What I watched: The fourth episode of Admiral Broadway Review, a short-lived early variety series. The series was directed and written by Max Liebman, with a handful of other co-writers, including a young Mel Brooks. It starred Sid Ceasar, Imogene Coca, Mary McCarty and the husband-and-wife duo of Marge and Gower Champion. This episode was broadcast on 8:00 PM on February 19 [1] simultaneously on NBC and DuMont.
Sid Caesar, born to the Ziser family of Jewish immigrants, learned English and the diverse array of accents it could be spoken in by working in his family’s restaurant. He began his showbiz career at 14 as a saxophonist and comedian playing the “Borscht Belt”. His first big bit had came as part of a serviceman revue named Tars and Spars under the direction of Max Liebman, where his comedy stood out by getting more applause than the musical numbers. While he first appeared on TV as part of Texaco Star Theatre (which we’ll address shortly) in the fall of 1948, Admiral Broadway Revue was his first regular role, again under the guidance of Liebman. This episode can be seen on YouTube, thanks to the efforts of an enterprising fan of his.
What happened: This episode largely follows the same structure as the previous one, with two large-scale musical numbers bookending a series of sketches by the star performers. The opening number is “That’s News”, riffing on (and glamourizing) the experience of New Yorkers reading tomorrow’s headlines on the Times Square news ticker. The number quickly turns into a series of rapid-fire, two-line gags. It is followed by another installment of “Nonentities in the News”, featuring Imogene Coca as the clumsy huntress who has shot a record-sized moose, Mary McCarty as thoroughly cold winner of an ice-cream-freezing contest, and Sid Ceasar as a man who was raised by wolves. He sounds distinctly Russian, but also quite a bit like John Belushi’s samurai character, echoing a couple of observations I made last week.
Unusually, the following segment gives a solo spotlight to a member of the supporting cast, Bobby Van. He uses mime and dancing to mimic “a kid putting on his favourite record at the jukebox”, surely something everyone can relate to. This is followed by a parody of classical ballet, featuring Imogene Coca as a woodland spirit who doesn’t want all that much to do with the male lead. Coca’s spastic movements provide some humour, but much of the comedy of the bit has to do with her facial expressions as she pulls away from her paramour, and this is lost a bit on television. Up next is Mary McCarty doing another darkly humorous song, this time from the perspective of a girl paid ten cents a pop to dance with lonely men. In an inventive and risque moment, she reaches her own hand around her back to mimic a grabby client.
Coca follows with a rather similar number as a disgruntled female trombone player who has to deal with an overbearing chorus master obsessed with his band’s chastity. The Champions provide another mid-episode dance number, playing two columnists whose brains are so overcome with facts that they shout out trivia in the middle of wooing each other. This gets a little avant-garde by the end of the sketch. It even has the same set as last week’s song!
Ceasar provides another long monologue riffing on popular movies, in this case “aeroplane pictures”, the World War II fighter dramas that were apparently everywhere. Caesar gives the crew plenty of time to set up as he narrates a generic but longwinded tale about “two handsome men — one with a moustache, one without a moustache”. This is followed by the grand finale. Gower Champion sees the headline of “another murder in a penthouse” (was this a common occurrence in 1940s New York?), imagining a drama of a man murdering his wife’s lover. This is acted out by dance in a rather moody and serious fashion. The killer is, as per the constitution, entitled to trial by a dancing jury of his peers. Finally, Sid Caesar returns to earnestly thank the audience and ask them to turn in next week.
What I thought: This episode of Admiral Broadway Revue made less of an impression than the last, perhaps just because the formula was no longer new to me. The show drags without Caesar, Coca or McCarty on screen, as the supporting cast fails to show off any of the bite that the three acting leads possess. The closing number in particular is a bondoogle whose more serious and operatic tone completely fails to land. I think Liebman is aware of his cast’s limitations, making sure to keep at least one of the core trio on stage whenever possible, but this draws their talent thin and doesn’t allow them to interact with each other. While there is a formula, there’s also evidently some tinkering from week to week: this episode, unlike the previous one, features title cards identifying the stars of the show, as well as some voice-over to let the audience know who is on stage. This may signal that Liebman was already seeking to build Admiral Broadway Revue as a vehicle for the talents of Caesar and Coca. This experimentation is one of the charms of early television. Despite the talent on display, there’s still a charming air of amateurism, as in a candid cut to the orchestra conductor, or a moment when someone can audibly be heard reminding Coca of her lines.
Imogene Coca’s roles here aren’t as good as the ones she had in the previous program, although she does get more of a chance to show off her dancing skills. It’s Mary McCarty who has my favourite sketch of the evening in her bitter portrayal of a dancing-saloon girl. It’s a surprisingly dark criticism of what would today be called affective labour and rape culture, with McCarty lamenting her status as a body for the desires of men to act upon. This is echoed, in a minor but important corollary, by Coca’s trumpet player who has to deal with a bandleader obsessed with getting his female players to “say nay”. If these characters had been in a Hollywood film, they would doubtlessly have been rescued by a male star and pressed into a safe couple, but here on television they can simply be women dealing with the frustration of living under a patriarchal sexual regime where both sexual action and chastity are demanded of them. The sketches are pretty funny too!
This episode also gave me a glimpse into how Caesar became such a huge star. He was far from a classical leading man, instead coming off as almost feral in his appearances, but he had a bottomless well of energy that really draws the eye. Consider his stand-up segment parodying fighter-pilot movies, where he skips rapidfire between characters, scenes, and modes of humour. If done at a normal pace, it would not be a particularly remarkable monologue, but Caesar’s manic energy makes it all work. At the end of the episode, when he thanks the cast and crew, you can already sense a bond forming between star and audience. When Ceasar asks the audience to watch again next week, you genuinely want to. And so we will.
What else is on?: Like last week, CBS aired Adventures in Jazz, with the guest being Bill Williams, and ABC aired Vaudeo Variety.
Up next: We meet two memorable puppets and one memorable human.
[1] The YouTube uploader lists this episode as having aired on February 11, but IMDb places it on the week afterwards. This discrepancy also affects the dating of future episodes. I’ll use the latter dates.
The Eternal Couch Potato 