User:Teblick/Project 20

Project 20 is the overall title of an irregularly scheduled series of American television documentaries broadcast on NBC beginning on December 27, 1955, Covering a span of almost 20 years the series "was one of the first nonfiction presentations of American history seen on American television". A review in 1961 referred to the project's "mastery of the TV form that makes history come alive informatively and entertainingly".

The title was sometimes written as Project XX, and the episodes were sometimes called "telementaries". Episodes of the series were also broadcast in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and England.

Overview

The title was intended to "reflect the status of the world in the 20th century". Episodes mixed filmed and "live-on-film" content in whatever way worked best for each topic. Henry Salomon, the producer, said that the goal of Project 20 was to create "a kind of composite picture of the 20 century and 20th century man — who he is, what he is, and why he is." Each episode was "a self-contained dramatic unit", but together they were intended to be assembled to "form a composite history".

Writer Richard Hanser said that they did not want the productions to be "just chronological"; instead, they sought "to take the factual material and give it some sort of dramatic form".

A secondary effect of the series was preservation of old film. Daniel W. Jones, who was in charge of film research for it said that much of the film was "shrunk, warped, and brittle". He explained that nitrate film deteriorates over time and can explode, a situation that caused many owners of such film "to junk it out of sheer prudence". Project 20's research led to preservation of film that otherwise would have been discarded. Collectors whose film was used waived their usual fees in return for having the material converted to a more stable form for their collections.

1955

The premiere episode was "Nightmare in Red" (December 27, 1955). Pre-empting Armstrong Circle Theatre, the episode used film from 76 sources to report on life in Russia from the beginning of the 20th century. Some of that film had never been shown publicly; some of it had not been seen in decades. It was gathered from both private collectors and film distributors in England, France, Germany, and the United States. Completion of the episode required more than six months' work. The episode depicted a civil war, famines, revolutions, and killing of masses of people. Viewers saw Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and the last czar, among others. Salomon produced and directed the episode and was its co-writer with Richard Hanser. Isaac Kleinerman edited the film, and Alexander Scourby narrated.

The episode was repeated on January 24, 1956. The president of Armstrong Cork Company said that many requests to repeat the program had arrived in each day's mail, some from people who wanted to see the program again and others from people who missed its original broadcast and wanted to see it. Its September 3, 1960, showing was its fourth broadcast.

"Nightmare in Red" received a special Encyclopædia Britannica Films award in 1956 as the best educational television program of the year. In 1959, it was a recipient of one of the 10th annual Scholastic Teacher Film Awards, the 24th award it had received.

The McGraw-Hill company distributed films of the episode to schools.

Broadcasts of this episode were limited to North America and South America. Rights to use the Russian film clips in it were restricted because Artkino Pictures, which distributed Soviet films, said that "Nightmare in Red" was not "an objective picture". A spokesman for Artkino said, "certain costume scenes which were obviously from Russian motion pictures and not from newsreels were presented on the program as being the real thing." Salomon replied that the film scenes were symbols and that the episode did not distort the truth.

Sponsorship withdrawal

Pontiac originally planned to sponsor Project 20 episodes, but it cancelled that sponsorship in October 1955 with no explanation to NBC. The trade publication Variety said, "... informed persons on Ad Row have no doubts in their own minds that General Motors is adopting discretion as the better part of democratic valor and future trade." Pontiac's advertising agency said that a "basic misunderstanding" led to the cancellation. The cancellation led to a delay in the program's premiere, which had been scheduled for November 1955. The report in Variety added that Electric Companies Advertising and Monsanto Chemical each were possible replacement sponsors.

Critical response

Associated Press writer Charles Mercer call the program "one of the best televised documentary films of the year". He praised the research, writing, and film editing that he said put Communism's methods and dangers in an understandable context.

A review in The (Baltimore) Sun said that the episode was "an eminently objective and accurate summary of the convulsions which afflicted Russia for half a century", and a review in the The (Washington) Evening Star called the episode "documentary dynamite" and added, "It should be required viewing for students and grown-ups."

1956

The Project 20 episodes in 1956 were sponsored by Norelco.

"The Twisted Cross" - March 14, 1956

The episode focused on Adolf Hitler and Nazis as representative of the general concept of how dictators rise and fall. Most of it depicted events and characters as the German people saw them. Salomon said, "In the Hitler story, we had a chance to do a thorough, rather than merely episodic, treatment of great events as seen through alien eyes." The production showed growth of the Nazi movement from the "wretchedness of Germany after World War I". In addition to Hitler, Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler were shown as they emerged into Nazi leadership positions. The program contained a German-made flimed reconstruction of an attempt to assassinate Hitler with a bomb in 1944. Scourby narrated with the script written by Salomon and Hanser. Robert Russell Bennett composed the score and conducted it. The Project 20 staff viewed approximately 5 million feet of film preparing for the broadcast. The crew brought 150,000 feet of film to New York to be edited down to 4,800 feet in the one-hour broadcast.

The audience for the initial broadcast was estimated to be 34 million people — at that time the most ever for any network's "one-shot documentary". A repeat was aired on June 12, 1956. That rerun included a preview of the upcoming production, "The Jazz Age". West German television showed it in March 1956. Another American repeat, on January 31, 1960, included a new prologue and epilogue in which Frank McGee connected then-current incidents of Nazi vandalism with the history of Nazism.

Critical Response

Larry Wolters wrote in the Chicago Daily Tribune, that the production's "narration and music almost were superfluous" because the images "wonderfully depicted" the effects of Nazi rule. Those pictures, Wolters said, showed some Germans dedicated to obeying and following Hitler's commands, while others "hated and despised Hitler and risked their lives to eliminate him".

A review in the trade publication Motion Picture Daily called the program "a stunning show ... particularly in its delineation of the emotions of a time and of a people". The review added that the show would have benefited from more facts rather than generalizations, and it noted that while some scenes were "patently staged shots from post-war German films", that fact was neither mentioned in narration nor stated in credits. That flaw, it said, tended "to undermine, if not alienate, audience belief" in the truth that the episode sought to depict.

A review in the trade publication Broadcasting said of the condensing of 25 years of German history into 53 minutes of air time, "That they managed to accomplish this feat and still remain historically true is remarkable in itself." It commended Scourby's narration and Bennett's musical score.

"The Great War" (October 16, 1956)

Film segments in The Great War covered people and events between 1914 and 1918 that changed the world. Military and political leaders depicted in the films included Kaiser Wilhelm, Marshal Foch, General Pershing, and Woodrow Wilson, and viewers saw entertainers such as Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and Marie Dressler. Filmed activities included:

• The German Army taking Belgium and France
• The sinking of the Lusitania
• The Battle of the Somme
• Military use of gas in war and
• Richthofen's Flying Circus engaged in aerial battles with the Lafayette Escadrille.

Critical response

In a review distributed by the Associated Press, Charles Mercer called the program "absorbing television entertainment" but added that he felt that it presented a "curiously romantic" of war. He pointed out that the broadcast showed "only a few dead bodies" and that it had "no view of the starving millions in Belgium", speculating that Salomon put more emphasis on entertainment than on instruction with regard to World War I. On the other hand, Mercer said, "An accurate picture of the slaughter, starvation and pestilence of war ... is perhaps too strong for the television audience."

John Lester wrote in the The (York, Pennsylvania) Gazette and Daily that he found no reason for showing The Great War or any of the preceding Project 20 installments, nor did he see "substantial evidence of a documentary technique worth mentioning in any of them". Lester explained that many elements of the program had been seen previously in films and on television and that even the music was little more than a sampling of songs from World War I. He concluded that NBC "could (and should) have found far more powerful, effective and novel ways" to achieve the project's stated goals.

Sheila Gallagher, writing in The Evening Star, called the program "a tightly edited, rawly powerful narrative" but added that it would have benefitted from more interpretation of significant battles and other events. She praised the show's production and writing, and she concluded by saying that it "possessed all the qualities of suspense and action, happily punctuated by some lightness, which all inall made for outstanding viewing".

"The Jazz Age" (December 6, 1956)

Narrated by Fred Allen, the episode covered 1919-1929 and was a "companion piece" to "The Great War". More than 100 film sources were used, showing people such as Presidents Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover; Al Capone; F. Scott Fitzgerald; Al Smith; George Gershwin; and Charles Lindbergh.

1957

"Call to Freedom" (January 7, 1957)

The reopening of the Vienna State Opera House on November 5, 1955, was this episode's focal point. That occasion celebrated Austrians' return to freedom after years of being under control of first Nazis, then Communists. The opening event was a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's opera Fidelio, the score of which provided background music for the episode, which mixed scenes from the opera with views of "the old, imperial splendor of Austria". Salomon commented that the story of a country's fight for freedom was about more than Austria's history, saying that it "transcends any single nation". He noted the similarity of that story to the then-current situation in Hungary. The production's script, written by Philip H. Reisman Jr., said

Fidelio has become more than an opera, its music much more than an evening's entertainment. It is a call to freedom. And it is also a paean to all who are free and would remain free, to all who are not and would be, to those who have sung of freedom.

Karl Böhm directed the Vienna Philharmonic for the opera. The program also used other works of Beethoven as background music for scenes such as Nazis marching and a hurdy-gurdy sequence. Scourby narrated the episode.

After the production was "widely panned" following its initial broadcast, NBC broadcast it again on May 5, 1957, updating the show with narration and commentary by Charles Van Doren.

Critical response

Donald Kirkley wrote in The Baltimore Sun that the episode "was altogether as mixed-up a thing as televison has had to offer". Kirkley said that the story was too complex to be told within the constraints of a TV documentary, and he added that creating a parallel between the opera and Austria's history "was a far-fetched thing". He disliked interruptions of the opera to show film clips and interruptions of narrations of history to show the opera, and he suggested that the episode "may prove to be a serious setback in the development of the Project 20 idea".

Jack Gould's review in The New York Times said that the production's mix of film clips, opera, and narration, although a commendable concept, "must be regretted". Gould commended the operatic aspects of the program from both performance and technical aspects, but he said that intrusions of historical elements diminished the music's effect: "Where the scenes from Fidelio gripped the viewer emotionally, the supplementary newsreel clippings and ornate narration merely got in the way."

"The Innocent Years" (November 21, 1957)

Depicting life from 1900 to 1917, "The Innocent Years" covered topics that included the first automobiles, the last steamboats, New York's growth, industry's growth, child labor, fashions, theater, warfare on the Mexican border, and the San Francisco earthquake. People shown in film segments included William Jennings Bryan, Charlie Chaplin, Thomas Edison, Lillian Gish, Lillian Russell, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Keystone Cops. The score included 21 of that era's songs, described by Bennet as "so enchanting, so stupid — and so adorable". The episode was first repeated on July 18, 1960.

Beginning with immigrants arriving in New York City, the episode included rarely seen film from President William McKinley's funeral and the only known surviving motion pictures of Mark Twain. The film, made by Thomas Edison's company, showed Samuel Clemens and his daughters having tea. Footage of McKinley's successor, Theodore Roosevelt, in a variety of activities formed "the major thread" of the episode.

Critical response

Charles Mercer wrote in a review distributed by the Associated Press that the episode contradicted any "snob who does not believe that television can provide artful entertainment". Mercer described the narration as "absorbing" and added that the musical score "helped capture the authentic atmosphere of the age".

1958

"Call to Freedom" and "Nightmare in Red" were repeated.

Salomon died on February 1, 1958, after he had completed work on a Project 20 episode about the 1930s, which "he thought was his finest work to date", and he hoped would be broadcast in the spring of 1958. Although NBC executives liked the finished product, the network did not show it "because many potential bankrollers were scared off by brief scenes of labor violence and unrest of the period".

1959

"Meet Mr. Lincoln" (February 11, 1959)

Unlike preceding Project 20 episodes, this one was 30 minutes long, and it used no archival film, only still photgraphs from the time of Abraham Lincoln. Use of still photos was not static, however, as "The camera wanders purposely about each picture to uncannily produce movement and expression." Scourby narrated. Recognizing that volumes of material about Lincoln had already been published, the production staff sought to approach the topic in a way that debunked myths about the man and depicted his humanity in addition to his greatness. Lincoln National Life Insurance Company sponsored the broadcast.

Hanser's script won the Robert E. Sherwood Award for its "application of a brilliant technique to a familiar and important subject".

Critical response

William Ewald praised the program in a review distributed by United Press International. He called it "a half hour of considerable richness" and added that the photo treatment plus the musical score "gave its 30 minutes immediacy and pulse". The review said that the only flaw ("and it was a minor one") was the amount of narration; "it was difficult to grasp both pictures and words because o fthe galloping pace of both".

1960

"Mark Twain's America" (April 22, 1960)

Focusing on the span between 1985 and 1900 in the United States, this episode supplemented the still-photograph technique used in "Meet Mr. Lincoln" with new films made on location. The narration included comments from Twain and his contemporaries to help viewers see that part of America's history as Twain saw it. Donald B. Hyatt, who headed NBC's Special Projects Division, said that Twain would essentially be the viewer's tour guide as the production explored "the whole of America of his day — cities and villages, plains and rivers, as well as music and folklore". Jones and his assistant considered nearly 1 million photographs during a four-month search as they selected the images used in the broadcast. Most of the research occurred in the Library of Congress, which Jones said "had barrels and barrels of uncatalogued photos hidden up in a non-air-conditioned top-floor cubbyhole". In addition to images' historic value, the Project 20 staff looked for facial expressions that made an image "an effective shot for the show".

Critical response

Jack Gould wrote in The New York Times, "... the program was a rewarding hour of history". Gould complimented the moving-camera technique that created "a feeling of action and lifelike quality" from the still photos, some of which were "especially fine pictures of the nineteenth century's Gilded Age". Howard Lindsay's narration drew praise in the review, as did Bennett's score.

"Those Ragtime Years" (November 22, 1960)

Hoagy Carmichael was host of the episode that featured Hoagy Carmichael music, focusing on the popularity of ragtime music from 1896 to the beginning of World War I. The style's development was traced "from African-originated rhythms of the South through the ballads and folk tunes from New England". Carmichael narrated, sang, and played the piano in the program, and pianist Eubie Blake contributed a solo. They were joined by Ralph Sutton and Dick Wellstood for a finale of "Maple Leaf Rag" played on four pianos. Film clips showed dances associated with that era, including the Cakewalk and the Turkey Trot. Other clips showed scenes from the Chicago World's Fair and the St Louis World's Fair.

Hyatt was the executive producer, and Willima Nichols was the writer and producer. The Purex Company was the sponsor.

Critical response

Gould wrote in The New York Times, "Carmichael's narrative was perhaps the most interesting aspect of the program" as the era "was recounted with affection". Combining those words with the musical score, Gould said, "brought an era truly to life". He added that the episode would have been better if it had pointed out more about how ragtime music influenced contemporary popular music.

Robert Johnson wrote in the Memphis Press-Scimitar that the episode fell a bit short of the quality of preceding Project 20 productions, "but it was still a pleasant, nostalgic look at some of the oddities and appealing characteristics" of the era. He noted film clips of Theodore Roosevelt chopping wood and dances by Little Egypt and Vernon and Irene Castle as making the episode worth viewing.

"The Coming of Christ" (December 21, 1960)

More than 95 percent of the script of "The Coming of Christ" came from the King James Version of the Bible, with Scourby narrating, and the episode drew on "hundreds of the world's greatest paintings" for the visual component of the color broadcast. The original sizes of the approximately 300 paintings used on the air (of 2,000 that were considered) ranged from miniatures to wall-size.

Artists whose works were shown included Caravaggio, Holbein, Raphael, Rembrandt, and Rubens. Some of the featured works were in museums, and others were at publishing companies. Some that were in illuminated manuscripts had never been shown in the United States in theaters or on television. The focus on Christ was supplemented by depictions of what the world was like when He lived.

As with the episodes about Twain and Lincoln, the episode used the still-pictures-in-motion technique, but this episode involved an intermediate step. The steps used with motion-picture cameras in that process could not be employed with paintings mounted on walls, so the staff used still cameras to make color transparencies of the paintings. The animation process was then applied to those transparencies.

The episode began with prophetic passages that announced the coming of a Messiah and concluded with the Sermon on the Mount. The episode used the complete account of the birth of Christ found in the Gospel of Luke. Hanser, who wrote the script, said, "It is astonishing how perfectly Luke's story fits as TV narration. The beautiful simplicity of it! Not a word wasted." Hyatt produced and directed, and Bennett wrote an original score. based on the Georgian chant "O Dulcissimo Jesu".

Sponsored by United States Steel, the episode contained no commercials. The only mentions of the sponsor came in legally required brief announcements at the beginning and end of the episode.

The episode was repeated on December 20, 1961.

The production won awards at international film festivals in Edinburgh, Vancouver, and Venice.

Hyatt's initial proposal for this episode "met with considerable opposition". Concerns that were expressed included potential dislike from Christian sects and from non-Christians, disapproval from lovers of art, and the thought that "the general public wouldn't take to the idea at all". After the broadcast an influx of letters requested that copies of the film be made available for showing at meetings of churches and civic, educational, and social organizations, and U. S. Steel made them available.

Decca Records released a recording, The Coming of Christ (DL79093) in 1961 with Scourby reading from Hanser's script and "reverent and expressive" background music by Bennett. Packaged with the recording were prints of 11 old masters' paintings that were shown on the broadcast.

Critical response

Gould, in a review in The New York Times, called the broadcast "a work of permanence, a program of exceptional beauty and reverence that will rank as one of television's lasting accomplishments". He praised the camera techniques that imparted a sense of motion to the still works of art: "The effect was to capture a feeling of the magnificence and grandeur of the originals yet retain the fluidity of the continuing story." Bennett's score, Gould added, "was of an inspired order".

Johnson wrote in the Memphis Press-Scimitar that the program "is impressive in black and white, and in color it is overwhelmingly beautiful and moving". Writing in advance of the 1961 rerun, he said, "it was rightly acclaimed a magnificent achievement and a distinguished work of television art".

In a review distributed by United Press International, Fred Danig praised the program overall and emphasized the effect of the still-picture-in-motion technique: "When done well, it's powerful stuff and it certainly was done well Wednesday night."

"Victory at Sea" (December 29, 1960)

The original Victory at Sea documentary TV series comprised 26 episodes and began in 1952. This 90-minute production contained just over one-tenth of that film footage. Among scenes in this edited version were battles (including Guadalcanal and the invasion of Normandy) and Navy pilots (some of whom were wounded) landing their planes on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean. One of the latter scenes showed a sailor from the carrier going into the cockpit of a burning plane to rescue the pilot after his aircraft crash-landed on the ship's deck. Close-up footage of "sailors, soldiers, Marines, inmates of concentration camps, relatives of fighting men and others who were part of the war and the victory" added a personal perspective to the episode.

This broadcast was the TV debut of this condensed version of Victory at Sea, although it had been shown in theaters. The success of the original Victory at Sea series provided the impetus for launching Project 20.

Critical response

John P. Shanley wrote in The New York Times that the edited version of Victory at Sea maintained the "quality and power" of the original, with the added benefit of a continuity that could not be maintained in the weekly broadcasts. He commended the script, musical score, editing, narration, production, and direction.

Repeats

In the summer of 1960 six episodes were rerun in chronological order, beginning with "The Innocent Years" on July 18. It was followed by "The Jazz Age", "The Great War", "Life in the Thirties", "Nightmare in Red", and "Not So Long Ago".

1961

"The Story of Will Rogers" (March 28, 1961)

Bob Hope narrated the episode about Rogers, which contained film clips and still photographs of the humorist in addition to excerpts from recordings of his appearances on radio. Hanser and Rod Reed were the writers, and Bennett composed the score. Hanser commented that while the American landscape had changed from Rogers's time, most of his observations about American life were as appropriate in 1961 as the were when he lived. Hanser said of the episode's audio, "Whenever possible we're using his own voice, and we're bridging it with Bob Hope's narration."

The Purex Corporation sponsored the broadcast.

"The Real West" (March 29, 1961)

Narrated by Gary Cooper, "The Real West" portrayed characters from the Old West that differed from those usually seen in films and on TV. It was divided into six segments: "The Way West", "The Gold Seekers", "The Herdsmen", "The Leather-Slappers", "The Civilizers", and "The Indians". The episode was Cooper's last performance and his only significant appearance on TV.. John Wesley Hardin, Doc Holliday, Billy the Kid, the James brothers, and the Earp brothers were among those included in the episode.

Hyatt said that the vanity many outlaws of that era led them to have studio photographs made "just before or after some classic malefaction". He added that lawmen sometimes followed up by having them photographed "on mortuary slabs, dangling from do-it-yourself gallows or posed artistically propped against a wall".

Photographs in the episode were animated via the still-pictures-in-motion technique, and the Project 20 crew filmed new motion pictures of Western sites where significant events occurred. Philip Reisman Jr. wrote the episode, and Bennett composed the score and conducted the orchestra.

The Savings and Loan Foundation sponsored the broadcast.

Recognition

The episode received the 1961 Prix Italia grand prize as the best TV documentary among those submitted from 16 countries. It had been selected as the American entry over 14 other documentaries evaluated by the Broadcasting Foundation of America.

It shared top honors in the History category at the American Film Festival awards in 1962. Also in 1962 it was selected by the Council on International Nontheatrical Events as one of two TV documentaries (and 59 films overall) to be submitted to film festivals around the work in coming months.

The Writers Guild of America's 1962 award for best documentary went to Reisman for his script for the program.

"The Real West" was one of three winners of the second annual Western Heritage Awards in January 1962.

Critical response

Pete Rahn, writing in in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, called the program "a smash it" and "one of the brightest tv documentaries of the current season" and noted the "exceptionally fine production effort with the still-picture-in-motion technique".

Gould wrote in The New York Times that the episode's visual effects "conveyed a truly living sense of the historic West" while the narration was "packed with modern bite, humor, and tart observation. He said that the episode was "a fascinatingly authentic look at the West".

Repeats

"The Great War" was repeated on July 4, 1961.

"The Story of Will Rogers" was repeated on September 12, 1961.

1962

Repeats

"The Real West" (March 25, 1962)

"The Story of Will Rogers" was repeated on September 14, 1962.

1964

Repeats

"The Real West" (September 9, 1964)

1965

Repeats

"The Tall American" (August 15, 1965)

1967

“End of the Trail" (March 16, 1967)

Research for photographs for 'The Real West" episode led to discovery of so many pictures of Native Americans that NBC decided to make another episode to give their point of view.

Obtaining and using old films

Gathering and processing the old films used in Project 20 was "a project in itself". Sources of the film included rusty film cans on Staten Island (King Albert of Belgium), a garage in California (Navy convoys in World War I), and unmarked vaults in Vienna (Emperor Franz Josef's funeral).

Daniel Jones headed the process of doing research to find historic films and then obtaining the films for use in Project 20. Some of the needed material was available from libraries of movie studios and newsreel companies and the Library of Congress. Much of it, however, came from private owners. Some of those people found old films when they inherited property. Some collectors bought cans of film from storage warehouses when it was sold after the original owners defaulted on payments for continuing storage.

The cellulose nitrate used in old films added to the project's difficulties. Jones said: "When you do come across old nitrate film, it's usually so shrunken and curled from loss of moisture that it won't go throught the regular printing machines. You have to rephotograph it frame by frame. It's laborious and expensive."

Paper prints of films were used for some of the earlier footage in the series. Jones explained that until 1911 the United States Copyright Office accepted paper prints of films, rather than the films themselves, to support copyright applications. He said, "Many of the prints are abominable — so dark you can scarcely see an image", but a $300,000 project supported by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences enabled rephotographing of those images.

Jones said that production of one episode required approximately eight months. He explained that the staff might start with 3,000 cans of film, culling them to 150 that contained useful material. From those 150 they would select segments to use in the program, which would be contained in six cans of completed film.

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