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.
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.
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.
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.
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