Radio Recap: Hollywood's Open House

"Just sit back and relax; you'll be royally entertained, for it's time for Hollywood's Open House."

Hollywood's Open House was a syndicated half-hour radio series hosted by Jim Ameche (Don Ameche's brother). It was something of a smorgasboard of entertainment from Hollywood - first a little music and comedy, followed by a brief dramatization of a popular film, play or short story (sometimes just a single scene excerpted from the source).

The series was meant to advertise Motion Picture Magazine, so the various entertainment capsules are reflective of how the magazine must have summarized its stories. What's odd is that while the show used a number of Hollywood stars as guests on the program is that they also employed impersonators! The earliest surviving episode recreates a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby routine with both men impersonated. They sound pretty good at matching both men's speed and pronunciation, though overall they're fairly obvious imitators. I guess they couldn't license an audio clip?

RadioGoldindex speculates that although the episodes are dated from 1947-1948 the series could have been produced as many as 3-4 years earlier! I don't know about that math - perhaps 3-4 months earlier, they certainly don't sound like wartime radio productions.

On the other hand, Hollywood's Open House wasn't quite in vogue with post-war radio, at least not to my ears. I think programs that mixed comedy, music and drama made sense in 1930s radio when much of what could be done was still being learned and the number of programs on the air was somewhat limited. But post-war, radio was booming; if you wanted comedy, there were so many comedy shows; likewise music shows; likewise dramatic anthologies. I think audiences were more interested in a show that devoted its full runtime to a single genre.

Stories they adapted included Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" (with Peter Lorre!), Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace" and "A Piece of String." They also ran a parody of Ernest Hemingway's "the Killers" titled "the Exterminators" (October 21, 1948).

The comedy guests are a mixed bag; Bert Lahr is always good; Lucille Balls turns up, but only to perform in a dramatic role (she was probably trying to branch out her career); Jackie Gleason appears in the aforementioned "Killers" parody and does a terrific stand-up routine in another episode (November 11, 1948).

I'm currently reviewing a number of radio variety shows and what I have to say for Hollywood's Open House goes for most of them - if you're a fan of one of the stars heard on the program, you'll want to hear the segments where they appear - but you might not be interested in the rest of the show.

You can hear what remains of Hollywood's Open House at the Old Time Radio Researchers' Library.