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> Mary
Ahern
> Annette Bachner
> Barbara Claman
> Marion Dougherty
> Phyllis Adams Jenkins
> Rhoda Mann-Winkler
> Virginia Raymond
> Lynn Sackler
> Barbara Schultz
> Lela Swift
> Ellen M. Violett
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All Americans know June Cleaver and Alice Kramden, and everybody
loves Lucy, but no one saw the often uncredited women who were
behind the scenes making television in its Golden Age and now
it seems they never existed. This documentary fills in the blanks
made of their presence. We ask what happened to the young women
who – instead of choosing the ordained roles of wives
and mothers that common lore tells us was the only route for
women in 1950’s America – worked in television when
it was a kindling medium fueling itself on people’s imaginations.
THE STORY
The women who were producers, production assistants, casting
directors, directors, and writers tell us the true story of
the birth of television as they lived it, in the abstract art,
jazz, and theatre Mecca of New York City – in an exuberant
era that gave rise to the Civil Rights movement but was shadowed
by communist witch hunts and the Cold War.
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This is the story of
the women who worked in television when it was still an
experiment – both novelty and revolutionary art
form, at once popular and highbrow. |
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This is the story of
the personal and professional impact of McCarthyism, lasting
well beyond the 1950’s. |
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This is the story of
women before Feminism navigating their way in an unabashedly
man’s world. |
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This is the story of
a diverse and dazzling set of characters, who demonstrate
the complexity and tenacity of the real 1950’s woman. |
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This is the story of
their lives, struggles, and accomplishments, and in the
process New York, early television, and the culture of
the time become characters on their own. |
LIVE FROM NEW YORK
The New York shows had a highly stylized aesthetic – introducing
Leonard Bernstein, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Eartha Kitt to America
– and this documentary reflects the milieu: sophisticated,
witty, angular, dry rather than sweet, urban rather than suburban,
dissonant, and minimalist. There were no Lassies or Leave
it to Beavers coming out of New York. The New York shows
were live and unpredictable. If comedy was king, Broadway ruled
and the live drama shows, like Kraft Television Theatre
and Studio One, held audiences rapt from coast to coast
nightly. If these shows weren’t recorded or their kinescopes
long ago destroyed, they’re buried in archives and museums.
"Missing in Action" showcases some of these rarely
if ever re-broadcast programs.
Just as we recast stereotypes of the women and television of
the day, this documentary sheds the clichéd style of
1950’s imagery and resuscitates the authentic look of
these early New York shows in its presentation and structure.
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