remember Mama with Irene Dunne, New York-born actress Barbara Bel Geddes (originally Barbara Geddes Lewis), 25; Robert Hamer's It Always Rains on Sunday with Googie Withers, Edward Chapman, Sydney Tafler, Jane Hylton, Alfie Bass, Hermione Baddeley, 41; Jean Negulesco's Johnny Belinda with Jane Wyman, Lew Ayres; John Huston's Key Largo with Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall; Robert Flaherty's documentary Louisiana Story; Henry Cornelius's Passport to Pimlico with Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford, Hermione Baddeley; John Hubley's Ragtime Bear with animation by United Pictures of America cartoonists, including Bill Melendez, 32, who draw two-dimensional figures and whose focus is not on the bear but rather on a short, stubborn, irascible, nearsighted Rutgers alumnus, Mr. (Quincy) Magoo, whose voice is that of Jim Backus; Walter Lang's Sitting Pretty with Robert Young, Maureen O'Hara; Anatole Litvak's The Snake Pit with Olivia de Havilland; Herbert Wilcox's Spring in Park Lane with Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding.

Pilot-oilfield magnate-producer Howard Hughes writes a check to buy the 20-year-old RKO Radio Pictures studio; it will suffer from neglect under his ownership and halt production in 1953.

Director Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein dies of a heart attack at Moscow February 11 at age 50. He defied the authorities by making Ivan the Terrible (Part Two), which was completed early in 1946 but will not be released until 1958, and has confided to a friend that he feared for his life; Dame May Whitty dies at Hollywood May 29 at age 82; motion picture pioneer Louis Lumière at his villa in Bandol on the French Riviera June 6 at age 83; motion picture pioneer D. W. Griffith at Hollywood July 23 at age 73 (he has made no pictures since 1931); actor Warren William dies at Hollywood September 24 at age 52; actress Elissa Landi of cancer at Kingston, N.Y., October 22 at age 43; director Fred Niblo of pneumonia at New Orleans November 11 at age 74; Sir C. Aubrey Smith of double pneumonia at his Beverly Hills home December 20 at age 85.