WFLD CHICAGO'S 'JERRY G & COMPANY' PILOT INCLUDES CLIP FROM DE PALMA'S 'GREETINGS'
Last week, Rick Thomas posted to YouTube a pilot episode of WFLD-TV's Jerry G & Company. The episode, taped in Chicago on July 26, 1969, featured Gerrit Graham as a guest, with a clip (not featuring Graham) from Brian De Palma's Greetings. The segment begins at about the 33-minute mark, with host Jerry G saying, " I may be wrong, but this may be the first war in the history of this country, or any other, that is opposed by a significant vocal segment of the population, perhaps a war opposed by a majority-- and I say, perhaps..." Jerry G. introduces Graham by first presenting a clip of Robert De Niro from the end of Greetings, as a shorthand way to say that Graham is involved in this new film that shows America's youth opposing the war in Vietnam. Briefly discussing the film, Graham says, "Well, the director and the producer had a screenplay, scenario, and they knew more or less what they wanted out of the film. But we, the actors, wrote the script, if you like-- we improvised it. We made up the dialogue."
Jerry G. then introduces Loren Smith, a Northwestern University Law School Graduate (who would go on in later years to become a federal judge). Jerry G. reads a quote from Smith that states his position on the Vietnam war: "A hawk: a not-totally extinct bird." Graham tells Jerry G. that he is not by nature a political person. Even so, later on in the segment, Graham cannot help but passionately speak up when Smith states that "part of the solution has to be to tell the communist world that we will use force to gain political objectives"...
Gerrit Graham: Now you see, that's just where I disagree, and I just don't buy it. I don't suppose there's any political rhyme or reason to it-- as a matter of fact, I'm sure there isn't. But it just seems to me that the United States has taken upon itself an obligation which most of the world's peoples would just as soon they hadn't taken upon themselves. And I just... there doesn't seem, to me, to be any need for the United States to impose its political ethos on a country which up to that point was not a capitalist bastion.Loren: What?
Gerrit: Which is what they're trying to make it into.
Loren: I don't think we're trying to do that...
Updated: Monday, August 6, 2018 12:40 AM CDT
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