TV violence isn't all fun

 From our overstocked archives

Sam Smith, Idler, 1965 - One of the things that impressed us about the interim report on television and juvenile delinquency published recently by Senator Dodd’s subcommittee was the amount of dedicated thought and preparation that goes into saturating the air with video mayhem. Producing and writing violence shows isn’t all fun. The famous program The Untouchables is a case in point.

Broadcast on ABC, this show was produced by Desilu Studios under orders from the network to inject an “adequate“ diet of violence. The subcommittee report notes:

“Individual producers who failed to comply with the network recipe for violence, have, upon occasion, been fired.” This recipe can be gauged by the following script summary of a show called Syndicnte Sanctuary :

“Action Judge is deliberately run dowm by a gangster and killed at the opening of the script. A G-man is trapped and tortured. Gangsters are trapped in an abandoned mine as they are about to kill a witness to a murder. Mine finally caves in on them as another gangster fires at one of the G men who surrounded the thugs. There’s a chase through the streets and the final scene as the ‘untouchables’ storm the jail. This program would appear to have met the network’s demand for “action.”

Others were not so successful. One ABC script summary contains the comment: “Not as much action as some, but sufficient to keep the average bloodthirsty viewer fairly happy.”

More damning was ABC official Quinn Martin‘s review of several other episodes: “We have been advised that two of the recent episodes of The Untouchables, Mexican Stake-out, and Ain’t We Got Fun, lacked some of the dynamic excitement of the earlier episodes. Our program people who evaluate the scripts advise us that there is a tendency of the recent episodes to become ‘talky’ and as a result, much of the action and suspense is lost. I hope that you will give careful attention to maintaining this action and suspense in future episodes. As you know, there has been a softening in the ratings. which may or may not be the result of this talkiness, but certainly we should watch it carefully.”

Norman Retchin, the producer of the Ain’t We Got Fun episode, was subsequently discharged after he declined to add violence to the script. The departure of Retchin did not end Quinn Martin’s trouble with writers and producers, however, for not long after he wrote a note concerning another Unrouchables script:

“On page 31, I wish we could come up with a different device than running the man down with a car, as we have done this now in three different shows. I like the idea of sadism but I hope we can come up with another approach to it.”

Prudish advertising agency executives appear to have occasionally questioned the wisdom of some of the Untouchables “action.” The McKann-Erickson people, for example, objected to a scene in an episode called The White Slavers in which a group of Mexican girls being imported to Chicago for use as prostitutes are machine gunned by gangsters when it is found that they cannot get them across the border.

Martin wrote the following note concerning the episode: “Page 40, This scene is the roughest I have ever seen and I don’t know if we can get away with it, but let’s leave it in. Have a feeling you may have to kill the girls off camera.”

Over at CBS, the only network to reduce significantly the amount of violence shown during the past few years, the men behind the action shows faced problems similar to those of their ABC brethren. An excerpt from the subcommittee report describes CBS network president James Aubrey’s valiant and ultimately successful efforts to, in the broadcaster’s favorite phrase, “give the public what it wants.”

The show in question was Route 66: “The evolution of Route 66 is particularly relevant both because of its focus on violence and sex and because of the network’s role in developing that focus. Shortly after the series’ inception, network officials became concerned because it was not ‘pulling’ as effectively as it should. Mr. James T. Aubrey, Jr., CBS network president, is reported to have issued what became known among producers as the Aubrey dictum of ‘broads, bosoms and fun.’ In testimony before the Subcommittee in 1962, Mr. Aubrey admits to asking for more ‘glamor’ and ‘romantic interest’ but denies authorship of the dictum in the specific sense. “Yet memorandums prepared by people concerned with the show’s production refer to the ‘broads, bosoms, and fun,’ dictum. One such memorandum says, ‘you remember Jim Aubrey saying, ‘put a sexy dame in each picture and make a 77 Sunset Strip if that is what is necessary, but give me sex and action.’

A letter written by a west coast CBS official to his superior criticizes several CBS programs as being ‘a far cry’ from Mr. Aubrey’s dictum of ‘broads, bosoms, and fun.’ “Mr. Aubrey’s concern with the initial reaction to Route 66 was such that he met with the show’s producers to discuss the matter in November, 1960. The Aubrey dictum reportedly went into effect after this meeting. Whether Mr. Aubrey did or did not sure these precise words to describe what he wanted done is less pertinent than the fact that the show thereafter began to feature excessive violence and sex. “The same west coast official who wrote the above letter of criticism was apparently pleased with the spirit of cooperation evidenced by Route 66 producers after the Aubrey meeting

He wrote regarding an episode in early January, 1961, that: “* * * I must acknowledge that Baby Doll has more than a generous share of bosom amply displayed to a point where program practices is screaming in anguish, and (she) wears over a pair of very spiked heels the tightest pair of slacks ever to be entered by womenkind without mechanical assistance.’ ” Mr. Aubrey’s desires prevailed and all became well with the network’s world.

At NBC the word also was out to liven things up. One witness made reference to a statement that “there should be sex and violence in the show or we could not get the Saturday 8:30 time period.” Another witness, Ivan Tors, a producer of Man and the Challenge noted: “I have no first hand knowledge about whose suggestion it was. I know only that I was told to put sex and violence in my show.” Mr. Tors may not have known but others around the network were referring to this as the “Kintner edict” after Robert Kintner, NBC President, just as CBS had its Aubrey Dictum.

Men who wanted more action did not need fear lack of support from the top. A subcommittee check showed that the network did rather well in its efforts to encourage more violence. In one episode of The Lieutenant there was a fight that contained 25 blows, including “kicks to the groin, the stomach, and kidneys and two attempts to stomp on one participant’s face. There were also four karate-type rabbit punches.” Or again The Virginian, called by NBC “a family type show,” had an episode in which there were 13 killings “nine by shooting, 2 by knives and gun butts, one by torture and one by smothering. In addition, there were five fights with fists, guns, knives and rope, and three assaults by guns, fists, rocks. There were also four threats by gun.” Did the network consider this violence? Apparently not, for when Walter Scott, a top NBC executive, testified about the episode, he said: “. . . . I did not find it objectionable. . . . I think there were scenes of physical violence within the program. But I would not call the program a violent program.” We think Mr. Scott is being too modest. The Virginian episode certainly would have satisfied our taste for violence and then some. But we realize that individual shows like these are exceptions. The networks find it hard to get writers and producers who can come up with this sort of gore night after night, week after week. We the public should appreciate that they are trying to give us “what we want.” And trying hard.