Flesh and Blood

[book is flawless except for a slight bump to the bottom front corner; jacket is rubbed/scuffed at edges and a bit on the front panel]. (3 B&W photographs) Drama about a close but dysfunctional family whose empty apartment building is about to be demolished. The story behind the play's production is something of an unusual footnote in theatrical/TV history: NBC, feeling at the time that CBS was outpacing it in the "prestige drama" arena, bought the play in order to broadcast its premiere, thus diverting it from its intended Broadway opening. The TV version was rehearsed and staged as though it was a "live" drama, although it was shot and broadcast on videotape (on January 26, 1968). It boasted quite an assemblage of talent: it was produced and directed by Arthur Penn (fresh off the release of BONNIE AND CLYDE, and making his first foray into TV since 1958), and the cast was comprised of Edmond O'Brien, Kim Stanley, E.G. Marshall, Robert Duvall (in a dialogueless turn as a severely disabled war vet), Suzanne Pleshette, and a very young Kim Darby. (Each of the actors is depicted in at least one of the three stills in the book.) By all accounts, it was a disaster: Variety's critic rather acerbically noted that the play would have had to run for seven months on the stage for the royalty payments to equal what Hanley reaped from the TV one-shot (reportedly $112,500), while also observing that it "would have done well to run a single week." (Piling on, the critic speculated that "it can only be supposed that no one at the network read the play before forking over the [money]," concluding that "a bad play is a bad play, and outside of rewriting there was nothing much to be done with this opus.") Alas, we may never have a chance to re-evaluate the harsh contemporary judgments, since no tape appears to have been preserved; when Penn's biographer, Nat Segaloff, reported that he hadn't been able to find a copy to look at, the director's response was "I hope you never do."

Product Info

Publisher: Random House

Year: (c.1968)

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

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