DESILU

I recently reread a good book on Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, and their film/television studio, Desilu. It was only two years ago that I first read Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (written by Coyne Steven Sanders and Tom Gilbert). Because this book is rich in detail, it could be reread more than once... which makes it worth buying.

When reading Desilu, I was really impressed at how seriously Americans take the whole business of film and television production. As the book is about the studio as much as it is about the husband and wife team -- Ball was a talented weirdo, Arnaz was a brilliant, but often inebriated, studio executive -- the pages within have more than a few dollars and cents figures. Even without these amounts adjusted for inflation and production inflation, it is striking to the reader how much cash was put into the studio's various television pilots... back in the day when pilots were still made; before soaring production costs eventually made them go the way of the dodo bird. Most of these pilot shows didn't succeed in selling the network on a regular series, but to American producers and studio execs, monetary investment was, and is, part of the game -- or the foundation of the game. You have to spend money to make money, and you have to keep it circulating. It's an important part of the machinery. Make product, lots of it, and some people will watch. It is one big crap shoot, but boy, oh boy, you can just hear those dice a rollin'!

Here in Canada, we play Monopoly...