Radio Recap: Academy Award Theater

Academy Award Theater was a CBS program that ran from March 30 to December 18, 1946. The series was sponsored by the House of Squibb, a pharmaceutical company. As the title suggests, the series was tied into the infamous Academy Awards, with adaptations of movies that had won (or been nominated) for an Academy Award. It was very much like Lux Radio Theatre but at a mere half-hour instead of hour-long adaptations.

Here's the full list of episodes:

• March 30: Jezebel with Bette Davis
  
• April 6: Kitty Foyle with Ginger Rogers
  
• April 13: The Story of Louis Pasteur with Paul Muni
  
• April 20: The Great McGinty with Brian Donlevy
  
• April 27: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  
• May 4: Stagecoach with Claire Trevor and Randolph Scott
  
• May 11: If I Were King with Ronald Colman
  
• May 18: My Sister Eileen with Rosalind Russell
  
• May 25: The Informer with Victor McLaughlin
  
• June 1: Arise, My Love with Ray Milland
  
• June 8: Ruggles of Red Gap with Charles Laughton and Charlie Ruggles
  
• June 15: Pride of the Marines with John Garfield
  
• June 22: The Front Page with Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien
  
• June 29: A Star Is Born with Fredric March
  
• July 3: The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet and Mary Astor
  
• July 10: Young Mr. Lincoln with Henry Fonda
  
• July 17: The Prisoner of Zenda with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
  
• July 24: Foreign Correspondent with Joseph Cotten (I blogged about this adaptation here.
  
• July 31: Hold Back the Dawn with Olivia de Havilland
  
• August 7: Watch on the Rhine with Paul Lukas
  
• August 14: Vivacious Lady with Lana Turner
  
• August 21: The Keys of the Kingdom with Gregory Peck
  
• August 28: One Sunday Afternoon with James Stewart
  
• September 4: Pinocchio
  
• September 11: Shadow of a Doubt with Joseph Cotten (I blogged about this adaptation here)
  
• September 18: The White Cliffs of Dover with Irene Dunne
  
• September 25: Guest in the House with Kirk Douglas
  
• October 2: My Man Godfrey with William Powell
  
• October 9: It Happened Tomorrow with Eddie Bracken
  
• October 16: Blood on the Sun with John Garfield
  
• October 23: The Devil and Miss Jones with Charles Coburn
  
• October 30: Suspicion with Cary Grant (I blogged about this adaptation here)
  
• November 6: Cheers for Miss Bishop with Olivia de Havilland
  
• November 13: Night Train to Munich with Rex Harrison
  
• November 20: Brief Encounter with Greer Garson
  
• November 27: Lost Horizon with Ronald Colman
  
• December 4: Portrait of Jennie with Joan Fontaine and John Lund
  
• December 11: The Enchanted Cottage with Peter Lawford
  
• December 18: Lost Angel with Margaret O'Brien

Some of the above featured the original stars; others most certainly did not. As I noted in my review of Foreign Correspondent, some adaptations changed the story. But the biggest thing that should surprise you about the list above is that some of the film titles never won or were even nominated for an Academy Award (notably the wonderful film Night Train to Munich and the final broadcast, Lost Angel).

But more than that we have an adaptation of Portrait of Jennie more than 2 years before the actual film was released! It hadn't even been filmed at the time! The announcer lamely ties the adaptation to the series by reminding audiences that Joan Fontaine had been nominated for an Academy Award once. Portrait of Jennie was produced by the tempermental David O. Selznick; I see its appearance on Academy Award Theater as the Academy simply bowing to his pressure to promote what he was certain would be his next great triumph. In fact, I might do a separate blog post about this adaptation because it's such a glaring exception.

Academy Award Theater boasted excellent production values and terrific casts. I think the extent to which a person enjoys the series will depend on their interest in the film being adapted. But I certainly recall that when I first heard the Informer it was more than a decade before I ever saw the film, but I still found the adaptation to be a very good piece of radio drama. I'm also very fond of the Maltese Falcon adaptation, the comedy/drama Ruggles of Red Gap and the excellent British thriller Night Train to Munich.

You can hear Academy Award Theater's entire show run on this YouTube playlist.

Radio Recap: The Adventures of Philip Marlowe

The Adventures of Philip Marlowe had a lengthy run on the radio. It began in 1947 as a summer replacement for Bob Hope on NBC, inheriting his sponsor Pepsodent. Van Heflin starred as Raymond Chandler's private detective and the first episode (an adaptation of Chandler's story "Red Wind") made a point of reminding listeners that they'd seen the character on the big screen several times (through the films Murder, My Sweet, the Big Sleep, Lady in the lake and the Brasher Doubloon). The series strove for fidelity to the source material but apparently Chandler didn't like it. It lasted for just 13 episodes; 3 of them still exist. Amazingly, one of the episodes ("King in Yellow") features a belligerant jazz musician who tussles with Heflin's Marlowe - and he was played by Gerald Mohr!

The series returned on CBS with Gerald Mohr assuming the lead role and lasted from 1948-1951 (Ford briefly sponsored it in 1950). Mohr would open each episode with the hard-boiled line: "Get this and get it straight: Crime is a sucker's road, and those who travel it end up in the gutter, the prison, or an early grave." Mohr had a terrific voice that was perfect for radio, a deep bass growl. Of course, he toiled as much in comedy as he did drama. I would say that Mohr's Adventures of Philip Marlowe wasn't quite as hard-boiled as Heflin's; it wasn't as farcical as the Adventures of Sam Spade but there was a light touch to the programs, particularly Marlowe's frequent desire to just be left alone so he can get some sleep.

Marlowe's entire supporting cast consisted of Lawrence Dobkin as Lt. Matthews, Marlowe's usual friend on the force. Dobkin was a great performer, but the casting on The Adventures of Philip Marlowe was so economical that he sometimes doubled up on roles in episodes (in one episode I think I heard him as three different characters). I was taken aback in one episode where Marlowe surprised a figure from behind; when the character spoke in Dobkin's voice I assumed that Marlowe would soon realize he'd made a mistake and accosted his friend Lt. Matthews. As it turned out, Dobkin didn't play Matthews in that episode.

The Adventures of Philip Marlowe was a fairly typical post-war private eye show, with Marlowe usually getting knocked unconscious once per episode (typically before the mid-act break). Still, it had a pretty consistent quality once Gerald Mohr took the lead role. It's hard to cite examples that are particularly notable but I'm fond of "the Last Laugh," involving a practical joker who arranges a mock reading of his will, then ends up dead.

The Old-Time Radio Researchers Group has a collection of the Adventures of Philip Marlowe on the Internet Archive.

Book Review: Death of Dignity

I recently purchased a copy of Victoria Brittain's 1998 book Death of Dignity: Angola's Civil War. The author was a reporter for the Guardian who visited Angola a few times in the 80s and 90s and I was interested to find a perspective about the country from that time period.

The book is slim, numbering only 100 pages plus a 10 page preface. The preface is what I'd hoped the rest of the book would be like - the author's personal experiences as a journalist in Angola, describing what she witnessed and what people told her. But that's not how the other 100 pages were presented; the book is primarily a history of Angola from 1975-1998. It's not really about Angolan society, or even Angolan politics; it's a book about international politics and how Angola was played like a football by various competing nations after it became independent.

The content is fine - I did pick up some interesting details here and there and particular timings of when things were announced versus when they were actually implemented that I hadn't found in other books. Otherwise, the information found in the book could be found in other titles; I was hoping the book would be something more personal and unique.

But while the content is fine, the manner in which it's relayed left me frustrated, and that's what I really want to write about. In the foreword, the author made it clear ther her book would not be "neutral" in tone but rather partisan. The author did not like the rebels and did not use any of its members' interviews in the book because "I have interviewed too many of them and seen too much of their suffering to listen to the lying justifications of those responsible."

She also promised in the foreword that "nor are there interviews with Western diplomats, the normal staple fare of Western journalists." Which is an odd hill to plant one's flag upon. She quoted Western diplomats all the time, featuring public quotes from the likes of Henry Kissinger, Chester Crocker and Margaret Antsee. She also quoted an official from the UN whom she didn't identify; either her source didn't attribute the quote or she contradicted herself? But why make the promise "I won't interview these people, but I will quote extensively from them?"

She emphasized that she did interview many Angolans and quoted them anonymously to protect them, but even there her interviewing is brief; if you added up all the interviews she conducted, it might account for 5 of the 100 pages. She quoted from the rebel's public statements very frequently, but at least she ascribed a portion of agency to them. Contrast that with her treatment of the government in quotes such as this, about the resumption of the civil war in early 1993: "The horror of how life had been reduced to a numb battle for survival in those among the MPLA leadership who never forgot it for a moment paid a heavy psychological prize as they agonised without being able to do anything." The government is written about as though they were, at best, passive.

I suppose what I really wanted was the author's personal experiences and interviews, not an opinionated guide through Angolan history. It's an angry book that is very particular to the time in which it was published (near the end of the war). But as a 1990s work of non-fiction on Angola, I found Karl Maier's book Angola: Promises and Lies - cited in Brittain's bibliography - a much better work.

Radio Recap: Les Miserables

Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables was adapted to radio in 1937 in a format similar to how television would later create it's own prestigious mini-series adaptations. It aired on Mutual from July 23-September 3, 1937. Starring as the novel's hero Jean Valjean (and as the book's narrator) was Orson Welles, buttressed by Martin Gabel, Agnes Moorehead, Bill Johnstone, Everett Sloane, Frank Readick, Gwen Davies, Ray Collins and Alice Frost. It was during this time that Welles and most of the performers appearing with him founded the Mercury Theatre, which would make its true radio debut the following year with CBS' Mercury Theatre on the Air.

Listening to Les Miserables, it is very much in the same spirit as the subsequent Mercury Theatre on the Air - in part because Welles seems to have bit off a little more than he could chew. It's well-documented that Welles kicked off the Mercury Theatre on the Air by trying to quickly pare down Bram Stoker's Dracula into a viable hour-long drama and it was a struggle for his staff to assemble it in time. Similarly, it feels as though when he started Les Miserables's first episode he didn't have a final script for the series. The first five episodes go fairly briskly through Hugo's novel, but in the 6th episode the story jumps far ahead to the story of Jean Valjean entering the barricade to rescue Marius - whose entire romance with Cosette happened in-between episodes. Then the 7th episode is mostly a recap of the previous episodes, until finally adding Valjean's death from the novel.

But although the pace of the adaptation is uneven, it's a very well-produced program with terrific performances by Welles' regulars. I first heard this series before I had read the novel or seen any of the film adaptations - I came away feeling I had a decent grasp of what the novel's plot and themes were. I also think the 5th episode with the account of Valjean being buried alive is a piece of excellent radio, a very well-done bit of thriller melodrama.

You can hear all seven episodes of Les Miserables on this YouTube playlist.

Radio Recap: Screen Directors' Playhouse

Screen Directors' Playhouse was a program late in its arrival. NBC produced it from 1949-1951 and they really should have gotten on the bandwagon sooner! CBS had been adapted popular films and plays in the Lux Radio Theatre since 1934 and that series brought in very good ratings; yet NBC stubbornly persisted in investing its time and money into comedy programs. That worked well for them until the post-war years when suddenly dramatic programming started bringing in huge ratings for CBS (also, CBS raided their comedy talent, depriving them of many of their greatest assets). The great thing about adapting popular films to the radio is that the material has already been audience tested and approved! There's little to gamble, especially if you can bring along at least one of the stars of the movie for the radio adaptation.

What made Screen Directors' Playhouse different from Lux Radio Theatre? Or from Ford Theatre, Academy Award Theatre or Screen Guild Theatre? It's in the title: Directors'. Screen Directors' Playhouse attempted to spotlight the directors of the movies. Frequently they appeared at the opening and closing of the drama. Sometimes, however, they dramatized films whose director had passed on. In those cases a guest director would appear to discuss the film. In 121 episodes, the original director appeared 96 times. Usually at least one member of the original cast would appear as well.

The series was usually a half-hour program, which means the stories were much more clipped than the hour-long Lux Radio Theatre. From November 9, 1950 onward it held an hour-long timeslot. Pabst Blue Ribbon sponsored it at first, with RCA Victor, Anacin and Chesterfield chipping in later. In the latter part of the series the number of commercials gets out of control as several different products are advertised in a single broadcast.

I reviewed a few episodes of Screen Directors' Playhouse before when I was covering Alfred Hitchcock adaptations. Here are my reviews of their productions of: Llifeboat, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Shadow of a Doubt and Spellbound.

Outside of their Hitchcock adaptations, I have a few other episodes that I think are good programs. Although I'm not a western fan, I think the first episode's adaptation of Stagecoach is very good; the Gunfighter was a pretty good western drama too. The comedy episodes Ghost Breakers, Miracle on 34th Street and Hired Wife are both quite funny. And the thrillers the Night Has a Thousand Eyes, the Big Clock, Call Northside 777, D.O.A., the Dark Mirror and the File on Thelma Jordan are excellent stories. The Uninvited was a good horror program and the adaptation of the Spiral Staircase had some interesting audio tricks to convey the point-of-view character couldn't actually speak. Obviously like all film adaptation programs, it's hit-or-miss but at its worst, it's just uninteresting - it was never bad radio, even in its final months as it struggled under a reduced budget. For some of the films heard on this series, the Screen Directors' Playhouse adaptation was my introduction to the production and led me to seek out the original film.

The Old-Time Radio Researchers Group has a collection of Screen Directors' Playhouse on the Internet Archive.

Radio Recap: Mandrake the Magician

Mandrake the Magician is remembered as the star of his own King Features comic strip that lasted from 1934-2013. It was created by Lee Falk and originally drawn by Phil Davis. The strip's titular hero, Mandrake, clearly drew some influence from popular stage magicians like Harry Houdini and Blackstone, with the difference that Mandrake practised actual magic - or, rather, he had the power of hypnosis and seemed to make magical things happen by planting ideas in his enemy's minds. He was accompanied by his giant servant Lothar and his lady love Princess Narda. Mandrake inspired a legion of imitators in the comics, the best-known being DC Comics' Zatara the Magician.

But from November 11, 1940 to February 6, 1942, Mandrake the Magician was heard 3 times per week on Mutual as a serialized adventure program! Mandrake, Lothar and Princess Narda were all present for the adventures, along with a plucky kid named Tommy. Starring as Mandrake was Raymond Edward Johnson, who became the original host of Inner Sanctum Mysteries during this show's production.

Like all juvenile adventure serials - especially those on Mutual - the production values weren't that high, with only so much available for music and sound effects. The writing was crude and workmanlike, but Mandrake the Magician had one terrific asset - and that was Raymond Edward Johnson. Johnson's earnest and commanding performance as Mandrake is by far the highlight of this series.

We only have so many episodes of the series. There's the first episode, then the middle and ending chapters of Mandrake and his friends battling the submarine crew of Captain X. That flows into the start and middle of a storyline where Mandrake fights a secret society led by one Dr. Carvass. Following that, there are just a few more fragments of other adventures.

You can hear the remaining fragments of Mandrake the Magician at the Old-Time Radio Researchers' Library.