- Escape (CBS): This was a great year for Escape, the finest highlight being their 2-part adaptation of Earth Abides. It was also the year of Wild Jack Rhett, a prototype for Gunsmoke. And other great episodes included Present Tense, Sundown, Bloodbath and Poison.
- Suspense (CBS): This was the year Elliott Lewis took over the series. He'd come up the ranks, performing on the show and writing a few episodes. Eventually I feel his work caused the show to sag, but at this point Suspense was still a very sharp program with great episodes like On a Country Road, Too Hot to Live and Never Steal a Butcher's Wife.
- The Jack Benny Program (CBS): This year seemed to be most notable for flubs - it was the year Don Wilson said "Drear Pooson" and Mary Livingstone said "grassreek." But beyond that there was a very funny satire of The Whistler and a good multi-episode gag about Jack giving 50 cents to a panhandler.
- Dimension X (NBC): This was the first great radio science fiction series and it started strong with many episodes adapted from top sci-fi authors. The best of the best were Ray Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains and Mars Is Heaven. Other great episodes included The Embassy, A Logic Named Joe and Universe.
- The Whistler (CBS): Another good year for the Whistler which included Damon Runyon's Three Wise Guys and good episodes like The Wall.
- Inner Sanctum Mysteries (CBS/ABC): This was another good year for the series with some interesting episodes like the way-out oddity of The Hitchhiking Corpse and a very good chiller Beyond the Grave.
- I Love a Mystery (Mutual): I am not as interested in I Love a Mystery as some - I find Carlton E. Morse's dialogue to be incredibly stilted. Still, this revival series includes the serial Temple of Vampires, which is pretty good - some good quasi-supernatural moments, but overall just a great adventure program.
- Screen Directors Playhouse (NBC): Of all the Lux imitators who sprung up after the war, this is one of the best. It was only a half-hour but had great adaptations of popular films with many of the original cast members. This year included: Tomorrow Is Forever, The Dark Mirror, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Shadow of a Doubt, Lifeboat and Miracle on 34th Street.
- The Mysterious Traveler (Mutual): This was another good year as the series became increasingly a science fiction program, with episodes like The Man Who Tried to Save Lincoln and Operation Tomorrow.
- Our Miss Brooks (CBS): This is one of the best latter-day radio sitcoms, with Eve Arden and a great cast of radio players. The series was very formulaic but the jokes were good and the performances were always on the mark.
Saturday, June 19, 2021
20 Great Years of Radio, Part 13: 1950
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2 comments:
Hi Michael,
You've done a great job so far with highly informative reviews that are very helpful in drawing our attention to the best of the best. So far, I've been in almost complete agreement with your selections. I love Dimension X and I greatly enjoy Arch Oboler's Lights Out, along with Inner Sanctum and Mysterious Traveler. Very few people seem to be aware of how good Mysterious Traveler was, and it's great that you're shining a positive critical light on this under-appreciated show. I'm also grateful that you have spotlighted Suspense, Escape, and especially The Whistler. The Whistler is a wonderful series that is all too often under-rated, so I'm doubly appreciative of your recognition of this well-crafted series. Finally, the comedies! I love the positive recognition you've given to Jack Benny (above all other comedies), Our Miss Brooks and the Phil Harris-Alice Faye show. (By the way, Alice Faye is an exceptional vocalist, one of the 2 or 3 finest movie singers of the great American songbook.) Thanks again for all the great critical insights! Peace, Terry
Hi Terry,
I don't think it helps that we have relatively little of the Mysterious Traveler's episodes - it ran for many years but remarkably few episodes survived (though thanks to recycled scripts on Sealed Book, Strange Dr. Weird and even Suspense we know a little more about the show's content). As you can see, I don't find it quite as good as Inner Sanctum, but it does commit to horror & sci-fi, which is an important point to many fans.
It's hard to single out some of the great episodes of The Whistler because there's such a level quality from episode to episode that often one is as good as another. But I have tried to highlight the best of the best!
I had a negative opinion of OTR comedy until I discovered Benny - he is the lens that helped me appreciate the rest of the shows. There are plenty of long-running comedies that I haven't mentioned but which I think are just fine. But Benny is still immensely funny to listen to, as is Phil Harris/Alice Faye. And you're right, Alice Faye was a terrific vocalist - not Dinah Shore good, but just a rung below her.
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