Alfred Hitchcock's Writers on Suspense!

Yesterday I blogged about stars from Alfred Hitchcock's films who also appeared as performers on the radio series Suspense, which was originally supposed to be run by Hitchcock himself.

I think it's interesting to note that many authors whose stories were adapted into Hitchcock's films or who wrote screenplays for him had other stories of theirs heard on Suspense, so I've created a list for them as well; note that I'm not including Suspense episodes adapted from the same works used in Hitchcock's films (ie, the Lodger).

Raymond Chandler (screenplay for Strangers on a Train [1951]) also wrote the Suspense stories: "Pearls Are a Nuisance" (April 19, 1945) and "Pearls Are a Nuisance" (April 20, 1950).

John Michael Hayes (screenplay for Rear Window [1954], To Catch a Thief [1955], The Trouble with Harry [1955] and The Man Who Knew Too Much [1956]) also wrote (or adapted) the Suspense stories: "Lady in Distress" (May 1, 1947), "Very Much Like a Nightmare" (May 25, 1950), "True Report" (August 31, 1950), "The Wages of Sin" (October 19, 1950), "Vamp 'Til Dead" (January 11, 1951), "The Well-Dressed Corpse" (January 18, 1951), "The Windy City Six" (February 8, 1951), "The Gift of Jumbo Brannigan" (March 1, 1951), "Early to Death" (April 12, 1951), "Death on My Hands" (May 10, 1951), "Vamp 'Til Dead" (September 29, 1957) and "The Well-Dressed Corpse" (October 13, 1957). Hitchcock hired Hayes for Rear Window after hearing "Death on My Hands," which unfortunately cost Suspense one of their best writers!

Ben Hecht (screenplay for Spellbound [1945], Notorious [1946] and The Paradine Case [1947]) also wrote the Suspense stories: "The Marvelous Barastro" (April 13, 1944), "Actor's Blood" in which he also performed (August 24, 1944), "Beyond Good and Evil" (October 11, 1945) and "Crime without Passion" (May 2, 1946).

Arthur Laurents (screenplay for Rope [1948]) also wrote the Suspense story: "Heart's Desire" (March 22, 1945).

Marie Belloc Lowndes (author of The Lodger [1927]) also wrote the Suspense story: "The Story of Ivy" (June 21, 1945).

Philip MacDonald (screenplay for Rebecca [1940]) also wrote the Suspense story: "The Green and Gold String" (June 9, 1957).

Ethel Lina White (author of The Lady Vanishes [1938]) also wrote the Suspense story: "Finishing School" (December 30, 1943).

Cornell Woolrich (author of Rear Window [1954]) also wrote the Suspense stories: "Last Night" (June 15, 1943), "The White Rose Murders" (July 6, 1943), "The Singing Walls" (September 2, 1943), "The After Dinner Story" (October 26, 1943), "The Black Curtain" (December 2, 1943), "The Night Reveals" (December 9, 1943), "Dime a Dance" (January 13, 1944), "The Black Path of Fear" (August 31, 1944), "You'll Never See Me Again" (September 14, 1944), "Eve" (October 19, 1944), "The Singing Walls" (November 2, 1944), "The Black Curtain" (November 30, 1944), "Library Book" (September 20, 1945), "I Won't Take a Minute" (December 6, 1945), "The Black Path of Fear" (March 7, 1946), "Post Mortem" (April 4, 1946), "The Night Reveals" (April 18, 1946), "You'll Never See Me Again" (September 5, 1946), "They Call Me Patrice" (December 12, 1946), "You Take Ballistics" (March 13, 1947), "The Black Curtain" (January 3, 1948), "The Black Angel" (January 24, 1958), "Nightmare" (March 13, 1948), "Deadline at Dawn" (May 15, 1948), "If the Dead Could Talk" (January 20, 1949), "Three O'Clock" (March 10, 1949), "The Lie" (April 28, 1949), "The Night Reveals" (May 26, 1949), "Momentum" (October 27, 1949) and "Angel Face" (May 18, 1950). As you might imagine, Woolrich was one of Suspense producer William Spier's favourite authors!

Alfred Hitchcock's Stars on Suspense!

As you may know, director Alfred Hitchcock was originally supposed to be the guiding force behind the long-running radio series Suspense. The show first debuted on Forecast in 1940 with a truncated adaptation of "The Lodger" but when the series materialized in 1942, Hitchcock was no longer attached to the project.

Still, there are many interesting links between Hitchcock and Suspense. Much earlier I wrote a blog post about stories on Suspense that were also adapted to television on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. You can read that list here.

I think it would also be interesting to examine which actors in Hitchcok's films made appearances on Suspense. If you're a fan of Hitchcock's films and Suspense but haven't heard all of these episodes, perhaps you'll check them out? Each of these link to the Suspense Project blog!

Ethel Barrymore (starred in The Paradine Case [1947]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "To Find Help" (January 6, 1949).

Alan Baxter (starred in Saboteur [1942]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "Money Talks" (July 3, 1947).

Anne Baxter (starred in I Confess [1953]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Always Room at the Top" (February 20, 1947), "The Thirteenth Sound" (April 26, 1951) and "The Death of Barbara Allen" (October 20, 1952).

William Bendix (starred in Lifeboat [1944]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Pearls Are a Nuisance" (April 19, 1945), "Three Faces at Midnight" (February 27, 1947), "Break-Up" (December 30, 1948) and "The Gift of Jumbo Brannigan" (March 1, 1951).

Raymond Burr (starred in Rear Window [1954]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Death Sentence" (November 4, 1948), "Catch Me If You Can" (February 17, 1949), "The Copper Tea Strainer" (April 21, 1949), "The Peralta Map" (March 10, 1957), "Murder on Mike" (July 28, 1957), "The Country of the Blind" (October 27, 1957), "The Treasure Chest of Don Jose" (October 12, 1958), "Out for Christmas" (December 21, 1958) and "The Pit and the Pendulum" (June 7, 1959).

MacDonald Carey (starred in Shadow of a Doubt [1943]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "The Missing Person" (May 12, 1952).

Madeleine Carroll (starred in The 39 Steps [1935]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "The Morrison Affair" (September 2, 1948).

Jack Carson (starred in Mr. and Mrs. Smith [1941]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Easy Money" (November 7, 1946), "The One Millionth Joe" (June 22, 1950), "The Death Pitch" (March 29, 1951) and "Analytical Hour" (June 28, 1959).

Joseph Cotten (starred in Shadow of a Doubt [1943] and Under Capricorn [1949]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Sneak Preview" (March 23, 1944), "You'll Never See Me Again" (September 14, 1944), "The Most Dangerous Game" (February 1, 1945), "The Earth Is Made of Glass" (September 27, 1945), "Beyond Good and Evil" (October 11, 1945), "The Pasteboard Box" (January 17, 1946), "Crime without Passion" (May 2, 1946), "The Thing in the Window" (December 19, 1946), "The Day I Died" (June 30, 1949), "Blood Sacrifice" (March 30, 195), "Fly by Night" (September 28, 1950), "Carnival" (January 28, 1952), "A Watery Grave" (March 10, 1952), "Arctic Rescue" (December 22, 1952), "Tom Dooley" (March 30, 1953), "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (December 15, 1957) and "Red Cloud Mesa" (August 2, 1959).

Hume Cronyn (starred in Shadow of a Doubt [1943] and Lifeboat [1944]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Double Entry" (December 20, 1945), "Too Many Smiths" (June 13, 1946), "Blue Eyes" (August 29, 1946), "The One Who Got Away" (November 14, 1946) and "Make Mad the Guilty" (June 5, 1947).

Robert Cummings (starred in Saboteur [1942] and Dial M for Murder [1954]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "The Dead of the Night" (November 16, 1944) and "Want Ad" (January 25, 1954).

Marlene Dietrich (starred in Stage Fright [1950]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "Murder Strikes Three Times" (February 16, 1950).

Henry Fonda (starred in The Wrong Man [1956]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "Summer Storm" (October 18, 1945).

Joan Fontaine (starred in Rebecca [1940] and Suspicion [1941]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "The Love Birds" (March 3, 1949).

Martin Gabel (starred in Marnie [1964]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "The Devil in the Summer House" (November 3, 1942)

Cary Grant (starred in Suspicion [1941], Notorious [1946], To Catch a Thief [1955] and North by Northwest [1959]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "The Black Curtain" (December 2, 1943), "The Black Curtain" (November 30, 1944), "The Black Path of Fear" (March 7, 1946) and "On a Country Road" (November 16, 1950).

Edmund Gwenn (starred in the Skin Game [1931], Foreign Correspondent [1940] and The Trouble with Harry [1955]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "the Fountain Plays" (August 10, 1943) and "Murder in Black and White" (April 14, 1949).

Sir Cedric Hardwicke (starred in Suspicion [1941] and Rope [1948]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "The Diary of Dr. Pritchard" (October 6, 1952).

John Hodiak (starred in Lifeboat [1944]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Dateline: Lisbon" (October 5, 1944), "The Case History of a Gambler" (December 17, 1951), "The Big Heist" (December 1, 1952), "The Gold of the Adomar" (January 19, 1953), "The Mountain" (March 16, 1953) and "Hellfire" (September 28, 1953).

Henry Hull (starred in Lifeboat [1944]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "The Pit and the Pendulum" (January 12, 1943).

Otto Kruger (starred in Saboteur [1942]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "The After Dinner Story" (October 26, 1943).

Charles Laughton (starred in Jamaica Inn [1939] and The Paradine Case [1947]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "The ABC Murders" (May 18, 1943), "Wet Saturday" (December 16, 1943), "The Man Who Knew How" (August 10, 1944), "The Fountain Plays" (November 23, 1944), "An Honest Man" (August 5, 1948), "De Mortuis" (February 10, 1949), "Blind Date" (September 29, 1949), "Neill Cream, Doctor of Poison" (September 17, 1951), "Jack Ketch" (September 22, 1952) and "The Revenge of Captain Bligh" (May 17, 1954).

Norman Lloyd (starred in Saboteur [1942] and Spellbound [1945]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "My Own Murderer" (May 24, 1945) and "Fury and Sound" (July 26, 1945).

John Loder (starred in Sabotage [1936]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Banquo's Chair" (June 1, 1943), "The Cross-Eyed Bear" (September 16, 1943), "Banquo's Chair" (August 3, 1944) and "The Brighton Strangler" (December 21, 1944).

Peter Lorre (starred in the Man Who Knew Too Much [1934] and Secret Agent [1936]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "'Til Death Do Us Part" (December 15, 1942), "The Devil's Saint" (January 19, 1943), "The Moment of Darkness" (April 20, 1943), "Back for Christmas" (December 23, 1943), "Of Maestro and Man" (July 20, 1944) and "Nobody Loves Me" (August 30, 1945).

Herbert Marshall (starred in Murder! [1930] and Foreign Correspondent [1940]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "The Lodger" (on Forecast, July 22, 1940), "The Beast Must Die" (July 13, 1944), "My Own Murderer" (May 24, 1945), "Holiday Story" (December 23, 1948), "The Victoria Cross" (November 2, 1950), "Betrayal in Vienna" (October 8, 1951), "Rogue Male" (December 31, 1951), "The Thirty-Nine Steps" (March 3, 1952), "The Diary of Captain Scott" (April 21, 1952), "Frankenstein" (November 3, 1952), The Mystery of Edwin Drood Part One and Part Two (January 5 and 12, 1953), "The Dead Alive" (March 9, 1953), "The Man Within" (April 27, 1953), "Action" (October 5, 1953), "Murder by Jury" (February 22, 1954), "Back for Christmas" (December 23, 1956), "Flood on the Goodwins" (July 14, 1957), "The Long Shot" (February 9, 1958), "The Man Who Won the War" (October 5, 1958) and "The Waxwork" (March 1, 1959). Marshall had more leading roles on Suspense than any other actor!

James Mason (starred in North by Northwest [1959]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Where There's a Will" (February 24, 1949), "Banquo's Chair" (March 9, 1950), "The Greatest Thief in the World" (June 21, 1951), "Odd Man Out" (February 11, 1952), "The Queen's Ring" (December 28, 1953) and "The Dealings of Mr. Markham" (November 2, 1958).

Ray Milland (starred in Dial M for Murder [1954]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Night Cry" (October 7, 1948), "Chicken Feed" (September 8, 1949), "Pearls Are a Nuisance" (April 20, 1950), "After the Movies" (December 7, 1950) and "The Log of the Marne" (October 22, 1951).

Robert Montgomery (starred in Mr. and Mrs. Smith [1941]) also served as the host and producer of Suspense in 1948 when it became a one-hour program; he also starred in the Suspense episodes: "The Lodger" (December 14, 1944), "The Black Curtain" (January 3, 1948), "The Lodger" (February 14, 1948), "In a Lonely Place" (March 6, 1948), "Night Must Fall" (March 27, 1948) and "The Thing in the Window" (January 27, 1949).

Mildred Natwick (starred in The Trouble with Harry [1955]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "The Furnished Floor" (September 13, 1945).

Maureen O'Hara (starred in Jamaica Inn [1939]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "The White Rose Murders" (July 6, 1943).

Gregory Peck (starred in Spellbound [1945] and The Paradine Case [1947]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "The Lonely Road" (March 21, 1946), "Hitch-Hike Poker" (September 16, 1948), "Murder Through the Looking Glass" (March 17, 1949), "Nightmare" (September 1, 1949) and "The Truth About Jerry Baxter" (June 14, 1951).

Claude Rains (starred in Notorious [1946]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" (December 2, 1948).

James Stewart (starred in Rope [1948], Rear Window [1954] and Vertigo [1958]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "Consequence" (May 19, 1949), "Mission Completed" (December 1, 1949) and "The Rescue" (April 19, 1951).

Dame May Whitty (starred in Suspicion [1941]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "The Black Shawl" (July 27, 1944), "Cricket" (March 15, 1945), "My Dear Niece" (January 24, 1946) and "Night Must Fall" (March 27, 1948).

Jane Wyman (starred in Stage Fright [1950]) also starred in the Suspense episode: "Catch Me If You Can" (February 17, 1949).

Robert Young (starred in Secret Agent [1936]) also starred in the Suspense episodes: "A Friend to Alexander" (August 3, 1943), "The Night Reveals" (December 9, 1943), "The High Wall" (June 6, 1946), "You'll Never See Me Again" (September 5, 1946), "Crossfire" (April 10, 1948), "Celebration" (September 23, 1948) and "A Murder of Necessity" (March 24, 1952).

More connections between Hitchcock and Suspense tomorrow!

Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent versus Sheean's Personal History

I've previously blogged about various books and short stories that inspired the films of my favourite director, Alfred Hitchcock. As I continue to occasionally indulge in the few remaining works, I recently read Personal History (1935) by Vincent Sheean. It's the work that inspired Hitchcock's 1940 film Foreign Correspondent.

You remember Foreign Correspondent, surely? Among we Hitchcock fans it does appear to be undervalued. Books about Hitchcock films tend to bring up the memorable scene where an assassin with a camera shoots his target. Some might bring up the film's impressive plane crash effect at the climax, others mention the windmill hideout or Edmund Gwenn's brief appearance as an assassin; that's about it. Another undervalued film, Saboteur (1942) is guaranteed a favourable write-up based solely on the Statue of Liberty sequence; Foreign Correspondent simply lacks anything that striking. But heck, no one hates the movie (whereas you can find plenty of Hitchcock books whose authors dislike Number Seventeen, Jamaica Inn, Under Capricorn, Torn Curtain and Topaz).

But what of the source material? Personal History is... virtually unrelated. Vincent Sheean was indeed a journalist and foreign correspondent. He was in Europe and encountered a spy once. That's... it. It appears that when he sold his book to Hollywood they weren't really interested in maintaining fidelity to the work. It feels like the only reason Foreign Correspondent was released as an "adaptation" is so the studio could feel like their investment in the book rights had paid out.

It's kind of a shame; the full text of Personal History would never have made a good film - it's Sheean's life story, covering his university days, his time hanging around Europe, traveling through the Rif of Morocco, falling (literally) head-over-heels in love with communism in China and witnessing the brutality of Palestine. It's too much for one book and he doesn't shape events, merely observe them.

Still, there are at least two aspects of the book which would have been interesting in a motion picture adaptation. While in Spain, Sheean learns he's being shadowed by a government-appointed spy. To his amazement, the spy is very casual about his occupation and happy to talk about his work with Sheean. The punch-clock approach the spy has to his work is very amusing and would have suited the type of comic relief Hitchcock liked. The other great aspect is the time Sheean spent in the Rif. It's full of danger and dilemma, especially when Sheean has to go undercover.

Personal History probably isn't for every Hitchcock fan - it's a non-fiction biography with almost nothing to with the film. As well, Sheean was a man of his time - he wrote very passionately about communism (largely because he was in love with a communist woman, though he repeatedly protested he was actually very objective) yet he held very Victorian-like ideals about proper behaviour. It won't be to everyone's tastes. But to his credit, he wrote very openly about the subjects he grappled with.

Thoughts on the Paradine Case (book and film)

Roger Ebert defined "the Idiot Plot" as "Any plot containing problems that would be solved instantly if all of the characters were not idiots." I wonder if there should be a British version of this plot - the British Twit Plot, if you will - which I would define as "any plot containing problems that would be solved instantly if all of the characters were not British."

That was my great takeaway from reading the Paradine Case by Robert Hichens (1933). As I've indicated before, I've recently been reading various novels and short stories which were adapted into films by Alfred Hitchcock. In this (ahem) case, we have a book which Hitchcock did not particularly want to adapt but which his producer David O. Selznick wanted to make into a film. Hitchcock made his version of the Paradine Case just to complete his contractual obligations to Selznick so that he could finally move on in his career.

Today, the novel of the Paradine Case has been eclipsed by Hitchcock's film, even though it's never been considered a particularly good film. People seek out the film not because of the book (or good reviews of the film either) but because Hitchcock remains one of history's great film directors, so there's interest even in his failures.

I'm afraid I fall in with those who don't particularly like the film version but I was interested to learn if the book was more engaging than the film. I had only previously read a short story by Robert Hichens: "How Love Came to Professor Guildea." That's a very good short story, however, so I had some hopes for his novel.

As I indicated at the top, the Paradine Case is a very British book. It was a book that could only have been written by an Englishman (and probably only before 1950). The novel principally follows a defense lawyer (and his wife) as the lawyer defends a woman who is accused of murder. Although there is no real evidence implicating her in the crime, she had opportunity and possibly a motive. The lawyer's efforts to defend her are complicated by an attraction to her. But being a very British barrister, when I say he's attracted to her I mean it almost never comes up - it's a very Victorian view of love as something unsaid and shameful. It causes problems below the water line but seldom in the actual text of the book.

It's a very long book and it is mostly concerned with undercurrents. That Victorian culture where everyone gossips and speculates but no one speaks openly and honestly. This is where I came to think that I was reading a variation on the "idiot plot" because everyone talks modestly around their problems instead of actually facing them. It's not a very interesting read because, despite being 500 pages, it's concerned with what is unsaid moreso than what's said.

Reading it, I was perplexed as to why Selznick thought it would make a great film. He bought up the rights before the book was even published and it took 14 years before it fell into Hitchcock's hands. Selznick seemed to view Hitchcock as his "British director" rather than a thriller director, which is where Hitchcock's talents truly resided. Apparently Selznick's interferences with the production had a lot to do with why the film became a flop; Selznick was so desperate to prove he could make another Gone with the Wind hit that he second-guessed the picture into oblivion. Hitchcock was simply glad to get out from under his thumb.

Selznick's filmography is full of pictures with grand ambitions unmet, but with films such as Portrait of Jennie or Duel in the Sun I can at least imagine why Selznick thought he had another classic on his hands. But the Paradine Case? It's a courtroom drama and not a very interesting one. It's a very British story but made for American audiences. This was never going to be a huge picture.

It's amazing that the movie was so expensive, apparently due to Selznick's frequent midstream changes. Watching the film, you might wonder where all the money went. Certainly it has a great cast and the courtroom set is a very nice set. But otherwise, it's a black and white picture about people talking. It doesn't have stunts, special effects, colour photography, on-location shooting or any other interesting visuals. The most interesting the film gets is a well-done bit where the camera circles around Mrs. Paradine as her ex-lover approaches the witness stand.

The courtroom drama and the thriller can be combined into a great picture, as later films 12 Angry Men (1957) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959) proved. But most of all, the Paradine Case brings to mind Witness for the Prosecution (1957) by director Billy Wilder, which also featured a plot about a cool foreign woman who becomes a problem for the defense lawyer; it also features Charles Laughton as the lawyer (rather than the judge as in the Paradine Case). But Agatha Christie's story proved more durable than her countryman Hichens - it made for a great picture. The Paradine Case is ultimately too British to be engaging.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 15: The Birds

The Birds

• Lux Radio Theater (July 20, 1953): starring Herbert Marshall.
• Escape (July 10, 1954): starring Ben Wright.

As of I Confess we would seem to be at the end of era where Hitchcock's films were adapted to radio; some, like Saboteur, were never adapted (probably because Universal didn't like competing against their own film adaptations). As radio drama's money was diverted into television, we were denied adaptations of Dial M for Murder, Rear Window and more.

But then there's The Birds by Daphne du Maurier. You can tell that Hollywood sensed this story would somehow make a fine film (even though there had never been an 'animal attack' film like it before). The fact that it was adapted to Lux Radio Theater (which normally adapted films or at least plays). Du Maurier's short story was newly-published at the time and the Lux Radio Theater adaptation is pretty faithful, keeping the original location and narrative. However, it does add a strange framing sequence as two men read the story. It's a bit too on-the-beak-- er, nose.

Because both Lux Radio Theater and Escape were both CBS programs it shouldn't be surprising that the same performers would be in each, but it is interesting that Ben Wright, the star of the Escape adaptation, appeared in a small role as a reporter in the Lux Radio Theater version.

And that is the end of Hitchcock vs. Radio! I hope you enjoyed these posts and thinking about how Hitchcock and his crew adapted their stories.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 14: I Confess

I Confess

• Lux Radio Theater (September 21, 1953): starring Cary Grant and Phyllis Thaxter.

I Confess is that Hitchcock film that people don't get; Hitchcock was normally the great crowd pleaser, but here he made a film which many say you "have to be Catholic to understand." It's a little odd that Montgomery Clift didn't perform in the adaptation and very odd that Cary Grant acted in his stead, but Grant is actually pretty good in this role. It's a flawed story but a good radio drama.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 13: Strangers on a Train

Strangers on a Train

• Lux Radio Theater (December 3, 1951): starring Frank Lovejoy, Ray Milland, Ruth Roman (reprised her film role) and Patricia Hitchcock (reprised her film role).

Strangers on a Train is among Hitchcock's best and this adaptation is pretty good, although neither of the film's leads reprised their roles. Still, Frank Lovejoy could play a great psychopath, as he did here. It's a little disappointing that the murder scene wasn't dramatized - it would have made very good with radio with the sounds of the fairground.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 12: Rope

Rope

• Best Plays (November 30, 1950): starring Victor Jory.

I'm a little unlike most Hitchcock fans in that I rate Rope very high - I think it's one of his best films. The camera movements and editing in this picture are just fun and I think the tension of the situation is maintained throughout.

But this radio drama is not an adaptation of the film, it's an adaptation of the original play by Patrick Hamilton. Unfortunately, I don't think it works well at all - everything about the story is too obvious as it seems like the only subject people want to discuss at the party is the chest and what might be inside it - it lacks the subtle touch in Hitchcock's film. As well, I find Victor Jory is just too intense in his role - there's nothing wry or clever about him, he simply seems to suspect the murderers from the moment he enters the play.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 11: The Paradine Case

The Paradine Case

• Lux Radio Theater (May 9, 1949): starring Joseph Cotten and Valli (reprised her film role).

The Paradine Case is no one's favourite Hitchcock film. I'm baffled as to why David O. Selznick thought this was going to be a huge film; at least with a spectacle like Duel in the Sun you can see how commercial it is. But this? It's a courtroom drama and it's not good courtroom drama. It's inert and turgid. The story only becomes interesting in the climax when the murderer is revealed. But for all that, this adaptation is still good radio and at half the length of the film, less tiresome.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 10: Notorious

Notorious

• Lux Radio Theater (January 26, 1948): Ingrid Bergman (reprised her film role), Joseph Cotten
• Screen Guild Theater (January 6, 1949): Ingrid Bergman (reprised her film role), John Hodiak

Cary Grant is such a major part of why Notorious succeeds that it's a shame he didn't reprise that part on radio. Cotten and Hodiak were legitimate Hitchcock leading men, but they weren't a romantic icon like Grant, which is part of what gave Grant such as edge in the film. But these are good adaptations, especially Ingrid Bergman reprising her role.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 9: Spellbound

Spellbound

• Lux Radio Theater (March 8, 1948): starring Joseph Cotten, Valli.
• Screen Director's Playhouse (January 25, 1951): starring Joseph Cotten, Mercedes McCambridge; hosted by Alfred Hitchcock.

Spellbound actually works pretty well as a radio drama, the emphasis on the mystery of the story seems a little stronger here than in the film (where the psychology is a bit overwhelming). The casting of Valli in the Lux Radio Theater version feels a little odd - like she was hired just because, like Ingrid Bergman, she spoke with an accent. Still, she played off Cotten better than Mercedes McCambridge.

By now you may have noticed that there aren't as many adaptations before. Although post-war there were more radio programs adapting movies than ever before, it also made the studios a little more provincial - more apt to give one series the rights to their catalog, and more apt to be always looking at recent releases than the back catalog.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 8: Lifeboat

Lifeboat

• Screen Director's Playhouse (November 16, 1950): starring Tallulah Bankhead (reprised her film role), Jeff Chandler, Sheldon Leonard; hosted by Alfred Hitchcock.

This adaptation was broadcast the week after Screen Director's Playhouse had adapted Shadow of a Doubt. It's a fairly good adaptation, although I'm not quite sure about Sheldon Leonard in William Bendix's role. Leonard's voice is so distinctive and familiar from comedy programs that I find him distracting. It's interesting that this wartime film was adapted to radio more successfully than a similar film, Foreign Correspondent.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 7: Shadow of a Doubt

Shadow of a Doubt

• Screen Guild Theater (May 24, 1943): starring Deanna Durbin and Joseph Cotten (reprised his film role).
• Lux Radio Theater (January 3, 1944): starring William Powell and Teresa Wright (reprised her film role).
• Academy Award (September 11, 1946): starring Joseph Cotten (reprised his film role), June Vincent and Jeff Chandler.
• Screen Guild Theater (June 21, 1948): starring Joseph Cotten (reprised his film role) and Vanessa Brown.
• Ford Theater (February 18, 1949): starring Ann Blythe and Ray Milland.
• Screen Director's Playhouse (November 9, 1950): starring Cary Grant and Betsy Drake (Grant's wife).

Shadow of a Doubt is one of Alfred Hitchcock's finest films. Although it plays to many familiar themes in other pictures (such people idly speculating about murder), the unique emphasis on a small town environment makes it one of his freshest films as well. I'm very fond of it; the many radio adaptations are interesting to visit.

Given that Joseph Cotten was very busy on the radio it's surprising that he wasn't in all of these adaptations. Notably, the only one where Teresa Wright repeated her role (Lux Radio Theater) had William Powell instead of Cotten. Powell's okay in the part, but very different from Cotten.

But while they're mostly very good, I have to call out the Screen Director's Playhouse for being a rubbish adaptation on several fronts: there's all sorts of additions to the story, like a recurring nursery rhyme instead of the 'Merry Widow waltz'; Cary Grant plays Cotten's part far too obviously - he had no subtlety in his performance and was far too menacing in his dialogue; Betsy Drake was wrong in Teresa Wright's role, although 5 years younger than Wright, Drake's voice is too harsh; finally, the climax is very different, occurring in the home instead of on a train. Notably, Alfred Hitchcock did not host this episode, as he normally did (he even hosted for Mr. and Mrs. Smith!). It's a very disappointing piece of radio.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 6: Suspicion

Suspicion

• Lux Radio Theater (May 4, 1942): starring Joan Fontaine (reprised her film role), Brian Aherne and Nigel Bruce (reprised his film role).
• Screen Guild Theater (January 4, 1943): starring Joan Fontaine (reprised her film role), Nigel Bruce (reprised his film role) and Basil Rathbone (substituted for Brian Aherne).
• Lux Radio Theater (September 18, 1944): starring William Powell and Olivia de Haviland.
• Theater of Romance (July 17, 1945): starring Judith Evelyn and Anthony Quinn.
• Screen Guild Theater (January 21, 1946): starring Cary Grant (reprised his film role), Loretta Young and Nigel Bruce (reprised his film role).
• Academy Award (October 30, 1946): starring Cary Grant (reprised his film role) and Ann Todd.

Hitchcock's film adaptation of the novel Before the Fact is kind of interesting in how it gaslights the protagonist; in the novel, the husband is planning his wife's death, but in the film her suspicions are incorrect. It's not an extremely satisfying film, but then again, as the novel's protagonist has little agency or ability to control her fate that it's a bit more satisfying to have her and her husband sort things out at the end.

The various radio adaptations are strictly from the film, not the novel. The adaptation on Theater of Romance comes closest to the novel as the protagonist is about to accept her fate, but then it swerves into Hitchcock's film as the husband tries to kill himself and she stops him, then reconciles.

It's also interesting to note that the two Screen Guild Theater versions both featured Nigel Bruce in his film role and also have virtually identical outros read by Nigel Bruce where they joke about the next week's show. Recycling scripts is one thing, it's something else to hear the banter performed anew!

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 5: Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

• Lux Radio Theater (June 9, 1941): starring Bob Hope and Carole Lombard (reprised her film role).
• Screen Guild Theater (February 8, 1942): starring Errol Flynn and Lana Turner.
• Screen Guild Theater (December 14, 1942): starring Joan Bennett, Robert Young and Ralph Bellamy.
• Matinee Theater (November 26, 1944): starring Victor Jory and Betty Winkler.
• Screen Guild Theater (January 1, 1945): starring Preston Foster, Louise Allbritton and Arthur Q. Bryan.
• Hollywood Star Time (July 20, 1946): starring Robert Montgomery (reprised his film role) and Mary Jane Croft.
• Screen Director's Playhouse (January 30, 1949): starring Robert Montgomery (reprised his film role) and Mary Jane Croft; hosted by Alfred Hitchcock.

This is one of the most-frequently adapted Alfred Hitchcock films heard on the radio. Of course, it's not what people think of as a Hitchcock film - it's simply a screwball comedy (starring Carole Lombard, the very queen of the genre). But heck, the movie was a good piece of screwball regardless.

These seven adaptations are all over the place. The most faithful to the original film is the Lux Radio Theater version, although it added a lot of 'zingers' suited to Bob Hope's style. The Screen Guild Theater adaptations made a few changes to the plot and added many new jokes, but mostly followed the original. It is interesting that in the second version (with Robert Young), Warner Bros' Arthur Q. Bryan and Mel Blanc both appeared!

I complained about Matinee Theater before in my entry on Rebecca and I have to single them out again. Their adaptation is extremely unfaithful as the conclusion nullifies the story's premise - that is, the couple are revealed to have been married all along. It stinks.

The most interesting one is the Screen Director's Playhouse version because - even though Hitchcock didn't consider this to be 'truly' one of his films - he appeared as the host. There's even some fun banter after the program where they talk about Hitchcock's many cameos in his films, which was apparently a subject of conversation as early as '49 (Hitchcock makes a joke about the lack of cameo in Mr. and Mrs. Smith). Hitchcock fans ought to listen to that adaptation at the very least.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 4: Foreign Correspondent

Foreign Correspondent

• Academy Award (July 24, 1946): starring Joseph Cotten (who substituted for Joel McCrea).

Foreign Correspondent is not usually counted among the 'greatest' of Hitchcock's films. It isn't exactly disliked, but it seems to be a little neglected compared to others. It's a fairly decent movie but very much tied to World War II - it doesn't fit the post-war environment very well. Perhaps that's why this adaptation doesn't quite work. Academy Award Theater tried to cover too much too briskly. The script really needed to be pared down - as is, the protagonist just seems to lurch from one locale to the next. The ending is also disappointing - instead of the protagonist urging his fellow Americans to action, it ends with the couple being split up in a bittersweet ending. This adaptation simply fails to capture what made the movie such good fun.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 3: Rebecca

Rebecca

• Campbell Playhouse (December 9, 1938): starring Orson Welles, Margaret Sullvan and Agnes Moorehead.
• Lux Radio Theater (February 3, 1941): starring Ronald Colman, Ida Lupino and Judith Anderson (reprised her film role).
• Screen Guild Theater (May 31, 1943): starring Joan Fontaine (reprised her film role), Brian Aherne and Agnes Moorehead.
• Matinee Theater (January 21, 1945): starring Martin Gabel and Gertrude Warner.
• Hollywood Players (October 1, 1946): starring Joan Fontaine (reprised her film role) and Joseph Cotten.
• Screen Guild Theater (November 18, 1948): starring Loretta Young and John Lund.
• Lux Radio Theater (November 6, 1950): starring Laurence Olivier (reprised his film role) and Vivian Leigh.

Dephne du Maurier's Rebecca was a famous novel before it became an Alfred Hitchcock film, so it's not too surprising to discover that it was adapted to radio prior to his movie. Orson Welles' adaptation is interesting in part because du Maurier appeared at the end of the drama (also, Orson makes a joke about the name of the novel's protagonist). One can see from this production that Hollywood was surely trying to bring Rebecca to the screen.

Hitchcock, of course, wasn't especially found of the movie, even though it brought him the highest accolades of his career. It's certainly a much more conventional film than most of his pictures. The adaptations which followed the movie were a mix of film and novel adaptations - the Lux Radio Theater and Screen Guild Theater versions were clearly drawn from the film, while the Matinee Theater version seems mostly a novel adaptation.

The first appearance of the script on Screen Guild Theater came one week after their adaptation of Shadow of a Doubt, so they were surely fond of Hitchcock on that program! The two Screen Guild adaptations share a script with the Hollywood Players script. Notice also that Joseph Cotten was present in the Hollywood Players version; we'll see his name a lot in these blog posts as he was a very busy man on radio, but it's neat that a genuine Hitchcock star appeared in so many of Hitchcock's adaptations.

The fidelity of the various adaptations waxes and wanes, primarily based on how much time they had to tell the story. Lux Radio Theater fits in all the highlights from the film, but screen Guild had to drop a major character (Rebecca's cousin) in order to make it fit (fortunately, Mrs. Danvers is enough of an antagonist on her own). Interestingly, the Screen Guild did not remove the minor character Frank Crawley - mainly because he provided useful exposition.

Interestingly, Laurence Olivier reprised his role on Lux Radio Theater 12 years after the film's release. Notably, Olivier's lover Vivian Leigh took the lead role in that version - he had campaigned for her back in '38 and been very disappointed when the part went to Joan Fontaine.

The Matinee Theater adaptation is pretty lousy. The novel and film are a decent mix of romance and ambiguity but this simplified version has an absurd happy ending where Mrs. Danvers simply leaves and Manderlay is not destroyed!

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 2: The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps was one of the greatest films from Alfred Hitchcock's pre-Hollywood career (the greatest, according to me). Unlike yesterday's look at the The Lodger, here we have a story which was adapted to old-time radio from both the original novel and the Hitchcock film. Interestingly, this time the first adaptation was of the movie!

• Lux Radio Theater (December 13, 1937): starring Robert Montgomery and Ida Lupino.
• Mercury Theater (August 1, 1938): starring Orson Welles.
• Studio One (March 23, 1948): starring Glenn Ford and Mercedes McCambridge.
• Suspense (March 3, 1952): starring Herbert Marshall.

Now, I love John Buchan's novel The Thirty-Nine Steps an awful lot as well, so I'm certainly not bothered by attempts to adapt the book instead of the movie. The Lux Radio Theatre adaptation is the one time Hitchcock's film was adapted to radio. Lux Radio Theater was an extremely well-produced program which would dig up good performers even when the originals weren't available (as is the case here). It's a good production but the dynamic between Robert Montgomery and Ida Lupino is lacking - they essentially argue in every scene they share, yet still declare they're in love with each other at the end. It's really not credible, unlike the Hitchcock film's efforts at convincing us that Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll's characters gradually fell in love.

The other three are adaptations of the novel and they're all pretty good, but I have to give the highest honours to Suspense simply because with only a 30-minute production they were able to condense the novel down to its most essential moments. It's a stellar piece of adaptation. The Mercury Theater version, on the other hand, tries to be a little too artsy and then has trouble fitting the story into an hour! Orson Welles made a comment about the Hitchcock film at the end of his adaptation:

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you missed Madeleine Carroll in our stag version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, the young lady in the movie, in common with almost everything else in that movie, is the child of its director's own unparalleled and unpredictable fancy. If you missed anything you must blame Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. If you were surprised by anything, you must blame us."

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 1: The Lodger

I love Alfred Hitchcock's works - and I love old-time radio! I've examined how the two are connected before in a previous post which looked at radio adaptations of stories which were dramatized on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

But Hitchcock was primarily a filmmaker and many of his movies were adapted on the radio. I thought it would be interesting to listen to each old-time radio adaptation of every Alfred Hitchcock film and then see what I discover. Let's begin!

The Lodger

• Forecast (July 22, 1940): starring Herbert Marshall
• Suspense (December 14, 1944): starring Robert Montgomery
• Hollywood Star Time (May 19, 1946): starring Vincent Price and Cathy Lewis (who substituted for Ida Lupino)
• Mystery in the Air (August 14, 1947): starring Peter Lorre and Agnes Moorehead
• Suspense (February 14, 1948): starring Robert Montgomery

The Lodger was adapted five times; of these, only the Forecast program referenced Alfred Hitchcock's film as it was used as the pilot episode of Suspense. But it was an incomplete adaptation and when Suspense became a series it was without Hitchcock's involvement.

Suspense adapted the original novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes twice, both with Robert Montgomery as the star. The first was a half-hour, the second was one-hour, but, like most hour-long episodes of Suspense it's not really much different than the shorter version - just padded a bit. The Hollywood Star Time is pretty good, although it takes considerable liberties with the novel! Peter Lorre is great in the Mystery in the Air version too, although again, just like Hitchcock's own film, no one used the novel as much more than a launching point.

Five Dummies That Couldn't Be Silenced

In writing about old-time radio I've mentioned that comedy programs are frequently the most difficult for me to appreciate. One of the big comedy stars of old-time radio was Edgar Bergen with his ventriloquist dummy Charlie McCarthy. Much has been made of how unusual it was that ventriloquism could be a hit on the radio when audiences couldn't even see Bergen & McCarthy. Bergen cast a pretty large shadow, considering he lived long enough to make a cameo (with Charlie) in The Muppet Movie (1979). I think it's fair to say that when people tell fictional stories about ventriloquists and their dummies they tend to be inspired by Bergen.

One unusual trend in fiction about ventriloquists is the idea of the ventriloquist developing a split personality, engaging in a conflict with his dummy over which of them is the dominant personality. It has been played out in a few different places and I thought it would be fun to look at the most prominent instances. However, I'm not going to consider stories where the dummy is simply an independent force (ie, Twilight Zone's "Caesar and Me"), the dummy has to be in some way a part of the ventriloquist's personality.

As ventriloquist dummies are pretty creepy, each dummy will graded on the Charlie McCarthy scale. A rating of '1 Charlie' means the dummy is as creepy as Charlie McCarthy, '2 Charlies' means twice as creepy and so forth.

OTTO

From: "The Rival Dummy" (1928) a short story by Ben Hecht; also adapted into The Great Gabbo (1929), a film directed by James Cruze, as "The Rival Dummy" into an episode of the radio series Molle Mystery Theater (1946) and as an episode of the television series Studio One (1949).

Creep factor: 1 Charlie

What's His Deal?: As best as I can tell, Hecht's story is the originator of the 'evil dummy' genre and he wrote it 8 years before Bergen's breakout success! (Bergen was in vaudeville at the time) This dummy is not exactly evil and there is nothing supernatural about the story, but the ventriloquist Gabbo (played by Erich von Stroheim in the picture) finds himself over-indulging in his dummy, losing his own identity. Later writers took this concept, added a bit of Bergen and a lot of terror!

TOBY

From: Dead of Night (1945), a film directed by Alberto Cavalcanti; also adapted into an episode of the radio show Escape (1947)

Creep factor: 1 Charlie

What's His Deal?: This is easily the most famous 'evil dummy' story. Maxwell Frere (played by Michael Redgrave in the picture) finds his dummy Toby keeps saying things against his will. It might be the work of a rival ventriloquist -- or the dummy might have a life of his own. Note that the radio adaptation goes in quite a different direction from the movie.

RIABOUCHINSKA

From: "Riabouchinska" (1947), written by Ray Bradbury as an episode of the radio series Suspense; subsequently published as a short story "And So Died Riabouchinska" (1953), adapted to television's Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1956) and to television's Ray Bradbury Theater (1988).

Creep factor: 0.5 Charlies

What's HisHer Deal?: Riabouchinska is the female dummy of John Fabian (played by Claude Rains in the picture), a ventriloquist who previously used a Charlie-esque male dummy but later modeled a new dummy on the assistant he had been infatuated with. This is an interesting reversal of the usual evil dummy stories -- in this case, Riabouchinska is the embodiment of good while Fabian is evil!

WILLIE

From: "The Dummy" (1962) an episode of television's The Twilight Zone written by Rod Serling.

Creep factor: 2 Charlies

What's His Deal?: Ventriloquist Jerry Etherson (played by Cliff Robertson in the picture) is having a lot of trouble in his act; he has two dummies: the Charlie-esque Willie and the Mortimer Snerd-esque Goofy Goggles. But, as in Dead of Night, the dummy has a big ego, one which is overwhelming the ventriloquist -- however, it leads to a much more horrifying outcome than that film!

FATS

From: Magic (1976), a novel by William Goldman; also adapted into the film Magic (1978) directed by Richard Attenborough.

Creep factor: 5 Charlies

What's His Deal?: Corky Withers (played by Anthony Hopkins in the picture) is a frustrated stage magician who suffers a mental breakdown when success keeps eluding him. He reinvents his magic act by adopting Fats, a ventriloquist dummy. He cleverly uses Fats as a distraction to help him execute magic tricks and soon he gains all the success he wanted -- but Fats has developed into a separate personality and he's on the verge of a much more dangerous mental breakdown.