The Fabulous Fifties from CBS, combines style, humor, and imagination. It was rich in touches of quality showmanship and equally rich in the memories of a decade which it revived. In recognition, the Peabody Television Award for entertainment is presented to The Fabulous Fifties, with a special word of praise for producer Leland Hayward and the top talent which appeared in this memorable entertainment special. The two-hour special featured comic takes and commentary about the previous decade by, among others, Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Dick Van Dyke, Shelley Berman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Jackie Gleason, Eric Sevareid and Henry Fonda.
Category: Television
A musical special celebrating the fruitful collaboration of Broadway lyricist/librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe. Stars from the current Broadway hit “Camelot” and from past triumphs such as “My Fair Lady,” and the film “Gigi” perform the romantic, sophisticated songs of Lerner and Loewe.
Between 1798 and 1812, the wild, romantic country of the English Lake District saw an intense concentrated flowering of literary genius. At its centre was the poet William Wordsworth, born in the region, who lived there almost all his life with his beloved sister Dorothy. Around him, as the genius of the age, gathered other poets and writers – Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas de Quincey. This idiosyncratic two-part mini-series, conceived by acclaimed director Ken Russell, concentrates on the relationship between William and Dorothy, and the battle with laudanum faced by Coleridge.
DON’T SHOOT THE COMPOSER is far from an ordinary profile of Georges Delerue. It also serves as a calling card for Ken Russell, whose work would define the 1970s as Delerue’s did in the 1960s. It begins with a sly work of pastiche, parodying the conventions of French noir. It goes onto encompass slapstick, verité scenes of the Delerue family and a harrowing montage of the Vietnam War. This eclectic approach gives us a sense of the different facets of Delerue’s life- his love of cinema, his home life, his work ethic. It also prefigures Russell’s feature length biopics of Mahler and Liszt, though in a more modest- and lucid- fashion.
A two-part program which examines the life of Samuel Coleridge from his orphaned childhood to how his friendship with William and Dorothy Wordsworth inspired him to write The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Part 2 consists of a visualization of Coleridge’s epic poem.
Waylon Flowers and his infamous Madame, who describes herself as an “alcoholic sex fiend,” are our escorts on an unforgettable, often risque tour of the Big Apple. Madame, dressed in a lavishly decadent gown and sequined headdress, sings, cackles and hoots her way through and is surpirsed by a number of guest stars, including the master of one liners, Henny Youngman. A talented puppeteer and comedian from Georgia, Waylon Flowers and his Madame have won an Emmy Award, a Jimmy Award (the best of Las Vegas) and a Georgia Award for Best Specialty Act from Acva.
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was a revolutionary thinker whose ideas were to have a profound effect on the way governments plan their economic policies. Described by Bertrand Russell as one of the cleverest men he had met, Keynes was concerned with the collapse of prosperity between WWI & WWII, and urged a policy of expansion rather than austerity. The program follows his personal life and work using still and moving picture documents, paintings and cartoons in illustration.
Joey Deacon, born in 1920 with brain damage, grew up with severe cerebral palsy, unable to talk or walk. When, in 1928, his mother died, he was sent to an institution where he lived for years, quite unable to make himself understood. Then, in 1941, he met Ernie Roberts who had one remarkable skill – he could understand Joey. This led to a new and richer life, and this film tells Joey’s remarkable story. Based on Joey Deacon’s book “Tongue tied”.