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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Opening a theatrical time capsule

September 18, 2020 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal I write about the 1955 TV version of Charles Laughton’s stage version of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, starring Lloyd Nolan as Queeg. Here’s an excerpt.

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Great stage performances and productions are the sand castles of art. Unless they should happen to be filmed, it is their destiny to be washed away by the high tides of time, living on only in the fallible memories of those lucky enough to have seen them in person. Back in the ’50s, though, a handful of major Broadway stage shows were later performed in studios for live broadcast on network TV. Some of these telecasts were preserved on film and survive in museum archives and the vaults of collectors, and if you know where to go, you can obtain DVD copies of a few of them….

I recently tracked down a copy of one of the most important of these telecasts, the 1955 “Ford Star Jubilee” TV version of “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” a 1954 play by Herman Wouk based on the climactic episode from his Pulitzer-winning 1951 novel about life on a minesweeper in World War II. In “The Caine Mutiny,” the captain of the U.S.S. Caine is Philip Francis Queeg, a mediocre Regular Navy officer who cracks under the life-threatening strain of a typhoon and is relieved from duty by Stephen Maryk, his executive officer, who believes Captain Queeg to be mentally ill.

The play, which portrays Maryk’s court-martial for mutiny, centers on the cross-examination of Queeg by Barney Greenwald, counsel for the defense. It was a hit on Broadway, running for 415 performances, and Lloyd Nolan, a B-movie semi-star who played Queeg, received hats-off raves from every critic in town. When he died in 1985, all of the obits led with his performance as Queeg. But Nolan was passed over for the 1954 film version, in which Humphrey Bogart played Queeg, and it is Bogart’s Queeg that is remembered today, with Nolan’s relegated to the small print of theatrical history.

“Ford Star Jubilee” was a monthly series of “special events” aired by CBS that is mainly known for its final episode, the first TV showing of “The Wizard of Oz.” But the “Ford Star Jubilee” version of “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” is far more significant, not only because it preserves Nolan’s performance but because it is a faithful record of the Broadway production, which was staged by Charles Laughton, who took up directing when his film career went into decline and immediately proved himself to be one of the most creative directors of the ’50s….

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Read the whole thing here.

To order a DVD-R of this telecast, call 800-444-2960 or go to robertsvideos.com.

The opening of the Ford Star Jubilee telecast of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial:

Almanac: C.S. Lewis on pride

September 18, 2020 by Terry Teachout

“Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble,’ and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear.”

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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