WE THE PEOPLE {SEGMENTS} {NEWARK'S EMERGENCY SQUAD; WAFFLE SAM THE BUGLE MAN; HERBERT A. PHILBECK; AUDREY HEPBURN; "DEATH OF A SALESMAN" SCENE} (TV)
Summary
This tape includes segments from various episodes of this series of interviews with celebrities, public leaders, and "everyday Americans," and dramatizations of human interest stories. In the first segment, Police Chief Frank O'Neill of Newark, New Jersey introduces a re-enactment of the night shift of the Newark Emergency Squad which, during the course of one night, saves the life of a man who jumps from a building ledge, assists a newlywed couple who have locked themselves out of their apartment, and uses an old-fashioned remedy to free a twelve-year-old runaway whose neck is caught in a fence. In the next segment, host Dan Seymour interviews "Waffle Sam the Bugle Man," a New Orleans waffle vendor who plays the bugle and jams with Dixleland performers. Then, Herbert A. Philbrick, author of the autobiographical book, "I Led Three Lives," introduces a re-enactment of how he became a member of the Communist Party and a spy for the FBI; his testimony was responsible for the sentencing of eleven "top Communists." Next, Seymour pays a visit to actress Audrey Hepburn (in her first television appearance), "the young Continental beauty who is Broadway's latest star," backstage at the Broadway hit, "Gigi." Hepburn takes her curtain call and dances a can-can, then goes backstage into her dressing room. She recounts and then re-enacts the following holiday story about her wartime experiences in German-occupied Arnhem, Holland, in 1944, when ten potatoes literally saved her life at Christmas seven years earlier: after war is declared, fifteen-year-old Audrey Hepburn leaves England to live with her Dutch mother and aunt in Holland and to continue her ballet studies; her uncle, a popular judge, is one of those arrested and shot by the Nazis in Arnhem; her mother and aunt give food to evacuees who come to their door; Hepburn dances at clandestine concerts to raise money for the Underground; by December 24, 1944, their food runs out and Hepburn becomes weak from hunger; and the Underground delivers a life-saving Christmas package of food, including ten potatoes, which she makes last for ten days. In the last segment, "We the People" gives its award for best motion picture of 1951 to "Death of a Salesman" and its best supporting actress award to Mildred Dunnock; Dunnock, Ted Jordan, and Darren McGavin then perform a scene from the Arthur Miller play.
(Network affiliation varies; this series was also telecast on CBS from 1948 to 1949.)
(The Herbert A. Philbrick segment was telecast on February 8, 1952; the Audrey Hepburn segment was telecast on December 21, 1951; and the "Death of a Salesman" excerpt was telecast January 18, 1952.)
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE:
- RUNNING TIME: 0:44:46
- COLOR/B&W: B&W
- CATALOG ID: T:15098
- GENRE: Talk/Interviews; Drama
- SUBJECT HEADING: Biography; Communist Party; Drama; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Netherlands -- German occupation, 1940-1945
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV series, 1949-1952
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Preston Wood
- Dan Seymour … Host
- Audrey Hepburn … Guest
- Herbert A. Philbeck … Guest
- Frank O'Neill … Guest
- For "Death of a Salesman":
- Mildred Dunnock … Cast, Linda Loman
- Ted Jordan … Cast, Biff Loman
- Darren McGavin … Cast, Happy Loman