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The Richest Man in Bogota

2/7/2014

24 Comments

 
Though I generally make a practice of writing about a film shortly after I've seen it, with this post I'm making an exception.  In fact, it's a television program from nearly 52 years ago that aired two weeks after I turned nine years old.  The Dupont Show of the Week was an NBC production that ran for four years and won eight primetime Emmy awards.  Unlike programs with recurring characters, each episode was a discrete performance, and the content veered from adaptations of stage productions to documentaries.  Such anthology series were not uncommon in the fifties and early sixties; an earlier program, CBS's Playhouse 90, is perhaps the best-remembered of these broadcasts.

The Richest Man In Bogota, episode 28 of the first season of The Dupont Show of the Week, aired on Father's Day, June 17, 1962.  Based on the 1899 short story "The Country of the Blind" by H. G. Wells, Frank Gabrielson's teleplay was turned down by sponsors when first proposed five years earlier for being too bizarre for prime time television.  Only through the ministrations of television director Ralph Nelson, who six years earlier had helmed Rod Serling's award-winning Requiem For A Heavyweight for Playhouse 90, did the script finally see production.  As a condition for broadcast, the title of Wells' story was changed to the more palatable The Richest Man in Bogota.
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Gabrielson's script follows the strange adventure of Juan de Nunez (Lee Marvin), a prospector from Bogota, Colombia searching for uranium in the snow-capped mountains of his homeland. Trapped by an avalanche, he tumbles down a ravine and discovers a hidden valley inhabited by a race of people without eyes.  

Initially taking faith in the maxim, "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," de Nunez soon learns otherwise.  The words "eyes" and "sight" have no meaning in this world.  Reluctantly, he is forced to conform to the kingdom's strange beliefs, such as that their sightless community is the only world in existence.  

Convinced that de Nunez' vision is a source of evil, the villagers set out to "cure" him by gouging out his eyes.  Marina (Miriam Colon), the daughter of the group's powerful leader, manages to free him before he is blinded.  Together they attempt to escape their sightless pursuers.

Wells' original story was a caustic denunciation of the uneducated, unenlightened people of his era who, in his view, might as well be blind.  The eyeless villagers and their leaders live in ignorance of the outside world, just as the isolationists of Wells' era refused to see the turmoil beyond their own communities.  Screenwriter Gabrielson elaborated on this theme, providing the villagers with a book written by their once-sighted ancestors that explained why they were losing their vision and, eventually, their eyes.  Of course, such a book would be useless to those without eyes.

Originally broadcast in color, The Richest Man In Bogota exists today only as a black-and-white kinescope negative, with separate soundtrack, in the collection of the Library of Congress.  The 2009 release of the Criterion Collection's The Golden Age of Television DVD (which includes director Nelson's Requiem For A Heavyweight) offers a slight glimmer of hope that the kinescope for this unusual television adaptation might one day be made available.  

Special thanks to Tom Weaver and Marty Baumann for helping to match this distant memory with its title.


Also in this installment:  a revised review of Antonio Margheriti's La vergine di Noremberga (aka The Virgin of Nuremberg and Horror Castle) has been added to the Reviews section.
24 Comments
Bob Deveau link
9/3/2014 11:53:15 am

During the summer of 1962 my family drove from the East Coast to the West, and I vividly remember seeing what I later discovered was an adaptation of an H.G. Wells story called "The Country of the Blind" on a motel TV somewhere in the mid-West. As a ten year old, it scared the bejeezus out of me, but I've never been able to unearth the series or the episode. Until now. THANK YOU!!!

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R. Lapidus
9/29/2015 01:28:19 pm

Right!! I was slightly OLDER than you and beyond schlockly horror films and supposedly creepy TV adaptations of the macabre, THIS ONE scared me to no end...and I hadn't been afraid of any fantasy and/or horror since forever.

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Jill
12/6/2015 03:44:44 pm

Me, too! To this day, I will not watch scary movies. I had nightmares for years.

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Darryl Bailey
9/10/2014 02:10:22 pm

I remember seeing this episode, but for some reason, I thought it was the actor Richard Boone, this really moved me, and I too was nine years old, thanks for the clarification.

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Vickie Anthony
3/19/2015 12:33:25 pm

I remember watching this and had nightmares! Lol. I always thought the title was 'The Blind Man of Bogota". So glad I was able to find more info and the correct title!

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Bill Johnson
4/21/2015 06:43:35 am

I saw this with my Dad on TV when I was 10 and was fascinated by it. I have been looking for it on video since th creation of vhs/dvds. Wonderful show.

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charles washington link
11/26/2019 07:47:57 am

I WAS 8 YRS OLD WHEN I SAW THIS,IT HAS ALWAYS HAD A PLACE IN MY TV VIEWING IS THEIR ANY WAY TO VIEW IT OR GET A DVD, THANKS ALL (I'm NOT ALONE0

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Roger Olson
6/22/2015 03:51:37 am

Thanks, so much for publishing this. Doing the math, I must have been 11 years old and still remember it vividly, especially the villagers searching for Lee and calling him "Bogota'". For some reason I just decided to try and find this by googling "Lee Marvin Bogota blind" and found this while I'm near the end of "The 47th Samurai." Tragic that it hasn't been shown since.

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Linda Oliver link
10/25/2015 02:44:09 pm

I have thought of this tv program occasionally over the years, Bly remembering the title of it, and the idea of eyeless people, with Lee Marvin turning eyeless to the camera at the end. I must've been 12 when I saw it, going by the air date. I had no idea it was a metaphore for anything, but that makes sense. I would like to see it again someday, because for it to stick with me this long (I am now 65) it must've been good.

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John Somerville
2/7/2016 01:22:42 pm

I remember this when I was 8. I'm surprised it was in color. As I remember Lee Marvin's eyes were not gouged out at the end, he had the creepy "filled in" eye sockets like the girl in the photo.

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Chuck Watson
6/2/2016 10:28:34 am

I also remember seeing this with my parents when I was eleven. I vaguely remember the scene where they left the valley. I thought the title was The Valley of the Blind. I tried several times to find what show or movie I was remembering but didn't know what it was or what to look for. I finally located it today. I would love to see it again as I thought about it for years. It seems several people have similar memories. It must have been a powerful show to affect is this way after all these years.

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David
6/20/2016 08:41:00 am

I believe there is also a copy at the UCLA film archives. I would like to see all 70-something episodes of Dupont Show of the Week. I was very small when they aired, but I recall several of them. This one was definitely one of the eeriest.

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Bruce Berns link
11/10/2016 11:43:26 pm

I also saw this episode, waited and watched for a rerun that never came, and have asked hundreds of people if they ever saw it with no luck finding a fellow watcher. In 1970 I met with Lee Marvin at ABC studios in Los Angeles.I told him what an impact the play had on me. He mumbled a few words but acted like he had never heard of it!

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Chuck Watson
3/18/2018 01:36:22 pm

I also saw this with my parents. I was also nine years old. Some sections I remember well, like the way the girls eyes were covered, as in the picture. It was truly haunting. I have remembered it all my life and would love to see it again.

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JACK HODNETT
6/17/2018 07:18:38 am

I Cannot BELIEVE I'm finally finding out about this episode! I was only Five years old when it first aired, and I just remember pieces of it,but It made a huge and lasting memory for me I was all alone when I saw it, and it was just this Weird but very intriguing show.I always remembered it, and in my adult years I grasped the metaphoric meaning of it; it was all about NON CONFORMISTS forced to lie in a world of Follorers-of sheep, just copying everyone else, thinking, looking, acting the Same way as everone Else! Non conformity became extremely important to me right up to this day. I wasn't going to live in FEAR of not being who I really am...! was always determined to find out about the episode. and now, thanks to the web I finally CAN!. But the most amazing, flabbergasting thing about it is, that, her I am on this Father's day, first finding out about "the richest man in bogota" and I find out that it aired EXACTYL 57 YEARS AGO TODAY!! WHOA!! I shouldn't be surprised, thousands of similar Psychic things have happened to me over my Life. But its' still so thrilling to re-discover this lee marvin ( still one of my favorite actors) vehicles after all these decades! Than,ks so much for bringing this Special piece of art to Light once again...!Maybe others will see it and gain a new awareness, to SEE WITH THEIR OWN EYES..!

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Rick
2/14/2019 06:47:24 am

How strange that this film has made such an impression on me . I was fourteen and I remember little about it except for the eyes of the characters and Lee Marvin Maybe because it was so different from all the other films I had seen in my young life . Odd how some things just stick with you.

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Michael D. Gilmore
7/12/2019 07:49:26 pm

I watched this when I was 12 and it made a lasting impression on me. I have never forgotten it.

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Ruth Colaw
9/19/2019 10:32:23 am

I was babysitting in my junior year when I saw it and it scared me too! What a concept! To this day, I’m reminded at times. How odd to not know what sight is! Super memorable!

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charles washington link
11/26/2019 07:52:34 am

very fascinating film wish I could view it again

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Rudy
11/28/2019 05:56:38 pm

I saw it when I was 9 years old, Its too bad that its gathering dust somewhere I would really like to see it before I die

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Gregory J Conway
12/18/2019 05:57:44 pm

I was 8 and supposed to be asleep. I watched the whole show and it scared the hell out of me, especially the end. I had always thought it was an Outer Limits or Twilight Zone episode but could never find it listed. I even looked through One Step Beyond shows. Finally I just described the basic theme of the show in Google which led me to the H.G. Wells story and thus this picture which immediately brought back the 57 year old memories.

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TIM GOODRICH
2/19/2020 10:49:32 pm

This show has haunted me for years. I wasn't sure about it until seeing this website. I remembered bits and pieces of it and always remembered Lee Marvin as the main character in the story. My biggest take away is this: I'm not sure if I ever heard the name Bogota before hearing it in this show. So, from then on, every time I heard or saw the Bogota, it would inevitably remind of this. And still does.

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wes cooper link
7/25/2020 09:19:40 pm

Can this episode "The Richest Man In Bogota" be ordered?

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Mary Dellasega
7/29/2020 10:51:54 pm

I saw this when I was ten. I had a hard time persuading my parents to let me watch it to the end; they thought it was ridiculous. I remember vividly that the young woman was killed while they were trying to escape because the noise of his geiger counter gave them away. I think it was too weird for audiences then; it was probably only aired once.

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