Playwright, author, and CRITIC, GILBERT SELDES, who made a hit with his early book The Seven Lively Arts, and again with his play Lysistrata, published in the Atlantic in 1937 a farsighted article entitled “The ʽErrors’ of Television. ” That article led to his being appointed director of television programs for CBS, and he was identified with that network and the development of television until 1945. The article which follows is drawn from his new book, The Great Audience, which is to be published by Viking Press this month.
The success in America of foreign films like Henry V, The Red Shoes, Symphonie Pastorale, The Baker’s Wife, Open City, and Brief Encounter shows beyond question that the movies are not only a mass medium: wordof-mouth advertising has attracted adults in increasing number to theaters which make a specialty of “non-habit” pictures. This new factor, argues GILBERT SELDES,should be taken seriously by our five major studios, which have too long been committed to ”the manufacture of average pictures for average runs.”
A constructive critic who believes in getting the most out of American entertainment, GILBERT SELDES is the author of that well-remembered book, The Seven Lively Arts. In the 1930s he wrote for the Atlantic a prophetic article, “The Errors’ of Television.”For seven years thereafter, he served as head of the CBS Television Program Department. Today he is writing a new book on the movies, radio, and television, and is presenting a weekly radio program and working on independent productions in television.
Practitioner as well as critic of popular entertainments, GILBERT SELDESproclaimed himself their champion with the publication in 1921 of his trenchant book, The Seven Lively Arts. In the 1930’s he wrote for the Atlantic a pair of prophetic articles on the errors of television, which led to his being appointed Director of television Programs for the Columbia Broadcasting System. After considerable work in radio, and a brief spell in Hollywood, he is now working on a book dealing with those popular entertainments knoum as “mass media.”