Western Approach

In the battle over which is to be the TV capital of the U.S., Hollywood last week had a comfortable edge over Manhattan. On a 25-acre tract in the middle of Los Angeles, CBS dedicated a new TV City, a supermodern expandable plant covering 8 1/2 acres, and outfitted with enough doodads and gadgets to make even the best-equipped movie studio envious.

For its dedication ceremony, CBS brought out a flock of stars--M.C. Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, Lucille Ball, plus such other big California names as Governor Earl Warren and Los Angeles' Mayor Fletcher Bowron (who all turned in first-rate performances). The program, like most such, was long (60 minutes) and draggy, but it perked up in spots. Sample: Gracie Allen telling Governor Warren about the "deplorable" excessive drinking in the Senate--"I read about Senator Knowland trying to make a speech from the floor--and the Speaker of the House was even in worse condition--he didn't even recognize him!"

Chief goals in TV City, says Charles Luckman, onetime (1946-50) president of Lever Bros., whose architectural firm (Pereira & Luckman) designed the building, are flexibility and low operating cost. The new plant is supposed to save 37% in the time necessary to put on a show. Everything--from raw materials to finished product--is under one roof: rehearsal halls, four studios, a 35-man carpentry shop, a paint shop, even a plaster shop that makes everything from fake balustrades to bottles that shatter when bounced lightly off an actor's head. CBS can also store, for quick reuse, all its scenery and sets (in Manhattan the company spends about $40,000 a week just trucking sets to & from the studios).

"We discarded every idea that took our eyes off the ball," says Luckman. For example, TV City has no restaurant, because no place could be found for it "without interrupting the production flow." For the same reason, there are only four of five showers for the droves of actors. After all, Luckman says, perhaps showers are an effete Western notion: actors don't have them in New York. One innovation that harried network vice presidents in Manhattan will envy: the sponsormobile, a 14-ft.-by-16-ft. portable glass bubble designed to be rolled about the TV stages by an electric truck. The sponsor, sitting inside, can see and hear but cannot be heard. Says Luckman: "We can move the sponsor where the action is best, so he can see how he's spending his millions."

TV City is intended, for a time at least, only for live programs. Such filmed shows as I Love Lucy will still be made at movie studios. The thing that worries some television producers: will top-quality programs suffer from movieland's standardizing touch? Said one official: "Everything will be bigger and more imitative than ever." Another agreed: "We're going to get quiz shows that are better lighted than ever before, but they're still going to be quiz shows."

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