Directed by Delbert Mann
Over fifty years before the debut of comedienne Tina Fey’s backstage television sitcom 30 Rock, writer David Swift (creator of the pioneering Mr. Peepers) cast NBC’s Rockefeller Center as the setting for "October Story," a gentle comedy and subtle satire of the TV industry. In this debut episode of Goodyear’s alternating sponsorship with Philco of their well-established anthology Television Playhouse, a fresh-faced Julie Harris stars as an inventor that sets the National Broadcasting Company, and their TV-set manufacturing parent company RCA, on edge when she builds a portable television out of junk parts. Desperate to learn the secret of her profit-threatening invention, the network charges a handsome young NBC executive, Leslie Nielsen (of Airplane and Naked Gun fame) to supervise Harris as she struggles to replicate her electronic marvel. In the process, the tomboy Harris finds herself unexpectedly attracted to Nielsen, setting in motion a sweet coming-of-age story that lightly swipes at gender expectations and takes good-natured jabs at show-biz types.
The ambitious production stretched the limits of what was technically possible for a live program in 1951, alternating between locations at Rockefeller Center, including the observation deck at NBC’s Rainbow Room, and claustrophobic TV soundstages. The program’s clever opening sequence, with live man-on-the-street interviews in front of Rockefeller Plaza, garnered a write-up in Life Magazine, which reported that Harris had to sprint off-camera with a police escort “half a block and eight floors up in 90 seconds flat” between a location scene and a studio set. Variety also lauded the innovative staging, noting that “…location shots were well done, and the medium should do more of the same.” October Story’s producer Fred Coe and director Delbert Mann would continue to advance the artistic potential of television, just a few years later bringing the landmark production of Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty (with Rod Steiger) to the Goodyear Television Playhouse.
Mark Quigley
Producer: Fred Coe. Writer: David Swift. With: Julie Harris, Leslie Nielsen.
Digital Betacam, b/w. 60 min.
Transferred from the original kinescope by Wisconsin Public Television.
