BLOG 4 PAINTED DREAMS & HAWKINS FALLS
THE MUSEUM OF TELEVISION & RADIO WORLDS WITHOUT END THE ART & HISTORY OF THE SOAP OPERA (1997) Harry N. Abrams, Inc. The Soap Opera on Television Despite the success of the serial in magazine publishing, at the movies, and on radio, there was still resistance by television execs to use the form. One of the visionaries of early television, NBC president Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, felt the radio technique woudn't work in a visual medium because there was higher absorption and greater tension demands on television. Although prime-time entertainment was successful in 1948 with Milton Berle vaudeville on television; it took three more years for the soap opera to make a successful jump.
The DuMont producer David P. Lewis, searched for daytime drama that would allow the housewife "to turn away and go on peeling potatoes or knitting." Even Irna Phillips failed in her initial attempt, a reworking of her first radio serial PAINTED DREAMS, because she made no concessions to the visual medium. One piece from Chicago, known for its realism, HAWKINS FALLS, ran three months in prime time and four years in the afternoon. Cocreator was Roy Winsor. Daytime Versus Early Prime Time Whatever the ultimate root of the critical prejudice against the television soap opera, it is interesting to note that it existed from the beginning, even when daytime and prime-time dramas were much closer in tone and style. During the fifties, daytime serial and live drama shared many of the same aesthetic values: both emphasized psychology of character and the power of the revelatory close-up; both employed actors who had training in the theater and writers working in the realistic tradition of the Broadway problem play; both were performed live