One Man's Family

[DRW50]

Thank you to saynotoursoap. I didn't think I'd ever see any of the TV version of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkYx66j0rMU&feature=channel&list=UL

[Bright Eyes]

The twins' relationship kind of irked me as until the first swimming scene I thought they were a couple. But both were very attractive and likable.

I love that Hilda had to hop the fence with Bill turned away.

However, the beginning narration was an odd choice. I guess they were still in the radio mindset.

Edited July 9, 2012 by Bright Eyes

[DRW50]

I know what you mean about the twins. The lady was Eva Marie Saint.

I loved the feel of this episode - a lazy family outing, yet with real life problems still under the surface. It just felt so natural.

I had to laugh when they were called "the best dressed" show on TV. I don't know what that is supposed to mean.

[saynotoursoap]

Thanks to Carl and Bright Eyes for watching. Sometimes I feel no one will watch some of the material I upload. It is nice to know that it is viewed and appreciated.

Carl, I believe that the "best dressed show' originated from the fact that many early programs required actors to wear their own clothes. One Man's Family was one of the first to have its wardrobe provided by a boutique. In this case, Lord and Taylor exclusively dressed the cast.

[DRW50]

I wondered what that was about. It was just kind of ironic considering the way the characters were dressed.

The show seems a lot different than most of the other soaps I've seen from this time period. They would probably say, "We're a family drama."

It's too bad more isn't written about the show's success and why it didn't last on TV.

Was Eva Marie Saint there for the entire TV run?

[DRW50]

April 1955 TV Radio Mirror

[soapfan770]

Going through down memory lane on old posts here in cancelled soaps now that I have access again to an old computer makes it more fun. 

 

I've used Matt P. Smith's Soap Opera History write-ups for other soaps both short-lived and long-lived but noticed I hadn't shared one for this soap: 

 

[SoapDope]

Someone posted on IMDB stating that this soap was reran on one of their local channels as late as 2002-2003 ?

[soapfan770]

I'd believe it given some local channels have often aired forgotten public domain from the early 50's for years (see "I Married Joan" or "My Little Margie" as the best examples). 

[DRW50]

An episode I don't think I've seen floating around. 

 

Please register in order to view this content

 

This one has been around for a while, in various places.

 

 

[DRW50]

I can't remember if this one has been around before or not. 

 

@slick jones if it hasn't, this one has a cast crawl that might help you.

 

Please register in order to view this content

 

[slick jones]

Thanks @DRW50

[DRW50]

Don't think I'd ever seen this one. That Hazel is a trip, especially the mirror scene. 

@Paul Raven @dc11786 @soapfan770 @victoria foxton @Vee @slick jones @SoapDope

 

Please register in order to view this content

 

[Paul Raven]

This review is of the primetime version. 

Detroit Free Press Detroit, Michigan 28 Mar 1950,

Watch Out, Hazel! He's Up To No Good

As radio .serials go, "One Man's Family" is as quiet as a country churchyard. That is to say the Barbour family, whose lives have ljeen chronicled in "One Man's Family" for 18 long years, is less than ordinarily afflicted by murder, disease, bankruptcy, embezzlement, illegitimate children, lnsanity, illicit passion, and insanity the normal lot of  most soap-opera families.  But soap-opera standards are rather different from any other standards. The fact that the Barbours are less lurid than other radio serial families doesn't mean that nothing ever HAPPENS to them.

Let's see now: Clifford Barbour has lost two wives one in childbirth, another in an automotive accident, Claudia nad Hazel Barbour have had a couple or husbands apiece. I'm rather confused about Hazel it's not easy to keep her matrimonial affairs straight here but I think Hazel is now on her way to a third husband or a Fate Worse Than Death. (Matters were still up in the air when I left Hazel last week.) CLAUDIA'S first husband, who was Joan's father, died of pneumonia. Hazel's first husband was an amnesia victim of the first World War and died years ago. During the Second World War, Claudia and her second husband, Nicholas, and their two youngest children were torpedoed at sea. They were picked up by a German submarine and landed in a concentration camp where their youngest child died. So, you see, life isn't precisely torpid around the Barbour household.

Last fall, "One Man's Family" Father and Mother Barbour, and Paul, Hazel, Claudia, Clifford and Jack, started existence reasonably afresh on television. I'll bring you up to date on Claudia and Hazel, but you'll have to do your own research on the rest of the mob. I haven't space. ' . CLAUDIA NOW has a new husband named Johnny, who finds the Barbour clan overpowering. (And I don't blame him.) Johnny is carrying on with a babe named Judith Richardson, who is up to no good. And Claudia, poor child, is expecting a baby she doesn't want because she fears it will drive her husband right into Judith s waiting arms. (Johnny wants to be free. Free, I tell you!)

And Hazel? Well, Hazel is on a ship on her way to Honolulu. Last time I saw her, she was being powerfully attracted to a tall, dark and handsome character. I don't trust him. He wreathes white flowers into her hair and murmurs into her ear that no man can get anywhere with a woman until he understands her emotional, problems. Also, he's an artist. And you know those people.  Watch your step, Hazel. Don't ask me what happened to the second husbands of Hazel and Claudia. I don't know and I don't care.

FRANKLY, I find the Barbour family extremely tiresome. The program's merits on radio were never more than relative. On television the threadbare people, the threadbare situations, are glaring examples of how not to write television drama. The action and the direction are conducted on a note of sustained hysteria that passed fairly unnoticed in radio, but seems totally out of place in television. The most exasperating of all the Barbours, and conceivably the most irritating character ever created is Paul Barbour. It has been Paul's duty these 18 years to comfort the Barbours, to observe that a girl must be brave in periods of stress, that honesty is a good thing and that stealing is wrong.

So much for the Barbours. I'm going out to get drunk as a form of social protest. And don't you go lecturing me about the evils of drink, Paul Barbour. I know more about the evils of drink than all seven of you Barbours.

[DRW50]

Rest in peace, Barbra Fuller.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/barbra-fuller-dead-republic-pictures-one-mans-family-1235903503/