OPEN END WITH DAVID SUSSKIND:"THE MOVIE MAKERS"
1960-10-02, WNTA, 168 min.
David Susskind, George Cukor, Jerry Wald, Greer Garson, Fred Zinnemann, Daniel Taradash, Richard Brooks, Gary Rutowski, Phil Gries
                 October 14, 1958 - August 13, 1961
OPEN END with David Susskind: (WNTA Channel 13 Television)

                  September 10, 1961-May 5, 1963
OPEN END with David Susskind (WNEW Channel 5 Television)

June 9, 1963 last show of the season broadcast on WPIX TV.

                October 13, 1963-September 18, 1966
OPEN END with David Susskind (WPIX Channel 11 Television)

                October 2, 1966-September, 1986
DAVID SUSSKIND SHOW (SYNDICATED, PBS, and COMMERCIAL STATIONS, including WNEW, New York). 


OPEN END with David Susskind: (WNTA Channel 13 Television)

                          "THE MOVIE MAKERS"

Open End with David Susskind was a break through talk show which literally had no time limit. The show ended when host, moderator David Susskind felt all conversation points were discussed. Some of these marathon telecasts lasted over four hours!. 

The series premiered on WNTA Channel 13 in New York for three years, an independent broadcast station, before it would become a Public Broadcast Station in 1962. A myriad of talk show guests, famous, infamous and unknown, found a forum on OPEN END. Subjects varied focusing on usually one topic...show business, politics, the economy, sex, education, crime, etc. Typically, many guests would discuss a subject sitting around a large table with David Susskind moderating, leading his guests with baited questions. For the first three years, of its 26 year existence as a regular series, WNTA TV was home to OPEN END which originally began its broadcasts on Tuesday nights, switching on January 18, 1959 to Sunday nights...a future Sunday evening time slot of the week where it would remain until 1986, for the rest of its run. The OPEN END with David Susskind Show also found syndication across the country and each market would run the program at different time at their own discretion. 

Most all of the telecasts were recorded on video tape, 2" quadruplex. Most shows were kept for a year or two like THE MOVIE MAKERS broadcast which was re-run on August 6, 1961 almost a year after it was first telecast on October 2, 1960. By this time the show ran for a finite three hours long. Thus the re-run of the MOVIE MAKERS had some footage deleted from its original telecast which aired for over 3 hours & 30 minutes,  2 hours & 48 minutes sans commercials.

The re-run of "THE MOVIE MAKERS" was the next to last broadcast telecast on WNTA channel 13. On September 10, 1961 the show moved to WNEW Channel 5 METROMEDIA in New York, and its air time was reduced to a two hour show.  

Sadly, most all of OPEN END broadcasts, later re titled THE DAVID SUSSKIND SHOW, commencing with the Oct. 2, 1966 broadcast, were wiped (erased), destroyed, discarded...whereabouts unknown, representing most shows produced and telecast during the late 1950's, 1960's and early 1970's.

"THE MOVIE MAKERS" panel consisted of directors, Fred Zinnemann, Richard Brooks, George Cukor, writer / producer Jerry Wald and screen writer Daniel Taradash. The round table discussion is lively and continued for almost three hours, sans commercials, many topics and anecdotal stories are exchanged. Discussion related to critics, the picture making business of today and yesterday, technical financial challenges of the day, budgets, the independent film making movement, working methods, the motion picture code, the black list, stars of tomorrow, new wave cinema, and commentary related to Hollywood legends, past and present, including  D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Jerry Lewis, John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, Humphrey Bogart, and so many others.

One unexpected highlight on this show is the inclusion of actress Greer Garson who can be heard in the studio, and at one point comes to the round-table and serves sandwiches to the panel, where Susskind and the panel start to inject their own humor related to this gesture.

NOTE: This broadcast was discovered by archivist / scholar, Gary Rutowski (www.savetv.tv) in the form of six two sided 10" acetate discs. Eleven sides were cut. Each side plays for approximately 15 minutes. The discs were recorded by Soundcraft, at the request of guest panelist, Daniel Taradash, who paid for this service. Soundcraft was a duplication company with headquarters located  in New York City at the time. The acetates were recorded at 33 &1/3rpm.

Phil Gries cleaned, restored and digitized the acetates in December of 2018. The ten hour process required some equalization, slight volume adjustments, elimination of occasional unwanted extraneous recorded content, occasional moderate unwanted electronic "noise," host David Susskind lead ins to commercial breaks (ten) and four additional edits eliminating gaps, clicks, and chatter. Thus, segues from one disc side to another, eleven in all, were created producing a listening flow as a complete program which never goes to commercial.  

This rare example of a very early OPEN END with David Susskind broadcast is an historic and important television audio air check, now archived and preserved in digital form, reprocessed with continuity by Phil Gries (all extraneous audio eliminated), for the first time in six decades. It is considered one of the oldest surviving OPEN END complete broadcasts, extant.