TV REVIEWS : ‘The Bet,’ ‘Pro and Con’ Pay Off

You’ve heard the bromide that less is more ? “Alive TV” is showing what those words really mean.

“The Bet” is not only a sharp little movie about the power of obsession but also a terrific example of what a good filmmaker can do with only 20 minutes to tell a story.

Airing as the opening segment tonight of the experimental summer series “Alive TV” (at 10 on KCET-TV Channel 28), the movie is the cautionary tale of two brothers who own a New York deli. One of them (John B. Hickey) has dreams. The other (Josh Mosby) has a secret addiction--gambling--that threatens his life.

Written by Gavin O’Connor and directed by Ted Demme, “The Bet” is a primer in the potency of the short dramatic film. It’s also an example of what, in an ideal TV world, we could be seeing every night if imaginative work (hang the running time) were the measure and priority of TV drama.

The program’s second segment, which casts an oblique eye on the moral of “The Bet,” is an unusual genre: an animated documentary, using clay painting and puppet animation.

“Pro and Con,” directed and animated by Joanna Priestly and Joan Gratz, is a personal, eight-minute journey into prison life told from the point of view of a black female correctional officer (writer-narrator Janice Inman) and a 32-year-old white male inmate (writer Jeff Green) who’s been in jail most of his life.

Echoing the earlier point by Inman’s female guard that institutional incarceration “is still in the dark ages,” an animated image of Green’s face pressed against his bars intones the theme of the piece:

“Years and years in a destructive environment like a prison does more harm than good. Just the thought of getting out scares me.”