Radio Recap: The Radio Hall of Fame

The Radio Hall of Fame - also called Philco Radio Hall of Fame after the series' sponsor - was a variety program that aired over the Blue network, continuing with them even after the network changed its name to ABC. It started in 1943 as an hour-long program, then shifted to a half-hour in 1945 before completing its run in 1946 (the following fall, Philco continued on ABC with Philco Radio Time starring Bing Crosby). The series offered a chance for audiences to hear repeat performances of popular radio stars in their most famous roles. Music throughout the series was provided by bandleader Paul Whiteman.

I haven't posted many Radio Recaps of Blue network shows; NBC Blue seldom had big name stars - those were usually reserved for the primary NBC network. Radio Hall of Fame was obviously a very expensive show, considering the vast number of talents who made themselves available for it. Compare this extravaganza to Philco's modest Phyl Coe Radio Mysteries series from just 6 years earlier - clearly time had been very good to Philco's business!

The show was strongly connected to Variety magazine; the magazine's critic Deems Taylor was the show's original host. Apparently that caused a lot of problems for the series because most of the newspaper coverage of Radio Hall of Fame consisted of the series insisting it wasn't just a mouthpiece for Variety. As of the second season, Deems Taylor was gone and the series was led by a series of guest hosts, usually popular film and radio stars.

During the summer time the series became the Philco Summer Theater; Paul Whiteman stayed on to introduce the acts but it became almost entirely musical numbers (with a brief news break). But in every incarnation, the Radio Hall of Fame had a lot of music - sometimes the musical acts go on for about 10 minutes-- occasionally, longer than that!

Now, the repeated performances varied quite a bit. At the beginning of the show, they genuinely did offer fans a chance to hear a popular performance a second time, which was a novelty in the days when "re-runs" didn't exist. The show's fourth episode featured a recreation of a sketch heard two weeks earlier on the Texaco Star Theatre with Fred Allen's entire comedy cast appearing for the recreation - that's kind of a big deal for a Blue network series to be highlighting a popular CBS comedy! But many of the comedy sketches on Radio Fall of Fame weren't from the recent past of radio, instead comedy stars would turn up to repeat their most well-known performances.

Radio Hall of Fame had radio stars: Fred Allen, Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, George Burns and Gracie Allen, George Jessel, Ed Wynn, Bing Crosby, Chico Marx, Oscar Levant, Eddie Cantor, Abbott and Costello; they had comedians who at the time were best-known for their stand-up acts: Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, Henny Youngman; they had popular singers: Ginny Sims, Lauritz Melchior, Mary Martin, Burl Ives, Dick Powell, Kenny Baker, Kate Smith, Victor Borge; they had movie stars: Joan Fontaine, Brian Aherne, Laird Cregar, Raymond Edward Johnson, Paul Muni, William Gargan, Mary Astor, Orson Welles, Judy Garland, Boris Karloff, Ingrid Bergman, Lionel Barrymore; heck, they had Terry and the Pirates cartoonist Milton Caniff!

But Radio Hall of Fame also featured the likes of Arch Oboler recreating his script "Alter Ego" (first heard on Texaco Star Theatre in 1938) which was being made into the film Bewitched that same year; they recreated "Sorry, Wrong Number" from Suspense with Agnes Moorehead in her famous role; they brought in the casts of Vic and Sade, Lum and Abner, It Pays to Be Ignorant, Mr. District Attorney; and a satire of Inner Sanctum Mysteries complete with Raymond Edward Johnson.

The music heard was of all varieties - there was opera, Broadway musical comedy, classical music - along with a variety of old jazz pieces led by Paul Whiteman. Often there's at least one musical number that had no vocalist, just orchestra. Much of the music wasn't typically heard on radio, which isn't exactly fitting with the "Hall of Fame" part of the series title. When you pair that with many of the nightclub comedians heard on the series, it really does sound like an attempt to put Variety on the radio.

The original content also included (for the 1st season only) a lot of dramatic plays written by Milton Geiger that were usually heard in the last quarter of the show. The series was produced relatively early in the USA's involvement in World War II and Geiger's plays were frequently about the conflict. In the 2nd season, the dramatic plays were usually familiar stories, such as Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" (with Peter Lorre) and Maupassant's "A Piece of String" (with Claude Rains). By the show's last season, the runtime had been trimmed to 30 minutes and the dramatic parts almost entirely excised, leaving the series just another music-comedy variety show.

I can't quite recommend the Radio Hall of Fame despite its high production values and immense array of talents. If any of the famous names above pique your interest then by all means you should search out the episodes they appeared in -- but for me, the series has too much music. The occasional great comedy routine (and there are some great ones, especially the Jackie Gleason, Chico Marx and Victor Borge appearances) doesn't really make up for the lengthy musical numbers you have to listen to in order to discover them. There are better musical-comedy variety shows (Command Performance comes to mind).

You can hear nearly 100 episodes of the Radio Hall of Fame at the Old Time Radio Researchers' Library.

RIP: Val Kilmer

Actor Val Kilmer passed away this week, aged only 65.

I'm sure every film buff out there has a favourite Val Kilmer movie, but mine is his first film - Top Secret! (1984), the ridiculous comedy film in which he portrayed the Elvis-like singing sensation Nick Rivers, who journeys behind the Iron Curtain and gets involved in a spy plot that is very much like the 1944 movie the Conspirators. As Kilmer himself noted, being that he was a young actor, it was a huge challenge to take on such a wacky comedy role; Kilmer succeeded because he portrayed Nick earnestly, a straight man in a very, very wacky movie.

But I'm sure most film buffs are going to point to Tombstone (1993). And yes, even I - a man who does not especially like westerns - point to Kilmer's performance as Doc Holliday as a terrific piece of acting. Perhaps Tombstone is the western movie for people who don't like westerns? Anyway, go watch Tombstone if you haven't already.

Obviously, there's much more I could mention; I have one friend who loves the Ghost and the Darkness (1996); my sister loved Willow (1988); my wife really likes the Saint (1997).

Rest in peace, Mr. Kilmer.

Columbia Workshop: The Recommended Listening List

With more than 300 episodes of the Columbia Workshop still in existence, it's pretty difficult to know what someone might like from the series. Everything I've learned about Columbia Workshop has confirmed how John Dunning summed it up in his encyclopedia:

"That this was not a show for the masses is especially true today. Some of these shows, on first listening, seem to move at a glacial pace; some seem quite old and date. The techniques they pioneered have become so routine, their high-tech counterparts bombarding people in radio commericals around the clock, that a listener seldom gives a thought to a time when they didn't exist."

Columbia Workshop was a pioneering, groundbreaking series, but people prefer to hear radio shows that implemented their solutions rather than listen to those early experiments. But if you're willing to dig through Columbia Workshop you'll find a massive vault full of compelling dramas, great performances and unusual uses of sound.

Here's what I consider to be the most worthwhile episodes:

• "The Gods of the Mountain" (December 19, 1936) an adaptation of Lord Dunsany's tale of beggars who masquerade as gods and the horrible fate they suffer.
• "Split Seconds" (March 14, 1937) a man struggles to swim to shore as scenes from his life echo in his ears.
• "Danse Macabre" (March 21, 1937) Death itself sets out to find companionship, killing everyone who refuses to dance to his fiddle.
• "The Fall of the City" (April 11, 1937 and again September 28, 1939) the drama of a great city's destruction, notable for the 1st version's cast of 200 voices and the 2nd version's 500+ cast!
• "R.U.R." (April 18, 1937) an adaptation of Karel Capek's play which introduced the word "robot."
• "S. S. San Pedro" (September 5, 1937) a story with heavy supernatural overtones as a ship at sea nears a disaster it can't survive.
• "The Killers" (October 17, 1937) a good adaptation of Ernest Hemmingway's short story of two gunmen and their willing victim.
• "The Horla" (November 7, 1937) an adaptation of the Guy de Maupassant story (although poor Alfred Shirley can't compare to Peter Lorre's majestic Mystery in the Air performance).
• "Night Patrol" (February 26, 1938) an Irish cop on the beat has various encounters with neighborhood folk one evening (at the time, an innovative use of footstep sound effects).
• "Seven Waves Away" (April 2, 1938) men on a lifeboat decide to sacrifice some of their fellow survivors believing it will better their odds for rescue.
• "The Fisherman and His Soul" (May 7, 1938) an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's fairy tale of a fisherman who sacrificed his soul so that he could love a mermaid, which proves to be a fatal error.
• "Bury the Dead" (May 28, 1938) an anti-war story in which the dead slain in war rise and society wonders how to make them rest again.
• "Mr. Whipple Is Worried" (January 16, 1939) a comedic episode in which a meek little man discovers he can hear statues talk.
• "Nine Prisoners" (February 20, 1939) an anti-war story in which nine soldiers are told to execute their prisoners and how each of the nine copes with their orders.
• "Jury Trial" (February 27, 1939) a look at members of a jury and how their personal prejudices and preferences interfere with justice.
• "The Law Beaters" (May 15, 1939) in which two criminals swap stories about their greatest triumphs- with a great twist ending.
• "The Man with the One Track Mind" (June 30, 1940) a whimsical story about a man who becomes a train and the unusual culture among other living train engines.
• "Carmilla" (July 28, 1940) an adaptation of Sheridan le Fanu's famous vampire story.
• "The Pussy Cat and the Expert Plumber Who Was a Man" (September 29, 1940) Arthur Miller(!)'s humorous tale of a talking cat who decides to run for public office.
• "The Plot to Overthrow Christmas (December 22, 1940) Norman Corwin's humorous bit of verse in which the fiends of Hades (ladies) attempt to snuff out Santa Claus.
• "Miracle in Manhattan" (December 21, 1941) a Christmas story of a cynical taxi driver who ferries around a mysterious man who might just be Jesus (this one was repeated several times as an episode of Duffy's Tavern).
• "Someone Else" (July 20, 1942) an offbeat supernatural tale about a man who is haunted by relics of the past.
• "Remodeled Brownstone" (October 19, 1942) a horror story in which new homeowners find their home haunted by a ghostly infant.
• "The Trial" (May 19, 1946) an adaptation of Kafka's most famous novel.
• "The Parade" (December 7, 1946) on the anniverary of the Pearl Harbor attack, a tale in which dead soldiers march silently through the city streets.

Here are some of the more "weird" episodes:

• "Maker of Dreams" (September 26, 1936) opens with a comedic drama about the spirits who give people dreams; it's followed by a discussion of how sound effects are created to give people the impression that ghosts exist.
• "The Tell-Tale Heart" (July 11, 1937) a very unusual adaptation that's less-faithful than most radio adaptations; the content of the story is the same but there's none of Edgar Allan Poe's prose - all the dialogue is unique to this production.
• "Surrealism" (June 11, 1938) a celebration of surrealism, with a variety of odd poems and songs with unusual musical accompaniment and sound effects.
• "So This Is Radio" (September 7, 1939) an explanation of how music is utilized in radio and the different means by which music is used in drama.
• "Double Exposure" (February 15, 1940) an adaptation of a Grand Guignol play; it's not what you'd expect, given the theatre's reputation for gore; it's definitely a horror play but it's very restrained and the horror doesn't really come until the climax.

Here's again is a massive collection of the Columbia Workshop at the Internet Archive.

Radio Recap: Columbia Workshop

Columbia Workshop is a piece of old-time radio history; it was a CBS program that they ran from 1936-42 and again 1944-1947. CBS paid for the program all the way through with no real remit for the series other than using it as a program for experimenting with radio storytelling.

(I won't be covering the contents of Twenty-Six by Corwin which was technically a 26-episode run of the Columbia Workshop - if I ever do cover it as a radio recap, it'll appear as its own entry; the 1956-1957 series CBS Radio Workshop was a latter-day revival of this series.)

Columbia Workshop was an anthology series; it featured episodes of every conceivable type of genre - not just comedy, fantasy, mystery, drama, musical... some episodes were structured like a revue, some featured multiple sketches. And the purpose of the series changed depending on the creators involved; some were experimenting with sound effects, others were simply utilizing unorthodox scripts. There are plenty of anthology shows on radio, but there's no other I can think of that was a sandbox for testing out new or unusual ideas.

Initially the series was produced by Irving Reis, who also wrote a few of the earlier scripts. Some of the most noted authors who wrote plays for the series were Stephen Vincent Benet, Archibald MacLeish, Lucille Fletcher and Norman Corwin. After Reis moved on, William Spier became the producer/director; William N. Robson was another director on the series; Bernard Herrmann was one of the musical contributors, prior even to his work on Mercury Theater on the Air.

As I noted in my recap, CBS' Forecast came from similar cloth as it experimented with different types of radio drama, although it was presenting its dramas as pilots for prospective new programs. Columbia Workshop sometimes helped set up new shows, but I'd hesitate to call any of the episodes a "pilot" in the traditional sense.

Still, I have to observe that Ed Gardner appeared in a number of Columbia Workshop comedic stories where he portrayed a wiseguy who told seemingly tall tales; they clearly led to Gardner's Forecast pilot for Duffy's Tavern; similarly, William Spier Columbia Workshop worked alongside writer Lucille Fletcher and music composer Bernard Herrmann - and not only would they all work together again on Suspense (which had its pilot on Forecast) but one episode of Columbia Workshop - "Double Ugly" (November 30, 1941) - was repeated on Suspense.

Lucille Fletcher's Columbia Workshop scripts are an interesting mix - two of her plays had heavy supernatural overtones - "Someone Else" (July 20, 1942) and "Remodeled Brownstone" (October 19, 1942) - and could have been rebroadcast on Suspense. Yet she also penned comedy/fantasy tales like "My Client Curley" (March 7, 1940) about a dancing caterpillar and "The Man with the One Track Mind" (June 30, 1940) in which a man decides to become a locomotive; if you only know her for her Suspense work, Columbia Workshop will change how you view her writing.

The series adapted Euripides' "The Trojan Women" (December 8, 1940), not so much because they wanted to honour classic Greek drama as to note that the play's views on war were applicable at the present time; certainly many plays on Columbia Workshop were concerned with the past trauma of World War I (ie, "Nine Prisoners," February 20, 1939) and the present trauma of World War II (ie, "The Parade," December 7, 1946).

Orson Welles appeared very early on in "Hamlet" (September 19 and November 14, 1936); this was before Orson's Mercury Theatre had come to radio and it's interesting to hear Orson in a production where he wasn't in charge (for one thing, he didn't narrate or m.c.). Given Welles and Herrmann's work on this program, I'd say it helped pave the way for the Mercury Theater on the Air.

The "Dramatization of the San Quentin Prison Break" (September 5, 1936) featured William N. Robson dramatizing how he crafted an episode of Calling All Cars so that they could adapt a jailbreak on the very day it had occurred. It's a neat look behind the curtain, demonstrating how radio scripts were assembled and performed.

There were notable episodes with Black casts including "Drums of Conscience" (May 2, 1937) about a Black man who believes he's haunted by the ghosts of slaving ships; "Tranga Man, Fine Gah" (June 4, 1938) set in Sierra Leone; "The Creation" (March 30, 1941) with a musical interpretation of the creation of life; and "Jason Was a Man" (April 27, 1941) a musical based on Jason's quest for the golden fleece.

Many years before he formally established himself as the leader in children's fiction, Dr. Seuss' first two hit children's books were adapted on Columbia Workshop- "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" (August 18, 1940) and "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" (December 1, 1940).

A lot of the steam behind Columbia Workshop seemed to peter out after the war; the show disappeared for all of 1943, then returned as Columbia Presents Corwin. But after the completion of that run, most of the old guard on Columbia Workshop had moved on (such as to Suspense). The post-war Columbia Workshop episodes are still interesting, but I don't find them as arresting or innovative as earlier productions, even though the technology behind radio was becoming stronger and stronger post-war.

I think there's plenty of episodes that are worth recommending but I'll save that for a separate post this Wednesday.

Here's a massive collection 333 episodes of the Columbia Workshop at the Internet Archive.

Radio Recap: Creeps by Night

Creeps by Night was a very short-lived old-time radio horror series, lasting just February 15-August 15, 1944 on the Blue network. It was apparently produced by Robert Maxwell and directed by Dave Drummond. Alonzo Dean Cole (the Witch's Tale) was one of the contributing writers. Boris Karloff was the series' star and apparently also served as the host of the series (some of my sources claimed Bela Lugosi was the original host but apparently that was just scuttlebutt); after Karloff had to leave the show, the host became the anonymous "Doctor X."

(I don't think there's any connection between the series and the hardcover anthology Dashiell Hammett edited, but they both came out in 1944, so I'm using the book cover for this post; it's a swell anthology, check it out!)

The series' short length of just 25 episodes is further diminished in that only 7 episodes are known to exist - and even then, several of them are truncated versions from the Armed Forces' Mystery Playhouse.

Since we have only 7 episodes to hear, I might as well summarize their plots:

• "Those Who Walk in Darkness" (April 25, 1944) starring Boris Karloff as an eye doctor operating on the husband of the woman he's had an affair with.
• "The Final Reckoning" (May 2, 1944) starring Boris Karloff as a man who gets out of prison and seeks revenge on his former partner-in-crime by scaring him to death.
• "The Hunt" (May 9, 1944) starring Boris Karloff as a farmer whose property is being stalked by a werewolf.
• "The Walking Dead" (May 16, 1944) On a plantation in Haiti, zombies rise to assault the living.
• "The Strange Burial of Alexander Jordan" (May 23, 1944) Edmund Gwenn stars as a man who is afraid of being buried alive.
• "The Three Sisters" (June 20, 1944) as one woman lies dying, her two sisters hold a vigil, expecting their dead mother to come and claim her.
• "The Six Who Would Not Die" (July 11, 1944) a pearl diver sends six men to their deaths in the ocean but they don't stay dead.

Of these, naturally the Karloff episodes are of most interest to horror buffs; "the Final Reckoning" probably has the best audio; "the Hunt" has somewhat patchy audio although the story is good; but I think the best of Karloff's is "Those Who Walk in Darkness."

As a whole, I think Creeps by Night is comparable to Inner Sanctum Mysteries; there's some decent chills and good performances. Who knows, we might yet unearth more lost episodes some day - they'd be most welcome.

A fan has a playlist of Creeps by Night here on the Internet Archive.

Radio Recap: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Let's talk about another syndicated radio series produced by Harry Alan Towers: the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (it was also broadcast as episodes of ABC Mystery Time).

To be clear, this is only going to be a recap of the 1954 series that Towers produced - I won't be referencing any of the many BBC adaptations, nor the long radio runs of NBC's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1930-1936), or the best-remembered version, NBC/Mutual's New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes which initially starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce (1939-1950). Maybe I'll visit them in a future Radio Recap, but it would take a lot of research on my part.

Towers' the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starred two big name actors in the lead roles - John Gielgud as Holmes and Ralph Richardson as Watson. Gielgud was in something of a slump; he was homosexual, and had been caught cruising for sex, which was a crime; he avoided prison, but his career slumped to a standstill, which naturally led him to Harry Alan Towers, who always had work for slumming professionals.

I find Gielgud is all right as Holmes, but he comes off as more austere than cerebral. A bigger problem is Ralph Richardson - as Watson, he had to narrate every episode and his delivery was a bit muddy. He'd drop his voice and mumble at times-- and not for dramatic effect.

Like most of Towers' programs, the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes has a small library of musical cues that it uses all the time; there's also scarcely any sound effects (other than a stock noise of hoofbeats on cobblestones that's used in the intro and at times to set a scene). The music is primarily a short piece of violin; sometimes it's introduced as what Holmes is supposedly playing at the time.

What the series had going for it was that it adapted the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories - there were no original scripts, unlike the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I've definitely found these adaptations to be effective; I can vividly recall the first time I heard the productions of "the Case of the Six Napoleons" and "the Dying Detective," which led to my own fascination with Doyle's short stories and novels. And as an Orson Welles fan, I do appreciate his turn as Professor Moriarty in "the Final Problem."

However, as much as I like Doyle's writing, I'm not certain that these are the best adaptations of his work. The first episode of the series is just terrible. Titled, "Dr. Watson Meets Sherlock Holmes," it begins as an adaptation of Doyle's short story, "the Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" but just before it reaches the climax, Watson shifts the narrative to describe how he and Holmes first met (as related in the novel "A Study in Scarlet"), then returns to the climax of the case. There is no good reason for this shift; if the episode had opened with Holmes and Watson's first meeting, the script would have been much improved. As is, it's so bad that if you try listening to the series in order, you might want to give up right then and there; but if you're willing to persevere, I do think this is a good Sherlock Holmes program, even if it's not the best.

You can hear every episode of Towers' the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in this YouTube playlist created by a fan.

Radio Recap: The Lives of Harry Lime

"That was the shot that killed Harry Lime. He died in a sewer beneath Vienna, as those of you know who saw the movie the Third Man. Yes, that was the end of Harry Lime-- but it was not the beginning; Harry Lime had many lives and I can recount all of them. How do I know? Very simple; because my name is Harry Lime."

Continuing from last Friday's post on the Black Museum, I'd like to talk about another syndicated radio program by Harry Alan Towers: The Lives of Harry Lime (1951). Er, if that is indeed the series' name; it's almost as often given by announcers as "the Third Man."

The Third Man was, of course, the 1949 movie directed by Carol Reed from Graham Greene's story. The film featured author Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) as a man who goes to post-war Vienna to accept a job from his old friend Harry Lime. He soon discovers Harry is actually a criminal.

I learned of the Third Man through the Lives of Harry Lime and when I finally saw that film, it became my favourite movie. But the radio series is not really part of the same continuity as the movie; they both star Orson Welles as a criminal named Harry Lime; they both feature the zither music of Anton Karas (believe it or not, Karas' score to the movie was a hit at the time). But perhaps the reason Orson's opening narration refers to Lime's "many lives" is because these stories aren't meant to be about the same person in the Third Man - instead they present alternate takes on him.

In the Lives of Harry Lime, Harry is roguish fellow; although he loves to swindle people, sometimes his inner goodness causes him to take pity on his victims; sometimes he gets outwitted; and sometimes he's pit against corrupt government or Nazis where it's considered morally correct for Lime to fleece them. But that's not the Harry Lime of the Third Man; part of the plot of the movie is Holly realizing that Harry isn't who he thought he was; Harry views himself as a good-natured rogue, but Holly is forced to confront the results of Harry's actions, the innocent children who die because of Harry's black market penicilin.

So, although the program invites comparisons to the Third Man it's really best that you take this series on its own terms - it's an adventure program. Harry gets to be genuinely heroic at times, such as in a nice playful moment at the climax of "5,000 Pengoes and a Kiss" where Harry forces a patrol of Hungarian policemen to give him their belts so that they'll be unable to chase him. Harry: "In all the famous chases in history, no policeman has been known to catch a fugitive and hold up his pants at the same time."

Other good episodes include "Turnabout Is Foul Play" in which Harry pretends to be an immensely moral man in order to swindle a government official; "The Bohemian Star" in which Harry masquerades as a journalist and gets the goods on a jewel heist; and there's the very intriguing episode "Man of Mystery" which was apparently written by Orson himself; he later expanded the plot another motion picture, Mr. Arkadin.

Welles appeared in a lot of radio shows for Harry Alan Towers but the quality of his output was variable. In the Lives of Harry Lime he was being called on to be the lead man - not merely a supporting player or narrator. Frankly, he wasn't always up to it. In much of Orson's radio work, he'd read through his scripts recklessly and even contemptuously; knowing that he sometimes didn't read scripts until he showed up for the broadcast, his performances could come over as unpolished (to put it politely). Sometimes Orson seemed very invested in his performance; other times, he sounded bored; on other occasions, he was speeding through the script, talking over his fellow performers as if in a hurry to be done with it; and then there are time where he garbles his dialogue (which is amazing for a transcribed program; I guess he refused to do retakes) and sounds either sleepy or drunk. All of this drags down the program.

You can hear every episode of the Lives of Harry Lime in this YouTube playlist created by a fan.