East Side/West Side

"East Side/West Side" was a beautiful series that became a one season experiment that ran for 26 episodes on CBS from September 23,1963 to April 27,1964 that filmed on ___location in New York and in black & white. This was an grand one run experiment that was absolutely brilliant in every aspect and in every grand detail. It came out at a period where America was at a crossroads within itself and also a tumultuous time period where the issues were confronted---the years 1963 and 1964.

The years 1963-1964 were conflicts of turmoil with the escalating violence the occur with the issues of racial prejudice and discrimination in the South,the encompassing of the death of JFK,the passing of the Civil Rights Bill,the senseless killings of three Civil Rights workers in Mississippi,the bombing of three African-Americans on a bloody Sunday in Alabama and the senseless race riots that engulfed the Southern states and not to mention the escalation of the fighting and the opposing of the war in Vietnam. All of this occur within a single season during the show's run and it was just that--- A gruesome chapter in American History.

The series starred the great George C. Scott in his first and only television series. Scott played a social worker in Manhattan,while Cicely Tyson played his secretary,and before they softened the series,or before the series went off the air toward its own whimsy,they changed the course of television into a whole new agenda by looking at the way America looked at itself---ashamed at the way people are depicted here and the way society uses them as a pawn in life's uncrueled world. But the series offer some very controversial material that was ahead of its time when showed the social status of a nation in constant turmoil. The series,however was filmed on ___location in New York City and shot in grainy black and white with ___location shoots within the burrows of Manhattan,Queens,Bronx,Staten Island,Brooklyn,and Yonkers.

These episodes haven't been seen in almost 40 years,but there are four that really stick out that are totally spellbinding and brilliant in detail including two that were totally blocked in the Southern states of Georgia,Alabama,Tennessee,Mississippi,and South Carolina,but it is vital that the other two are worth seeing..........

1. Social Services takes away the child of a prostitute,who was portrayed as a devoted mother--her grief was seismic.

2. A mentally retarded adult is charged with the molestation of a young child and the father is to blame for the son's mistake.

3. A young black father who loses a baby to a rat's attack gets a weapon and wanders through Harlem looking for someone to kill.(This episode was totally blocked-out in four Southern states--hasn't been seen since its original broadcast more than 40 years ago)

4. A middle-class black couple moving to the suburbs sets off a calculated real-estate stampede,and even the liberal whites who sponsored them finally rebukes them.(This episode was totally blocked-out in four Southern states also hasn't been seen since its original broadcast more than 40 years ago)

5. A young teenager decides to kill himself after his parents find out that he is committing suicide----on the top of an apartment building.

NOTE: The guest stars ranged from Carroll O'Connor, Norman Fell, Howard Silva, Maureen Stapleton, Alex Cord, Ruby Dee, James Earl Jones, to Beah Richards, Raymond St. Jacques, Simon Oakland, Daniel J. Travanti, and Brock Peters. It won the prime-time Emmy in 1964 for Best Original Drama series even though it lasted one season.

I have nurtured a fond memory of George C Scott's performances in East Side/ West Side since I first watched the series over 40 years ago. Although I obviously recall its power through the prism of nostalgia, I would definitely love to see some of the episodes again. I now live in the CBD of an Australian city, nowhere near as animated as the Big Apple of course, but ES/WS has local resonances for what it is like to interact with the homeless and disadvantaged on a daily basis, and to engage in their stories.I have noted somewhere on this site that old episodes have been digitally restored and available somewhere, but I guess I will be unlikely to follow this through, preferring to wait for an archival DVD production.

Apparently , the early nineteen sixties was one of the under appreciated eras of TV history. It may not have been a " Golden age; but at least it was a silver one. It began with Newton Minow lamenting the fact that Television was a vast wasteland, it ( probably ) ended when Slattery's People left the airwaves for good. It was a period of interesting writing and of shows that were socially conscious without ( usually ) being preachy. While some of these programs are never rerun and are not even on DVD( Witness SLattery's People), East Side/West Side was actually rerun about seven years ago on the sadly departed TV network TRIO. Of course, It helped that East Side West Side starred a true legend of acting in George C. Scott. Unlike Slattery's People, which (usually) tried to be pretty optimistic, for all its ironic undercurrents, East Side West Side was gritty, melancholy and frequently downright depressing. I have only seen one full episode. I saw as part of a high school class on "Black America" It was the classic, widely banned, Who Do you Kill, with James Earl Jones. I still remember how well acted and written it was, and how utterly sad. Like Slattery's People, and (maybe) the even more obscure Channing, it deserves to be on DVD.

This was not George C. Scott's only television series, as someone stated elsewhere. While "East Side/West Side" is a brilliant drama with intelligent stories and an incredibly talented cast, George C. Scott was the lead in an abysmal FOX Channel series called "Mr. President" (1987). Both Mr. Scott and FOX would have liked to forget this programme.

Also, as far as "Naked City", that series often did not have neatly tied-up endings. Often, the endings were left deliberately ambiguous to make the audience think. While certainly not the poster child for civil rights programming, "Naked City" did show a multi-ethnic NYPD, and there were often Hispanic and African-American characters/actors with sizable parts in individual episodes. I can't say that the episode "The Contract", about Chinese-Americans and the conflict of cultures was the greatest representation of Asians on television -- especially with James Shigata, Khigh Dhiegh and Abraham Sofaer all playing Chinese -- but the characters were treated with respect, and not as stock figures.

Beautiful series-- a one-season long experiment that tried to reflect a tumultuous time-period (its single season encompassed JFK's death, the Civil Rights Bill, killings of Civil Rights workers in Alabama, escalation of fighting in Vietnam). George C. Scott played a social worker in Manhattan, Cicely Tyson his secretary, and before they softened the series toward the end toward whimsey, they produced at least three episodes that have stuck in my head for nearly 40 years: 1. social services take-away the child of a prostitute, who was portrayed as a devoted mother-- her grief was seismic; 2. a young black father who loses a baby to a rat's attack gets a weapon and wanders through Harlem looking for someone to kill; 3. a middle-class black couple moving to the suburbs sets off a calculated real-estate stampede, and even the liberal whites who sponsored them finally rebukes them. The second of these episodes was blocked-out in Georgia-- am surprised we got to see the other two; criticism at the time inevitably used the killing word "grim". Actors were drawn from the NY casting-pool, and shooting was done in the streets of the city.