Our Private World

[slick jones]

Actor Chris Gampel was Dr. Taylor. You may recall him from All My Children as Dr. Anatole Karras, Dr. Christina Karras Martin's father in flashbacks in 1977 or 1978.

 

[Paul Raven]

Found some photos from the first episode where Lisa boards the train to Chicago.

 

 

 

 

[te.]

It's funny how the basic premise of this show mirrors the suggested spin-off for Peyton Place at the time - break out character Betty left for New York after her failed marriage to Rodney and that was supposed to be the show. Of course, it ended up playing out on screen on Peyton Place and Betty returning to the small city, but it makes you wonder if the writers for Our Private World heard about it and decided to take it for themselves. Then again, it's not exactly the most original concept lol

[wonderwoman1951]

not surprising at all since irna phillips, who wrote ‘our private world,’ was involved in the development of peyton place.

[danfling]

The show (Peyton Place) had originally been envisioned as an anthology series about the various citizens of the town.   Irna Phillips thought that it should have been a serial and persuaded Paul Monash as much.  Robert J. Shaw, the co-writer of Our Private World, was a frequent writer of Peyton Place episodes (particularly during the first season).

Edited September 19, 2021 by danfling

[wonderwoman1951]

according to his emmy legends interview, when douglas cramer (who had been a supervising producer@atwt) came to new program development @ abc, he approached irna phillips about creating a nightly drama series. pgp said no and cramer turned to ‘peyton place.,’ hoping irna would write the serial. but abc wanted monash, who had written a well-received episode of ‘the untouchables.’

monash hated the idea of pp as a soap; it was he who called it ‘a high class anthology drama.’ since monash had no idea how to serialize a story, cramer brought irna on as a consultant. reportedly, the relationship between irna and monash was, shall we say, less than collegial.

[danfling]

The spin-off show from Peyton Place is mentioned above.    It was, as my memory recalls, to be called The Girl from Peyton Place and was to star Barbara Parkins as Betty Anderson Harrington Cord.    

I tend to think that the spin-off show came during the latter part of the run of Peyton Place, and that Our Private World had probably already been cancelled.    I could be wrong, but this is what I tend to beleive.

[Paul Raven]

Danfling. The Girl from Peyton Place came about early in the show's run and episodes were shown on PP when Betty went to New York.

The spin off was set but then for whatever reason the decision was made to expand PP to 3 nights a week rather than use the 3rd night for the new show.

Have a read through the Peyton Place thread for more detail.

[danfling]

Thank you.    I had been thinking that the spin-off was planned later during the run of Peyton Place.

[Paul Raven]

The TV Guide review June 26 1965

CBS, which was no network to take ABC’s Peyton Place lying down,has come up with a new twice-weekly nighttime, or rather, nightmare, version of its 10-year-old daytime serial As the World Turns. Some time ago, in a burst of enthusiasm, CBS publicity proudly noted that the amount of time As the World Turns had been on the air was equal to 500 motion pictures the length of “Cleopatra.” And, if that statistic wasn’t enough— and it wasn’t—they added that the scripts used by the program since its debut could reach a height of more than 411 feet.

They did not, however, mention their depth, and in this respect, at least, we think they were wise. However much depth As the World Turns may have had in the daytime, Our Private World at night has—you can bet on this—less. In fact, if it weren’t for repeating everything twice, we don’t think they’d be on twice a week. We recall one conversation which went as follows: “All the man said was, ‘Can I help?’ And do you know “what I wanted to do? I wanted to murder him. Because he couldn’t help. Does that make sense? ‘Can I help you?’ That’s all he said. And I hate him.”

Created—you will pardon the expression—by Irna Phillips and William Bell, Our Private World is based on the efforts of a young divorcee, Lisa Hughes (Eileen Fulton), to turn over a new leaf in Chicago. For this task she meets a girl named, aptly enough, Eve (Julienne Marie). The latter, meeting Lisa on her first day in her job in the admitting office of a Chicago hospital, says, “My friends call me Eve. I have hundreds of friends, you know. Will you call me Eve, friend?” Then, when Lisa asks, “Next of kin?” Eve sobs, “Nobody—nobody in this big, wide, wonderful, stinking world.” In the next script they have quite a talk about the word “admitting,” too, but we'll spare you that.

Anyway, you get the idea. Both Lisa and Eve have problems, the chief of which seems to be Eve’s family. Eve has two mother-dominated brothers and a mother herself, and if this show may be said to have a specialty, it is in its “Is there anything else, Mother?” scenes. The Eldredges, incidentally, are very rich. They pronounce everything very strangely, as if they were just about to sneeze— Mrs. Eldredge (Geraldine Fitzgerald), for example, pronounces “were,” “whirr”; and “words,” “weirds.” And honestly, when one of her sons says, “We're not as weird as we seem,” both words and weirds fail. Altogether it is the first show we’ve seen in a long time where literally nothing is good—the idea, the producing, the writing or the directing. As for the acting, it has to be seen to be believed —and, believe us, it shouldn’t be. The girls are bad and the boys are worse. One thing this show does, though. It makes Peyton Place look great. In fact, the only thing we cannot fault is the title, Our Private World. The mistake was in making it public.

[DRW50]

Thanks @Paul Raven . Given TV Guide's general contempt for soap in those years I'm not sure how much weight to put on their words but clearly the show didn't go over well.

[Paul Raven]

@DRW50 Cleveland Armory the TV Guide critic was quite acerbic, but yes, the general consensus was that OPW wasn't suitable for primetime. 

They didn't seem to make any allowances for nightime in terms of budget, pace, production etc.

Really would like to know what the thinking was. Maybe just to see if a cheap to produce daytime soap could work at night?

I believe initially there was talk of Edge of Night making the move to primetime in some form.

[DRW50]

I suppose they just thought they could coast on ATWT's popularity.

A primetime version of Edge of Night would have made more sense. 

Or even spinning off a different character, like Penny.

[Chris B]

It's been years since I've seen the one episode available, but I do recall it being pretty dull and it didn't seem like a primetime soap. It certainly didn't hold a candle to Peyton Place. It felt very cheaply made and was very slow. I'm not surprised it didn't work out.

[Avatar610]

Years later Nicolas Coster said in an interview how much more advanced "Peyton Place" was from a technical standpoint since it was shot on film and could get better angles as opposed to the much heavier TV cameras used for "Our Private World".  Also, the ABC series could use exteriors on the Fox lot as opposed to the CBS studio in mid-Manhattan.  

I think the odds are good that P&G held on to the videotapes and/or kinescopes since it was a primetime production.  I would love to see the entire series because of its unique place in soap history, and because how three decades later Doug Marland revisited Lisa's time with the Eldredge clan on ATWT with a delicious plot twist that shocked everyone in Oakdale!