Blockbuster

With a furious beating of pressagents.' drums (including the mailing of a million letters and the dispatch to radio executives of 3,000 vials of water from Florida's Fountain of Youth), NBC last week dropped a $5,000,000 blockbuster in the form of 28 new or revamped radio shows. The man tossing the bomb (target: public apathy about radio) is NBC's go-getting Vice President Ted Cott, 36, who arrived at the "Magic 28" after three weeks of all-out cerebration with his NBC associates.

Cott does not think that sponsors will come flocking overnight to pick up the tabs, but he hopes to convince enough of them that radio has a vast audience (including the motorized public) that television does not touch. "I don't expect to get anyone to turn off TV," he says. "My concern is that radio hasn't done anything to make people responsive to it. We expect to be the most aggressive radio network, and we think it will help all of radio, by making everyone more competitive, and forcing them to put on better shows."

NBC daytime radio, including soap operas, has scarcely felt a tremor from the Cott bomb. Biggest upheaval comes on Sunday when a long parade of shows--long on drama, short on comedy--presents big stars, e.g., Helen Hayes, Fredric March, Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer rotating on hosting NBC Star Playhouse, Sir Laurence Olivier in The Royal Theater, Jimmy Stewart in Six Shooter, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in The Marriage. The most original of the 28:

Weekend (Sun. 4 p.m.) splices together a lot of tape and reels it out as a two-hour "Sunday newspaper of the air." Its 15-minute "pages" cover everything from world news to criticism of the arts, call in some well-known name droppers. Tex McCrary interviews celebrities, and Jinx runs a woman's page, Mel Allen talks sports, Elmo Roper talks trends, Florabel Muir (see PRESS) gushes from Hollywood, Earl Wilson gives Broadway lowdown. Weekend is almost overwhelming in its volume and variety, but a generally relaxed manner and skillful transitions make it well worth hearing.

Stroke of Fate (Sun. 9 p.m.) poses some intriguing iffy questions about history. First question: "What might have happened if Robert E. Lee had accepted Lincoln's offer to command the Union Army?" After consultation with Columbia Historian Allan Nevins, veteran Radio-TV Writer Mort Lewis decided that Lee's generalship would have ended the Civil War two years sooner, thus leading to an earlier assassination of Lincoln and Lee's election as President. Other Stroke of Fate teasers: Suppose Montcalm had defeated Wolfe at Quebec, Hamilton had killed Burr in their duel, Hitler had been killed in the Munich beer-hall Putsch? The program's solid grounding in historical fact (Nevins and Historian Stefan Lorant are regular advisers) and able dramatizations give it plausibility and high marks for entertainment.

Last Man Out (Sun. 10 p.m.) is the brain child of Richard English, an ex-prizefighter turned highly successful magazine writer, who wants to get the last man out of the Communist Party--"the man America needs most." As English explained on his first program: "When a drunk quits, he can go to Alcoholics Anonymous; when a Commie gets out, he has no place to go. Maybe this program can do something about that." By interviews and dramatizations, the experiences of ex-Communists are recounted in a quietly believable, non-melodramatic way. English has signed up a long list of ex-Reds, including Elizabeth Bentley and Movie Director Edward Dmytryk (one of the "Hollywood Ten" who quit the party in 1951). He has high hopes for the show: "I want the sleeper, the guy who will quit. He's my man. I'm trying to show him his mistake and make him get out before it's too late . . ."

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