''Storyteller'' - ??

1953 · Miller-Levin Productions

The antithesis of 2010s television, an early 1950s series in which Marvin Miller would tell us a story. This was a 15-minute series. In this episode, Miller tells us the story of the downfall of Max Shinburn, notorious criminal. This is so low-budget, they didn't do a retake when the camera went out of focus for about 40 seconds. I cannot find any record in newspapers of this series having aired. Yet Miller refers to a previous episode and mentions the subject matter of the next episode. A publication called "Broadcasting" reported in 1953: "Miller-Levin Productions Inc, Hollywood, has started shooting 13 quarter-hour films of Marvin Miller, Story Teller, at Screenscraft Film Enterprises, same city. Irvin B. Levin is producer-director, with Mr. Miller as writer". Yet strangely, I found this to be an interesting experiment. Marvin Miller is a good story teller, and the story itself is interesting. Actually, the concept of this series (somebody reading a story) had been done before in another country: "Saturday-Night Story" aired from 1948 to 1953 on the BBC in Britain, and the concept didn't end in 1953 either, as "Telestory" aired on ATN-7 in Sydney, Australia from 1961 to 1962. The success of the BBC series suggests the concept was viable under the right conditions. At the time, 15-minute series usually were 12-13 minutes, so this episode is unusually short.