The 'Tube' Columns, City magazine 1974–1975: The Horror, or I Preferred the War
November 27, 1974
In 1974 I took over the TV column page in City magazine, one of the many briefly-lived attempts to perpetrate a long-lasting San Francisco magazine. It was a lively operation, attracting all sorts of writers who endured the barely registering pay for the chance to reach readers like themselves, to hear people tell them what they thought of what they’d said, even come up to them on the street or in line to say “Thanks,” or “I’m glad I’m not the only one,” or “I would never have known about that.” It was a non-sensationalist magazine of soft reporting, arts features, and criticism. I started out because I watched a lot of TV and there was one show I hated that I wanted to cover with bile and another I loved that I wanted to trumpet to the skies, and then, for the weekly listings, I found myself as interested in what was turning up on the pre-cable airwaves from the past as with anything supposedly happening in the present.
In 1975 the magazine, about to fold, was bought by Francis Coppola. Coppola was a titan, he bestrode the city as a colossus, he had made the best American movie since at least The Best Years of Our Lives, and yet, in small-town San Francisco, he was not treated with deference, he was not given a wide berth, he was not really a celebrity. In San Francisco there was only one celebrity: the San Francisco Chronicle daily all-things-under-the-sun gossip—or news of the streets and the boulevards—columnist Herb Caen, who as it happened appeared on the cover of the last number of City magazine. Maybe by owning a San Francisco magazine, defining the conversation, that would change. So Francis tore up the old magazine and made a new one. He altered the format from a small, Time-sized publication to a big, dominating sheet with pages fit for dramatic photo spreads, famous writers, higher pay (for famous writers), news-making. Manny Farber became the film critic. The new City of San Francisco magazine first made noise, and briefly made Herb Caen irrelevant, with a cover story by a writer named Susan Berman headlined “SAN FRANCISCO, CITY OF SIN—WHY CAN’T I GET LAID?” Yes, everybody talked about it, pro and con, and everybody asked “Who is she?”
Francis told me his friends wanted a log of every movie on TV every week, so with a couple of anodyne attempts at commentary, that’s where my TV column went. With fly-by-night channels supplementing the networks, that meant a lot of movies. I went to Moe’s in Berkeley and found reference books on Sci-Fi, Adventure, Noir, everything imaginable, and did in fact review and comment on every movie available in the Bay Area. It was a lot of fun, making up at least half of everything, finding strange correspondences, such as a week with at least half a dozen movies about murdering uncles from the ’30s to the present. The Mole People was an easy piece of criticism: “Things come out of the ground, later go back.” But for a time, in the old City, with the columns that will be running weekly starting now, I tried to keep up with what was happening in real time. And that was even more fun. And, sometimes, felt like the real news.
In 2000 Susan Berman was found murdered in Los Angeles. She was from a Minneapolis mob family; a lot of people assumed it was, somehow, chickens coming home to roost. She was, it turned out, a victim of the serial killer Robert Durst, trying to cover up the murder of his wife. Susan knew too much. Today it would have long since been a famous Law and Order episode, but that was, as TV goes, still to come. See the Ryan Gosling–Kirsten Dunst movie All Good Things instead.
There have been bad TV shows. There have been rotten TV shows. There have been made-for-TV movies starring David Janssen. There have been TV shows that no living creature could watch without a temperature of 105 and a bed pan. There have been shows compared to which one can say that the Saturday night TV evangelists tricking the miserable out of their money perform an admirable service for all mankind. But there has never been anything like The Waltons. (Thursdays, 8 p.m., Channel 5).
Set in Virginia during the Depression, The Waltons is the continuing tale of a big old family (Mother Oliva, played by Michael Learned; Father John, played by Ralph Waite; eldest son John-Boy, played by Richard Thomas, the creepiest actor to emerge since Edward Albert appeared in Butterflies are Free; plus Granma, Granpa, and various children) and their struggle to instruct the rest of the world on the Nature of Life and good manners. Each show begins with a portentous title (“The Book,” “The Visitors”) and a voice-over from John-Boy as-a-man, looking back (he is, today, a famous writer) to the days of his childhood and the lessons he learned from those hard times. And we’re off.
What links Mom, Pop, and John-Boy is that they are prigs. They always know what’s right; even when they’re trying to come on humble (they’re simple country folk, after all) they condescend. For every act of “kindness,” “generosity,” or even “love” within the family, there is something—a facial expression, a gesture, a fake smile—that makes it clear that the recipient of the big-hearted Walton humanity doesn’t deserve it. The Waltons (and they are so fully brought out that one can’t just hate the characters, one hates the people who play them) are best at shaming people—a traveling salesman, a family from the city that’s trying to make a go in the country (“Country livin’s not for everybody,” sneers Papa Walton, meaning, “Not everybody’s good enough”). The coldness that comes off the parents especially, and the smugness of every move Richard Thomas makes, is enough to drive one to drink.
There is a way, though, in which the show is what it pretends to be—a celebration of the good old-fashioned virtues that made this country great and all that. There is a strain in the American character that counterfeits all feeling, that hates everyone and everything different from what it knows, that draws pleasure only from the practice of self-righteousness, that passes off simple cruelty as morality and contempt as instruction.
Which is to say that while one probably cannot blame the Vietnam War and Watergate on The Waltons, one can perhaps blame The Waltons on Watergate and Vietnam. The side of America they represent so well has had a bad press these last few years, and it’s not surprising someone has seen fit to resurrect “the old values” in a more palatable form. Frankly, just as TV, I preferred the war.
SPECIALS
Friday, Nov. 29
8:30 PM, Ch. 44: Dinah! This is a very strange show, in case you’ve never caught it. This time, Dinah hosts Chuck Berry. Will he sing Dinah “My Dingaling” or do her hair? Find out.
Sunday, Dec. 1
8 PM, Ch. 7: The John Denver Show. America’s favorite koala bear welcomes his soul-mates, Doris Day, George Gobel, and Dick Van Dyke, for a show that Mr. Denver promises will have “far-out things” in it. The Sound of the Seventies rolls on. We dare you to watch.
Tuesday, Dec. 3
8:30 PM, Ch. 4: TV Movie, The Red Badge of Courage, with Richard Thomas (The Waltons). Previews indicate this one will be alternately soppy and hysterical. A must to avoid.
10PM, Ch. 9: Soundstage—The World of Randy Newman. Newman is an authentic American original, a singer and songwriter who can take you to places most people don’t even know exist. Look for a good dose of his latest album, Good Old Boys, plus favorites like “Davy the Fat Boy” and “Sail Away.” Don’t even consider missing this one.
Thursday, Dec. 5
11:30 PM, Ch. 7: The Dick Cavett Show. David Bowie is the only man in the hot seat tonight. Dick will probably ask David if he’s gay and David will probably say something like, “I don’t believe in labels.” That will be the highpoint.
Saturday, Dec. 7
12:30 PM, Ch. 2: That Good Old Nashville Music. With Dolly Parton, Glamor Queen of Country Music, and also one of the two or three finest female singers in America.
9:30 PM, Ch. 9: An Hour With Joan Baez. Our Lady of the Political Prisoner sings a song called “Winds of the Old Days,” about Bob Dylan’s recent comeback tour, and chats informally with the audience, who, however, are required to submit their informal chats in writing to Ms. Baez’s manager two weeks before showtime. Authors of the best questions get to kiss Joanie’s feet.
11:00 PM, Ch. 9: Taj Mahal at the Boarding House. Taj gets cute at times, but just about anything he does is worth listening to.
11:45 PM, Ch. 9: Speaking Freely—Edwin Newman Interviews Harold Robbins. Educational TV is getting rather weird these days.
MOVIES
Monday, Dec. 2
8 PM, Ch. 2: Kind Hearts and Coronets (1950). Young dandy is in line to inherit a fortune, except that there are thirteen creepy relatives ahead of him. So, he snuffs every one of them. Alec Guinness plays all the victims. First-rate, with a fine ending.
9 PM, Ch. 4: The African Queen (1951, Dir. John Huston.) Bogart and Hepburn (in a role supposedly suggested by Eleanor Roosevelt), with script by James Agee, make their way down the river into the hands of the Nazis. Not up to its reputation, but good fun if you’ve never seen it.
Thursday, Dec. 5
8:30 AM, Ch. 7: After the conclusion of The Women comes Part I of Rasputin and the Empress (1932), to be concluded Friday, Dec. 6, same time. Starring all the Barrymores, and dynamite. As Rasputin, Lionel almost makes up for all the hammy atrocities he committed during his endless career, and the death scene is not to be believed.
Friday, Dec. 6
8 PM, Ch. 2: The Man in the White Suit. Alec Guinness as a chemist who invents a fabric that never wears out. The clothing industry goes berserk trying to get his patent away from him, but by the time they do the fabric falls apart. Not bad.
Saturday, Dec. 7
7 PM, Ch. 2: Tender is the Night (1959). With Jennifer Jones and Jason Robards, Jr., and a real stinker. Read the book instead.
Sunday, Dec. 8
4 PM, Ch. 44: They Made Me a Criminal (1939, Dir. Busby Berkeley). John Garfield as a boxer who leaves town when he thinks he’s killed a man in the ring. Berkeley’s “TKO Fantasia in the Eight Round” is well-known from “Golden Days of Hollywood” TV shows, but the rest of the movie is very obscure. Worth checking out.
7 PM, Ch. 44: All About Eve (1950, Dir. Joseph Mankiewicz). Bette Davis (great), George Sanders (wonderful) and Anne Baxter in a first-rate soap opera about a conniving young actress (Baxter) who tries to take over the theatre world, knocking off Grande Dame Davis on the way. Perfect movie for TV. Marilyn Monroe makes one of her earliest appearances, to boot.
Originally published in City magazine, November 27, 1974
"There is a strain in the American character that counterfeits all feeling, that hates everyone and everything different from what it knows, that draws pleasure only from the practice of self-righteousness, that passes off simple cruelty as morality and contempt as instruction."
50 years later that strain took over the American government. But instead of prigs we have pigs.
"The John Denver Show...We dare you to watch"
I was going to ask if you heard from anyone who dared, but the experience probably drove them to madness.
I totally miss TV listings, esp. ones that bite like this. I don’t think I ever sat through an episode of The Waltons, except perhaps in a blackout. I think the hed should have been: “Greil Marcus on The Waltons.” People would pay to read that. (At least they should.) I look forward to the speaking tour.