GE True: Difference between revisions
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==Program overview== |
==Program overview== |
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The show had a unique opening: a large "TRUE" sign, apparently several stories tall and shown at an oblique angle, was shown fading into deep shadows |
The show had a unique opening: a large "TRUE" sign, apparently several stories tall and shown at an oblique angle, was shown fading into deep shadows. Strong symphonic music including timpani rhythms was heard, followed by the majestic opening theme. A classic quotation from a famous figure appeared, such as [[Daniel Webster]]: "There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often nothing so strange." [[Jack Webb]] then walked alongside the sign and stated, "This is True." The sign then became brightly lit and the camera changed to a direct view of Webb, who then introduced the episode.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk-MPQTE1fo |title=GE True "Security Risk" PART 1 1963 CBS TV Series |via=[[YouTube]] |accessdate=April 3, 2023}}</ref> |
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In an overview of the 1962 television season, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' noted: |
In an overview of the 1962 television season, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' noted: |
Revision as of 06:22, 4 April 2023
This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2012) |
GE True | |
---|---|
Also known as | General Electric True |
Genre | Anthology |
Written by | Harold Jack Bloom Otis Carney John Kneubuhl Lou Morheim Dean Riesner Michael Zagor |
Directed by | William Conrad Robert M. Leeds Jack Webb |
Presented by | Jack Webb |
Narrated by | Jack Webb |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 33 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer | Jack Webb |
Producer | Michael Meshekoff |
Cinematography | Daniel L. Fapp Bert Glennon Carl E. Guthrie Harold E. Stine |
Camera setup | Single-camera |
Running time | 25 minutes |
Production companies | Warner Bros. Television CBS Television Network |
Original release | |
Network | CBS |
Release | September 30, 1962 May 26, 1963 | –
GE True (also known as General Electric True) is a 33-episode, American anthology series sponsored by General Electric. Telecast on CBS, the series presented stories previously published in True magazine. Articles from the magazine were adapted to television primarily by head writer Harold Jack Bloom; other writers included Gene Roddenberry, who co-wrote one episode. Jack Webb produced and hosted the episodes during his stint as head of Warner Bros. Television, through his Mark VII Limited company.
The series aired from September 30, 1962, until May 26, 1963, with repeats through September 1963.
Program overview
The show had a unique opening: a large "TRUE" sign, apparently several stories tall and shown at an oblique angle, was shown fading into deep shadows. Strong symphonic music including timpani rhythms was heard, followed by the majestic opening theme. A classic quotation from a famous figure appeared, such as Daniel Webster: "There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often nothing so strange." Jack Webb then walked alongside the sign and stated, "This is True." The sign then became brightly lit and the camera changed to a direct view of Webb, who then introduced the episode.[1]
In an overview of the 1962 television season, Time noted:
- Jack ("dum-de-dum-dum") Webb is back. This time he is retelling stories from the files of True magazine. The first one was set on a hospital ship off Okinawa, where a doctor (played by William Conrad) operated on a marine who had a live and sensitive shell in his body capable of blowing a six-foot hole in a steel deck. It was a hell of a moment, but Webb sank it. "At 1830 hours exactly," he intoned, "the operation began on a human bomb dead center in the circle of death." He hosts the program in an echo-chambered voice, while he stands beside the word TRUE, spelled out in block letters 22 feet high, or roughly 10 times as tall as Jack Webb.[2][a]
GE True aired at 9:30 p.m. Sundays, following the last season of the former ABC sitcom, The Real McCoys, starring Walter Brennan and Richard Crenna, renamed on the CBS schedule as The McCoys. GE True aired a half-hour later than a predecessor series, General Electric Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan, which had aired at 9 p.m. from 1953 to 1962.
Several episodes were directed by William Conrad, Marshal Matt Dillon on radio's Gunsmoke and later the star of the CBS crime drama, Cannon. Like its preceding program, The McCoys, GE True faced opposition from the highly rated NBC Western series, Bonanza. Reruns of the series were subsequently syndicated under the title True.
Though several sources state the Jack Webb-hosted short film Red Nightmare aired as an episode of GE True, contemporary sources do not back this up. (Also, as "Red Nightmare" was explicitly presented as a fantasy and not a true story, it would not fit the format of the show.)
In 2013, the Jack Webb Fan Club of Los Angeles started a campaign to get the series released on DVD.
Episodes
This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2023) |
This section needs plot summaries. (August 2018) |
No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
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1 | "Circle of Death" | Jack Webb | Dale Wasserman | September 30, 1962 | |
During the Battle of Okinawa, a doctor (William Conrad) operates on a marine with a live projectile shell in his body. | |||||
2 | "V-Victor 5" | Robert M. Leeds | Gene Roddenberry and Harold Jack Bloom | October 7, 1962 | |
3 | "Harris Vs. Castro" | William Conrad | Harold Jack Bloom | October 14, 1962 | |
4 | "Code Name: Christopher (Part 1)" | Jack Webb | Otis Carney | October 21, 1962 | |
5 | "Code Name: Christopher (Part 2)" | Jack Webb | Otis Carney | October 28, 1962 | |
6 | "The Handmade Private" | William Conrad | Dean Riesner | November 4, 1962 | |
7 | "The Last Day" | William Conrad | John Joseph (John Furia Jr.) & Harold Jack Bloom | November 11, 1962 | |
8 | "Man With a Suitcase" | William Conrad | Harold Jack Bloom | November 18, 1962 | |
9 | "Mile Long Shot To Kill" | William Conrad | Harold Jack Bloom | November 25, 1962 | |
10 | "Cheating Cheaters" | Robert M. Leeds | Harold Jack Bloom | December 2, 1962 | |
11 | "UXB (Unexploded Bomb)" | Robert M. Leeds | Harold Jack Bloom | December 9, 1962 | |
12 | "The Wrong Nickel" | William Conrad | Harold Jack Bloom | December 16, 1962 | |
13 | "The Amateurs" | William Conrad | Dean Riesner | December 30, 1962 | |
14 | "Open Season" | William Conrad | Harold Jack Bloom & Barry Oringer | January 6, 1963 | |
James Best portrays the courageous Wisconsin game warden Ernie Swift, who faces the reprisal of the mob after he tickets gangster Frank MacErlane (David McLean) for illegal fishing. | |||||
15 | "Defendant: Clarence Darrow" | William Conrad | Harold Jack Bloom | January 13, 1963 | |
Clarence Darrow (Tol Avery), the Chicago lawyer who later clashed with William Jennings Bryan in regard to the theory of evolution, is accused in 1912 of having attempted to bribe a juror. Darrow argues passionately over legal procedures with his own lawyer, Earl Rogers (Robert Vaughn). | |||||
16 | "O.S.I." | William Conrad | Harold Jack Bloom | January 20, 1963 | |
17 | "Firebug" | William Conrad | John Kneubuhl | January 27, 1963 | |
Victor Buono plays Charles Colvin, a barber in Los Angeles, who is by night a pyromaniac. The United States Forest Service believes that one arsonist is causing a series of fires. The episode also stars Keith Andes and Arch Johnson. | |||||
18 | "Little Richard" | Jack Webb | Harold Jack Bloom | February 3, 1963 | |
19 | "Escape (Part 1)" | William Conrad | Louis Morheim | February 10, 1963 | |
20 | "Escape (Part 2)" | William Conrad | Louis Morheim | February 17, 1963 | |
21 | "The Moonshiners" | William Conrad | John Kneubuhl | February 24, 1963 | |
Walter Kopek (Gene Evans), an agent of the United States Treasury Department assumes an undercover role to halt a bootlegging operation in Florida, run by mobster Bill Munger (Robert Emhardt). James Griffith is cast in this episode as Stan Woolman. | |||||
22 | "Security Risk" | William Conrad | John Kneubuhl | March 3, 1963 | |
George Ellsworth, played by Charles Aidman, an official with the United States Embassy in Warsaw, Poland, in 1960, is blackmailed through a romantic affair with a young woman named Erica (Erika Peters) into passing secret information to the communists at the height of the Cold War. He confessed his guilt despite the protection of diplomatic immunity. Karl Swenson and Parley Baer also appeared in this episode. | |||||
23 | "The Black Robed Ghost" | William Conrad | Harold Jack Bloom & Maxine Robinson & John Robinson | March 10, 1963 | |
24 | "Ordeal" | William Conrad | Harold Jack Bloom | March 17, 1963 | |
25 | "Pattern for Espionage" | William Conrad | Harold Jack Bloom | March 24, 1963 | |
United States Army Colonel Harvey Madison (Rex Reason), is approached by a former Russian comrade-in-arms to spy for the communists. Instead, he covertly cooperates with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to uncover a spy ring operated by the former Soviet Union. Anthony Eisley and Gregory Walcott also appeared in this episode. | |||||
26 | "The Tenth Mona Lisa" | William Conrad | Louis Morheim | March 31, 1963 | |
Italian farmer Vincenzo Perugia (Vito Scotti) in 1911 steals the Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in Paris, but is apprehended by a French detective when he attempts to unload the painting on an art dealer. | |||||
27 | "Gertie The Great" | Robert M. Leeds | Harold Jack Bloom | April 14, 1963 | |
28 | "Black Market" | Alan Crosland Jr. | Michael Zagor | April 21, 1963 | |
29 | "Nitro" | John Peyser | Harold Jack Bloom & Les Pine | April 28, 1963 | |
30 | "Heydrich (Part 1)" | William Conrad | John Kneubuhl & Harold Jack Bloom | May 5, 1963 | |
Two Czech sergeants assassinate Nazi hangman Reinhard Heydrich; Chancellor of the Third Reich Adolf Hitler takes revenge on an entire village in his search for the sergeants. | |||||
31 | "Heydrich (Part 2)" | William Conrad | John Kneubuhl & Harold Jack Bloom | May 12, 1963 | |
Conclusion; see above. | |||||
32 | "Commando" | William Conrad | Michael Zagor | May 19, 1963 | |
33 | "Five Tickets to Hell" | Robert M. Leeds | Harold Jack Bloom & Richard Harbinger | May 26, 1963 | |
In the series finale, John Quigley (Bing Russell), a Chicago mobster travels to Chihuahua, Mexico, where he robs the mint of $500,000 and kills seven men in the commission of the crime. Police Lieutenant Juan Garcia (Carlos Romero) tracks down Quigley and his three accomplices. Barbara Luna appears in this episode as Cotita. |
Guest stars
In addition to the aforementioned, other notable persons who guest starred on GE True include:
- Anna-Lisa
- Philip Abbott
- Lloyd Bochner
- James T. Callahan
- Philip Carey
- James Doohan
- Don Dubbins
- Ron Foster
- David Frankham
- James Griffith
- Kevin Hagen
- Stacy Harris
- Jonathan Hole
- Arte Johnson
- Russell Johnson
- Werner Klemperer
- Robert Knapp
- Sean McClory
- James Millhollin
- Mort Mills
- Jeanette Nolan
- Albert Paulsen
- Chris Robinson
- Jacqueline Scott
- Simon Scott
- Malachi Throne
- Jerry Van Dyke
- Pat Woodell
Notes
- ^ The final clause in the Time quote is unclear, as it suggests Webb's height was 2.2 feet (0.67 m)—Webb was 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) tall.
References
- ^ "GE True "Security Risk" PART 1 1963 CBS TV Series". Retrieved April 3, 2023 – via YouTube.
- ^ "Show Business: The Retreads". Time. Vol. LXXX, no. 15. October 12, 1962. p. 100. Retrieved April 3, 2023 – via time.com.
External links
- 1962 American television series debuts
- 1963 American television series endings
- 1960s American anthology television series
- Black-and-white American television shows
- CBS original programming
- English-language television shows
- General Electric sponsorships
- Television series by Mark VII Limited
- Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios
- Television shows based on magazines