Snow Job

During the two years it has been on TV, Producer Worthington Miner's Studio One (CBS, Mon. 10 p.m.) has won more awards than any other dramatic program, largely because of its professional competence and grown-up storytelling. Last week, Studio One tackled Stefan Zweig's Letter from An Unknown Woman, a melodrama about a heartless Viennese composer (Melvyn Douglas) and a seamstress (Viveca Lindfors). Televiewers who expected to see the usual bang-up production, saw instead a shambles.

The disasters began as Douglas was eying Viveca on a Vienna street: without warning, a solid-seeming brick wall began to billow out like laundry in a high wind. Moments later, while Douglas and Lindfors were waltzing soulfully inside a cozy restaurant, they were abruptly doused with a thick flurry of snow. Hustling his lady through the blizzardy streets, where the cornmeal snow fell on cue, Douglas swept her into his bachelor den. As they shed their coats, snow cascaded to the floor. Next morning, when they came downstairs, the room was still snowy.

In fact, snow seemed to get in everyone's eyes. The microphone boom collided several times with the light pan, produced one bang so resounding that the actors looked up and momentarily blew their lines. Even the electricians went haywire: as Viveca composed a farewell letter to her lover, the lights went on, then off, and finally a spotlight eerily picked out the coffin of her illegitimate son. Viveca gamely went on writing her letter.

After it was all over, Minor's assistant, Robert Banker, observed thoughtfully: "Things often go wrong on TV, but tonight everything went wrong. Maybe it was caused by spots on the sun."

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