White Christmas, the Musical That Feared the Future

During the holidays I was re-watching the 1954 musical-comedy White Christmas. I remember watching that film with my family in the 1990s and it became a family tradition to watch it every year around Christmas-time. The funny thing is, the contents of the film are only loosely tied to Christmas. Although the entire film is set around Christmas and features the titular song "White Christmas" near the beginning of the picture and again at the climax, the rest of the film is a series of songs and comic situations that could have been told at any time of the year.

But the most recent time I watched the film, I noticed an odd connection between two of the Irving Berlin songs: "Minstrel Number" and "Choreography." The entire "Minstrel Number" is a nostlagic piece about how much fun minstrel shows were (thankfully, unlike the film Holiday Inn where "White Christmas" debuted, there's no blackface to accompany this number). "Choreography" is some kind of diatribe against avant-garde theater, with Danny Kaye as a satirical choregraphed dancer contrasted against Vera-Ellen's traditional stage dancing; wouldn't you rather watch Vera-Ellen tap dance than see Danny Kaye spin his arms around like a clock? (if you would, then I don't get you)

Now, I like both of those numbers - they're both very silly and Danny Kaye is top-notch in both productions. What I find interesting is that "Minstrel Number" is pining for the past - for a mode of entertainment that hadn't been in vogue for, at the time, decades. And also, you have "Choreography," which is suspicious and disdainful of what was popular on stage at the time. Irving Berlin's heyday began in the 1920s; perhaps his tastes calcified then and never really kept hep with changing tastes.

For another instance, you could look to the film the Band Wagon, which went to cinemas a year before White Christmas. That one features Fred Astaire as a performer who's enlisted into a deep re-interpretation of Faust that ultimately flops on the stage. The performers then rally together ("Gosh, with all this raw talent around, why can't us kids get together and put on ourselves a show! Maybe, we could find ourselves a barn or something.") and put on a production that's what audiences really want to see... another big song and dance show.

Now, the Band Wagon is really elevated by "the Girl Hunt Ballet," an impressionistic dance number based on Mickey Spillane's pulp fiction. But taken together, White Christmas and the Band Wagon give me the sense that musical producers in the 1950s were a bit worried about how to continue appealing to audiences. They knew what worked in the past - and those movies both succeeded at the box office - but perhaps they knew the writing was on the wall? The 1950s are remembered as the last really great decade of movie musicals, as the 1960s would be littered with so many high-profile musical flops that it seemed to taint the entire genre of films.

Knowing what lay ahead of musical films, I kind of want to reach into White Christmas, slap Irving Berlin in the face and tell him to stop pining for those ancient minstrel shows. Those creative decisions are so much of their time that I had no clue what "Minstrel Number" was pining for when I first saw it (answer: really racist old-timey humour) and I'm still unclear as to what exactly was being spoofed in "Choreography." The singing and dancing that accompanies those numbers overcomes their lack of relevance.

Radio Recap: The Crime Files of Flamond

"Flamond! The most unusual detective in criminal history! Flamond, the famous psychologist and character analyst! Flamond, who looks beyond laughter and tears, jealousy and greed to discover their basic origins!"

You, like me up until a few weeks ago, may have never heard of the detective series the Crime Files of Flamond, despite a long run on the radio. It began as a syndicated program that ran 1944-1948, then was revived on Mutual in 1953 for a few months, then again for a year from 1956-1957.

The hero of this drama, Flamond, was portrayed by a few actors, including Arthur Wyatt, Myron Wallace and Everett Clarke. You might know Myron Wallace better as Mike Wallace, the name he adopted as a news broadcaster! Flamond was accompanied by his gal friday and secretary Sandra Lake, who was portrayed by Patricia Dunlap and Muriel Bremner.

There isn't much that makes the Crime Files of Flamond stand apart from other radio detectives except for the hero's profession. As a psychologist, his solutions to crimes would always be rooted in pscyhology. But otherwise, it followed the same beats as other detective shows. Typically, Flamond would identify the criminal and turn him over to the police, then explain to Sandra what tell-tale clue led him to his deduction; Sandra would then sum up the program and give it it's title ("the case of...").

Despite being on the air for about six years all told there's very little of the Crime Files of Flamond still in circulation. Here's a YouTube playlist created by a fan that contains 10 surviving broadcasts from the 1940s (mostly with Myron Wallace as Flamond). As the series was syndicated in the 40s it's always possible more from that era will emerge in years to come.

"Lost" Suspense Episode Found!

One strange thing about the old-time radio hobby is that it can be difficult to determine what exactly is available out there. Resources like the Old Time Radio Researchers Library try to acquire copies of all that there is, but they've been known to overlook certain episodes. And even then, when a "lost" episode is found, unless you're actively part of that program's fan community it could be some time before you learn it exists. That was the case last year when I suddenly realized a number of "missing" episodes of Inner Sanctum Mysteries and the Whistler had been found yet I'd been ignorant of it.

Me, I feel that when a "lost" episode of a program you like is found, you owe it to your fellow fans to spread the word because you can't trust that they follow the same websites that you do. To wit, a few days ago the Old Time Radio Researchers released a "lost" episode of the series Suspense! It's titled "The Beetle and Mr. Bottle" and first aired August 23, 1955. If it sounds a little familiar to you, well, we already had the rebroadcast version from September 20, 1959. But that version was from the latter days' New York version of Suspense - this is from the period where Suspense was still being produced in Hollywood with the familiar CBS cast of performers.

Here's the episode!

Radio Recap: Bold Venture

"Adventure, intrigue, mystery, romance, starring: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall together in the sultry setting of tropical Havana and the mysterious islands of the Caribbean! Bold Venture!"

Bold Venture was a syndicated radio adventure series produced by Ziv that appeared from 1951-1952. The series starred the Hollywood couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, which was a pretty big deal. Bogart had tried to create his own radio series in 1949, resulting in an audition recording of him in "Dead Man" but it didn't result in a series. I blogged about "Dead Man" last Halloween.

The successful launch of Bold Venture with Bogart and Bacall demonstrated how syndicated radio was reliable enough that two major Hollywood stars could record more than a year's worth of programs while continuing their film careers. It used to be that Hollywood stars had to scramble to fit in live radio appearances and struggle to show up for the rehearsals.

In the series, Bold Venture was the name of the boat owned by Bogart's character, Slate Shannon. Shannon also ran the hotel Shannon's Place and was aided by Sailor Duval (Bacall), a young woman who was the daughter of an old friend. Slate was supposed to be looking out for her even though, as the series would demonstrate time and again, Duval was perfectly capable of taking care of herself (even when Duval would occasionally be held at gunpoint her voice never changed register; she and Shannon were perpetually sober and sardonic regardless of circumstances).

The series was definitely drawing from Bogart and Bacall's first film together - Howard Hawks' To Have and Have Not (1944), which was also set in the Caribbean and in which Bogart was also a chartered boat owner who engaged in romantic banter with Bacall. To Have and Have Not was not really a very good movie but Bogart and Bacall's chemistry in the film is so good that I've watched it many, many times. Similarly, Bold Venture is a pretty average adventure series but the banter Bogart and Bacall indulged in keeps renders it very pleasant to listen to.

I recall when I worked for my hometown newspaper (the Mountaineer) and accompanied another (much older) employee in delivering the paper to all the local shops and post office, that one day the two of were discussing old movies because I'd mentioned to him that I was becoming a classic film buff. For some reason he took a moment to complain about "all those movies" Bogart and Bacall made together. It was only later that I looked it up and saw they only really made four films together: To Have and Have Not may not have been that great, but two of the others - the Big Sleep (1946) and Key Largo (1948) are still considered all-time great films. I'm very fond of Dark Passage (1947) too (it's the one where the opening scenes are shot from Bogart's POV). But consider this: Bogart and Bacall's 26+ hours worth of Bold Venture episodes is considerably greater than the runtime of those four films!

The duo of Slate and Sailor were joined by King Moses, portrayed by Jester Hairston. King Moses would engage in calypso music on the guitar, sometimes to open an episode but frequently he would drop in on the middle of the episode, recapping the plot of the first half of the story through song - he seldom had much to do with the actual plots on Bold Venture other than comment on what Slate and Sailor were doing.

The series was written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin. Fine and Friedkin had a long association together as writers, including scripts for the Philip Morris Playhouse, Gunsmoke, the Line-Up, Suspense, Crime Classics and Escape. Aside from Bold Venture, their other great long run together was writing Elliott Lewis' police program Broadway Is My Beat - in fact their writing for those two shows overlaps. The series was directed by Henry Hayward, who also directed the Ziv syndicated program I Was a Communist for the FBI.

Fine and Friedkin were great radio writers, but I do wonder if Bold Venture pushed their faculties a little too far; so many episodes of Bold Venture sound alike. In fact, I don't recommend Bold Venture so much as a series as to say it's worth hearing a few episodes of the program - they're pretty much the same quality but none are above average.

Maybe the most unusual episode is titled "Russian Roulette." It opens with Slate and Sailor taking care of a wandering heiress; there are two criminals trying to cheat her out of her family fortune, so Slate and Sailor take her out aboard the Bold Venture to avoid them. The two criminals pursue them; so far, a very familiar premise for a radio adventure drama. Then, about halfway through the premise changes entirely; they run aground on a reef and find themselves on the island of a man who is basically running a version of "the Most Dangerous Game" and forces them to participate in a game of Russian Roulette with him each day. The sudden shift feels so bizarre - like Fine and Friedkin were each working independently on two different scripts then somehow wrote them into a single production.

There are 57 episodes of Bold Venture currently circulating and you can hear them all in this YouTube playlist! The other 21 episodes should appear sometime later this year.

2024 Review: Books

I don't read as much fiction as I once did, but I was very pleasantly surprised by Focus (1945) by Arthur Miller, which was apparently the only novel Miller wrote. The story concerns a man who has just started wearing glasses and his old acquaintences all think he looks 'Jewish' but rather than say that to his face, simply discriminate against him. That the problem is one that every character is aware of but no one can bring themselves to say aloud makes for a very tense situation. It's not only a study of prejudice but also of the power of unspoken, unchallenged beliefs.

Another good work of fiction was the Disenchanted (1950) by Budd Schulberg, which I sought out after enjoying Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run the previous year. This one was a fictionalized version of Schulberg's relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald and how the two men tried to write a screenplay together, only for Fitzgerald's alcoholism to scuttle the entire assignment (I watched the resulting film - Winter Carnival - and it is lousy). It's a good novel, yet the Fitzgerald character's continued debasement over hundreds of pages gets to be one-note; I realize all the scenes are inspired by events that really happened to Schulberg but on some level it might have made a superior short story.

My interest in film lead me to Alfred Hitchcock Storyboards (2024) by Tony Lee Moral, a terrific coffee table book; the author's commentary wasn't that illuminating but the samples of production art from Hitchcock's films looked terrific. And Opposable Thumbs (2023) by Matt Singer was a great look at the Roger Ebert/Gene Siskel team and how they functioned, it even inspired me to check out a few of the films that were mentioned in passing!

I suppose it's because of events transpiring among my neighbours to the south that I've become interested in understanding fascism, because in the last year I read the fictional work It Can't Happen Here (1935) by Sinclair Lewis which imagined how fascism could come to the USA; then there's the non-fiction Prequel (2023) by Rachel Maddow which explores the various fascist movements that flourished in the USA in the 1930s, as well as They Thought They Were Free (1955) by Milton Mayer, which was a study of men from a German town who had all either willingly or reluctantly conspired with the Nazis.

Others: On Writing (2000) by Stephen King inspired me in my own writing efforts; The Early Worm (1927) by Robert Benchley was another funny collection of essays; The Day the Revolution Began (2016) by N. T. Wright was a great historical look at the time of Jesus' life; The Jesus I Never Knew (1995) by Philip Yancey was a very good series of meditations on Jesus (which also referenced the above book Focus); and Muito Favorecidos (2019) by Stuart Foster, was a Portuguese version of his book Highly Favoured, a good book on the basics of faith for a primarily African audience.

2024 was also the year in which we lost science fiction author Vernor Vinge.

And that's what I enjoyed the most in 2024; I hope you yourself found some diversions - fiction or non - to enjoy in the year past and wish you good reading, watching or listening in the year ahead.

2024 Review: Television

I don't include a rundown of which television shows I watch each year, but in 2024 I watched a lot more television programming than in recent years - no doubt due to my wife's influence. By far the highlight has been slowly going through the entire series of Columbo! I knew all about Columbo but had never watched a single episode until last year; now we're 6 seasons in with several more to go and it's been a lot of fun. It's also inspired me to introduce my wife to other detective films and TV shows that I've enjoyed that have a similar bend (that is, fiction where the criminal's identity is known but the means by which the detective will catch him is unclear).

We also quite enjoyed the sitcom series How I Met Your Mother, which impressed me by its earnestness - that amidst some very good sitcom jokes there was genuine emotion and romance. Frequently I enjoyed the series as much as a drama as I did as a comedy.

We also watched a few seasons of Wallander (British version), the Kenneth Branagh series about a Swedish police detective who's good at his job yet unable to make his personal life work.

And we went back to some older shows, watching a lot of the detective series Law and Order: Criminal Intent and the sitcom Cheers which were welcome to revisit. And we finished up viewing the entirety of Alias; I summarized my feelings about the series in this post.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed X-Men '97, the sequel to the 1990s animated series. I reviewed the series twice, my first impressions here and a follow-up post here.

I suppose the only sour note of 2024 was the Star Wars series The Acolyte, which was bad, although mostly bad in the same ways I found the Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka to be bad. I wrote a brief dismissal of the series in this post.

2024 was also the year we lost actorCarl Weathers, whom I enjoyed the most on the television series Arrested Development.

Tomorrow: wrapping up 2024 with books!

2024 Review: Movies

Although my wife and I had a few free movie passes, it took us a while to find reasons to visit the cinema - 2024 just wasn't a great year for titles that were good enough to draw us out. In fact, when we did go to see Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes I was extremely irritated that two people in the row in front of me repeatedly pulled out their phones throughout the entire running time of the movie; movies are expensive, yet viewers don't seem too engaged, I guess?

That makes the best cinema experience of 2024 Furiosa, directed by George Miller. I reviewed the movie here and while I enjoyed it, it does suffer in comparison to Mad Max: Fury Road and unfortunately constantly wants the audience to compare the two films.

We also went to see Gladiator II directed by Ridley Scott, which was kind of trashy and dumb but we did have a good time with it (also, no one was checking their phones!).

From older films, I watched It's in the Bag (1945) directed by Richard Wallace, a Fred Allen movie. I've never been that interested in Allen's comedy but this was a very witty film with terrific dialogue and fun interactions between Allen and a multitude of guest stars (including Jack Benny himself!).

Another older one I checked out was No Man of Her Own (1950) directed by Mitchell Leisen, an adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's terrific crime novel I Married a Dead Man, with Barbara Stanwyck in the lead role as a woman who allows a grieving family to believe she's a dead man's fiancee.

In more recent films, I enjoyed the courtroom drama The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (2023) directed by William Friedkin. I reviewed the film (with some other movies) in this post.

My wife and I also checked out Les Miserables (2012) directed by Tom Hooper, which is the first time I've ever actually experienced the musical version of Victor Hugo's novel, having previously read the book and watched two non-musical film adaptations.

And I checked out some very good documentaries too - Helvetica (2007) directed by Gary Hustwit is easily the best documentary I've seen about design (a subject dear to my wife). The Line King (1996) directed by Susan W. Dryfoos is a documentary about artist Al Hirschfeld and was a very good biographical picture. I also enjoyed the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left Behind (2019) directed by Ira Steven Behr and the biography film Jim Henson: Idea Man (2024) directed by Ron Howard.

2024 was also the year that directorNorman Jewison passed away.

Tomorrow: 2024 in television.