-464
his sketches in the old days I found
very funny; good old sentimental vul–
gar comedy of situation, much like
what I imagine Harrigan and Hart
used to offer to the magnificos of Tam–
many Hall. Gleason and Carney be–
tween them exhausted the possibilities
of ritual jokes about poverty, fatness,
tenement life, lodge meetings, mothers–
in-law, etc. But the show sometimes
had a seedy grandeur and verve. You
can kill any discussion of such mat–
ters by dragging in the
Commedia del–
l'Arte;
but this is what TV comedy
at its best really is-ritual situations,
tightly limited extravagant acting, the
fewest possible props, Mr. Ernie Ko–
vacs and his "visual slapstick" not–
withstanding. TV comedians obsolesce
in very short order, or descend like
Jack Benny, or Gracie Allen, to a com–
fortable level of mediocrity. But the
financial rewards are so great, for
even one or two seasons in the sun,
that there is no cause for premature
elegy.
In other words, I think the "ac-
DISS
EN'
Summer 1957:
AMERICAN NOTEBOOK
The Anxious South, by L. D. Red–
dick . • • The White Negro (Super–
ficial Reflections on Hipsteri.m), by
Norman Mailer • • • Notes on
Suburban Society, by Maurice Stein
• • . Americans in Subtopia, by
William
J.
Newman • • • The Auto
Worker, by Frank Marquart • • •
Granville Hicks' Small Town, by
Michael Harrington • . . The Coming
Economic Collapse, by Harold Rosen–
berg • . •
Liberals in Washington,
by David C. Wi1Jiams
DISSENT, Dept, P, 509 5th Ave., N. Y.
17, N. Y. $2.50 per year; 75e
per
copy.
tuality" that TV can sometimes cap–
ture is found as often in the field
of "entertainment" as in the world
at large. It has its own flickering,
pouncing spasmodic life that can never
be entirely controlled or predicted.
How one could ever develop the "ser–
ious, responsible and pragmatic tele–
vision criticism" that Miss Koch looks
for I confess I can't imagine. Surely
it must be as casual as the medium it–
self. That anybody at all has suffered
himself to be harnessed to this appara–
tus as steadily as have Messrs. Cr05by
and Gould is cause for astonishment.
The
New Yorker
tried it and gave it
up. The theater itself is in far greater
need of intelligent criticism. All the
brains that TV can muster ought to
be devoted to writing, directing and
planning-or fighting censorship from
inside. I for one would like to see it
remain a parasite as long as it pos–
sibly can; a miniature art that de–
pends for its life on far more vital
models.
Cambridge, Mass.
R. W.
FLINT
LIBERAL PRESS. INC.
printers of
PARTISAN REVIEW
•
80 FOURTH AVENUE
NEW YORK 3. N. Y.
