New Blood

The Brooch, a typically grim little short story by Novelist William Faulkner (Sanctuary, Intruder in the Dust), tells of a young man who married the town tramp to escape his possessive mother. It ends with the young man committing suicide. Last week The Brooch appeared on Lux Video Theater (Thurs. 9 p.m., CBS) in a TV adaptation written by Author Faulkner. Some changes had been made: the young man no longer kills himself, and his wife is no longer a tramp. The story emerged as a perfectly adequate but hardly startling half-hour's TV entertainment, starring Dan Duryea, Sally Forrest and Mildred Natwick.

Producer Calvin Kuhl used the Faulkner play to signalize the switch of the Video Theater from Mondays to Thursdays. He is enthusiastic about Faulkner as a new TV writer, and paid him for his script one of the highest prices (undisclosed) in the three-year history of Lux Video Theater. Kuhl first met Faulkner last fall, when the novelist came to Manhattan on a visit and said he was interested in television. They talked for half an hour: "Most of the time, Faulkner just asked questions about sets, time lapses, costume changes, camera techniques. He was more concerned about how it was done than in content." After reading a number of Faulkner short stories, Kuhl finally selected The Brooch as the likeliest candidate: "You'd say to yourself, 'God, that's an impossible thing to tackle,' but then you'd turn to the next story and that was worse."

Kuhl handed Faulkner a page and a half of Lux-inspired suggestions for tidying up the characters and the plot. In four days Faulkner was back with a script. Says Kuhl: "There were some wonderful lines in it, but they would have offended." After two more tries, Faulkner turned m a script that could be certified pure enough for TV. Kuhl is eager to do more Faulkner stories and even hopes the novelist can be tempted to write some originals. How did Faulkner himself like the TV version of The Brooch? Says Kuhl: "I talked to him right after the show, and he said he liked it fine. But some of his friends didn't. One of them asked him: 'Why did you do this?' Faulkner looked at him steadily and said: 'For money.' "

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.