United Nations television film series

The idea for a series of television specials was inspired by an October 1963 incident in Dallas, Texas (a few weeks prior to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas) in which UN ambassador Adlai Stevenson II was physically assaulted by anti-UN protesters outside Dallas Memorial Auditorium after delivering a "UN Day" speech. At the time, American popular support for the UN, while still generally high, was beginning to drop slightly, and some conservative Republicans, including the 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, favored limiting U.S. involvement with the UN. Paul G. Hoffman, then the director of the UN Special Fund, believed that educating the American public about the work of the UN through television dramas would increase popular support for the organization. Ideas for the films came from the UN's own files. The office equipment company Xerox, then led by Joseph C. Wilson, agreed to donate $4 million in funding, The original plan envisioned six television specials — essentially made-for-TV movies, although that term did not come into use until October 1964 In order to produce high-quality films without exceeding the amount of the Xerox grant, Telsun sought to have well-known producers, directors, writers and actors work for free, or union scale. Early publicity listed filmmakers Peter Glenville, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Joseph Mankiewicz, Otto Preminger, Robert Rossen, George Sidney, Sam Spiegel, Terence Young, and Fred Zinnemann as being involved with the project. Of those named, only Mankiewicz, Sidney and Young completed films for broadcast, while Spiegel produced a partial film that was never completed. Some notable exceptions included Peter Sellers, who, seeking a small project after his near-fatal heart attack, appeared in A Carol for Another Christmas for the $350 Screen Actors Guild minimum instead of his usual $750,000 fee; Sterling Hayden, who turned down a competing $50,000 offer in order to appear in Carol at $350 per week; Consequently, the four programs that aired were all broadcast on ABC. ==Individual films broadcast in the series==

The individual films that were broadcast on ABC as part of the series are listed below. ==Unfinished fifth film==

Production was started on a fifth film entitled The Kashmir Story, produced by Sam Spiegel and written by Nunnally Johnson, focusing on UN peacekeeping efforts along the India-Pakistan border. However, during 1965, production was repeatedly postponed due to armed conflict between the two countries regarding the status of disputed Kashmir territory. By the end of 1965, Spiegel had moved on to other projects and production was never resumed. ==Reception==

Political controversy In July 1964, after the upcoming series had been publicized but before any programs had aired, the right-wing John Birch Society launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at sponsor Xerox with the goal of suppressing the series. In the Society's bulletin, its national director of public information, John Rousselot, called for a "flood of 50,000 to 100,000 letters of protest". Although the John Birch Society was unsuccessful in suppressing the series entirely, CBS recognized that "there is, whether we like it or not, a substantial segment of the American population which is opposed to the U.N." Critics' response The four films that aired received mixed reviews. For the first two films, some critics praised the productions, while others felt that the theme of support for the UN was presented in a heavy-handed, moralistic manner that detracted from the dramatic value. New York Times critic Jack Gould wrote a sharply negative review of the series premiere A Carol for Another Christmas, The second film, Who Has Seen the Wind?, was considered a "soap opera" by some critics, with Gould calling it "Peyton Place on a raft". By the third film, the screwball comedy Once Upon a Tractor, the promotional information about the UN had been made more subtle, causing at least one critic to complain that this approach was less likely than the previous polemical style to convert viewers opposed to the UN. Tractor was also criticized for having a weak and unbelievable script. and re-used some Bond film elements in Poppy. In its television form, Poppy received good reviews from UPI television critic Rick DuBrow and Variety, but was criticized by others as heavy-handed, stereotypical, and "a very long, confusing bore". Its theatrical release version was severely panned by Time as "another James Bond movie filmed without James Bond, and many will wish it had been filmed without film". Time further noted that the film was developed "from an idea proposed by author Ian Fleming, who mercifully died before he could see what happened to it." ''Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide deemed it an "[i]ncredibly bad anti-drug feature", saying that its "[a]cting is downright poor at times." resulting in one win by Eli Wallach for "Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Drama" in The Poppy Is Also a Flower''. In a December 1965 New York Times article discussing the postponement of the planned fifth film due to hostilities in the filming location, Val Adams observed, "Some professional television critics, writing sympathetically of the purpose behind the series, said that theatrically it was dogged by misfortune." Audience response A Roper poll taken after the first two films were broadcast found that approximately one in five adult Americans had watched at least part of one film. However, following the broadcast of the first three films, an Associated Press story stated that the series so far had "attracted neither the big audiences nor the critical acclaim that had been anticipated". ==Other films associated with the series==

According to TV historian Mitchell Hadley, Telsun also owned the U.S. distribution rights to Torre Nilsson's 1967 Argentine drama film ''Monday's Child (also known as La chica del lunes''), starring Arthur Kennedy and Geraldine Page. The film tells the story of an American family working on a flood relief effort in Puerto Rico who go searching for the daughter's doll that was donated to refugees. Hadley has suggested that this film might have been originally planned as part of the UN series. ==See also==