The Prince and the Pauper: For its one-night stand on the DuPont show, CBS's 90-minute version of Mark Twain's soufflé of make-believe, abounded in virtues that spell "longrun" to Hollywood—a sumptuous production, an exciting, neatly organized story, topflight performances soundly directed. Producer David Susskind, searched seven weeks in the U.S. and abroad to find a pauper (Johnny Washbrook) to match Rex (The King and I) Thompson's prince, coddled his show through three weeks of rehearsal. Amid a staggering 19 sets, Director Daniel Petrie moved his cameras and 100 players with the fluidity of a movie. "We also put inordinate effort into the script," said Susskind, "on the outmoded theory that in the beginning was the word." Adapter Leslie Slote's words had dash and swagger, especially as wielded by Canadian Actor Christopher Plummer, the prince's droll derring-do-it-all.
Prince also had villainous intrigues, swashbuckling swordplay, brawls on bridges and effective vignettes of a dark, cruel 16th century England, e.g., a weepy woman waiting in a cell to hang for stealing a yard of yarn; a bandaged old man who lost his ears for criticizing the Lord Chancellor; and the prince's whipping boy, hardly bigger than the Great Seal used by the pauper to crack nuts in the palace. But the play's most memorable image was its gentlest: a lovely little girl (Patty Duke, 8) finding the tattered prince—by then the king—asleep in a haystack. The prince identified himself as "the king" and, while a tiny kitten pawed at her long tresses, she asked with disarming, grave eyes: "Oh, what king?"
"The King of England."
"Oh."
Pat Boone's Chevy Showroom: Some new 1958 cars got in the way on Singer Pat Boone's show, where Guest Bea Lillie was introduced as "the imitable." Bea showed plenty of mileage for an older model: she poked her thimble nose through big fluttering fans, slipped off the piano a time or two, tripped over her long chiffon scarf. With limp, well-scrubbed adoration, Pat said: "You sure deserve the reputation you have," to which worldly-wise Bea replied: "Thanks—I think." Before she got hopelessly boxed in a square dance, Comedienne Lillie, 59, and Singer Boone, 23, did a spritely spoof of country music called I Got Tears in My Ears from Lying on my Back in my Bed While I Cry Over You. But when Pat offered her a cup of coffee, Bea let out the awful truth about the rest of her host's show: "No thank you. Might keep me awake all through this."