Alcoa Theatre (TV Series) Christabel (1959) User Reviews

Truly awful...and practically unwatchable.

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 16 February 2024]

"Christabel" is an installment of "Alcoa Theatre" that was based on James Thurber's life. If this sounds familiar, William Windom starred in "My World and Welcome to It" is pretty much the same thing...except for one important thing. This later series was good..."Christabel" sucks!

Arthur O'Connell stars as John Monroe...a euphemism for James Thurber. He is a writer and illustrator who has a wife and daughter. James is a grouch...and his wife and daughter are pretty nasty. Why do I say this? The wife and daughter ask James for another dog but he responds no...since they already have a dog. Their reactions were rather mean spirited...with the daughter telling him she hates him. It softens a bit later...but by then, who cares.

There are TWO huge problems with this show. First and foremost, whoever was responsible for using the laugh track should be ashamed of themselves, as it's used way too much and even when what's being said isn't the least bit funny. Second, the show isn't the least bit funny.

I strongly suspect "Christabel" was actually an unsold pilot episode for a proposed and rejected series. And, to recoup costs, they dumped it into the weekly lineup for "Alcoa Theatre"...a normally GOOD show.

Barking up the wrong tree

[lor_ · 3 October 2023]

This James Thurber adaptation for Alcoa Theatre has dated badly, from its unnecessary (and counter-productive) laugh track and script full of homilies by writer Mel Shavelson, to the soggy sentimentality in the final stages of the show. Laughably marketed decades later as the "Golden Age of Television", it stands as an extreme example of what used to constitute family entertainment.

I was sick of Arthur O'Connell sort of portraying Thurber, as a cartoonist for a New York magazine whose life seems to revolve around his pesky dogs, pets beloved by his too lovable daughter Susan Gordon (her presence is an acquired taste, familiar to most of us genre fans for her roles in her dad Bert I. Gordon's cheapie sci-fi/horror movies).

Georgann Johnson is fine as his wife, but the mawkish, corny content is unbearably saccharine to watch, especially having O'Connell constantly talking to the camera with his unfunny one-liners. The edge of say, a Rodney Dangerfield, is completely absent.

Christabel is a black pet poodle, and the show climaxes after its death with the three stars alternating reading the heartfelt eulogy written to the doggie by O'Connell as Thurber. It can't save the forgettable show, which makes "Leave It to Beaver" seem like Paddy Chayefsky by comparison.