Radio Recap: Top Secret

Top Secret was a short-lived program on NBC in 1950. It was produced by Harry W. Junkin (who earlier produced Radio City Playhouse and later produced The Chase). The series starred Ilona Massey as Baroness Karen Geza, an Austrian noblewoman who worked as an undercover operative for the Allies during World War II.

Although Massey portrayed the Baroness as a femme fatale in the style of Marlene Dietrich, it's interesting to note she wasn't a 'Mata Hari' character - that is, she didn't (usually) obtain her intelligence by sleeping with the enemy. She usually took on menial jobs which placed her close to people of significance. Frequently there were friendly agents who swooned over her and a few villains as well, but she didn't really find romance on the program. A rare exception to the rule is the epsode "The Unknown Mission" in which she and an enemy male spy are pit against each other.

Top Secret does not hold up against the likes of Cloak and Dagger. It didn't adapt its heroine's adventures from real-life assignments. And yet, it is interesting to hear a World War II espionage series with a recurring lead and a little bit of continuity from week-to-week, which sets it apart from Cloak and Dagger.

But I guess Top Secret struggled in the ratings because late in its run, it suddenly got a revamp; it stopped being set in the European theater of World War II and became a post-war series which pit the Baroness against communists. Basically, the series transformed into The Man Called X but with a female lead and those later episodes are not very interesting to listen to.

The most bizarre discovery I made is that one of their scripts was performed twice - first as a World War II drama against Nazi agents in London, then as a Cold War drama against communists in the USA! The original version, "Disaster in London" is easily my favourite episode as the Baroness is pit against a British agent who has betrayed his country for the Axis. But the remake, titled merely "Disaster" is a bit odd - it isn't a full episode, it lacks all of the announcer's parts and musical bridges. Perhaps it was never broadcast and was only ever an experiment by the creators to see if they could refashion World War II spy dramas into Cold war spy dramas.

The Old Time Radio Researchers group have collected the show's episodes and you can hear them on this playlist at Youtube. Top Secret is not a phenomenal series but there aren't many decent old-time radio spy dramas and this is, to my knowledge, the only such series with a female lead. I think it's worth trying out.

Angola in the Comics #18: Marauders #20

Welcome back to Angola in the comics!

Usually there are two flavours of stories I feature in this occasional series - European comics and rather racist books from the Golden Age. But today I have a rarity - an appearance by Angola in a contemporary mainstream super hero comic from Marvel Comics!

The comic in question is Marauders #20, published last year by writer Gerry Duggan and artist Stefano Caselli. Marauders is one of the many new X-Men books which have been published over the last few years since Jonathan Hickman redefined the franchise so as to render all the mutant characters basically immune to death (Hickman knows that the key to drama is to lower the stakes). The X-Men, who had previously felt somewhat like a cult instead leaned hard into that concept as now they all basically talk like a bunch of Scientologists. They like to think that on their island Krakoa they're a veritable nation, but Krakoa seems to be little more than a hotel resort.

Anyway, it's not as though the current set-up will last forever - fact is, Hickman himself foresaw an endgame for his story. But Marvel, in their wisdom, decided to keep the status quo running beyond its expiration date, as that has historically never been a problem with comics.

So then: the Marauders are pirates. But not the Captain Phillips-type contemporary pirates, they're... quasi-super hero pirates. Strangely, Nightcrawler is not among their ranks, despite being the lone X-Man renowned for his love of swashbuckling. But the one-eyed Callisto is there, which is a pretty good joke.

In this issue the Marauders sit around on their boat swapping stories about Storm and wagering on how many knives they think she owns. The Angolan connection comes up when Bishop states that Storm once helped him out in Angola. This comes as a surprise to Storm, since she doesn't recall ever being in Angola with Bishop. And so begins the flashback:

Based on the dialogue, it seems there were some Angolan mutants (not depicted on-panel) and Bishop and Pyro of the Marauders were exchanging some of Krakoa's super-medicine for their release. But as the flashback begins, Bishop and Pyro are facing four armed Angolan soldiers who want to change the terms of their deal. Oh no! How will Bishop (able to absorb any form of energy, basically unkillable even without Krakoa) and Pyro (walking flamethrower) ever overcome four men with guns?

Actually, this doesn't come down to a fight - it's a bit more clever than that. There's a storm forming in the sky above and Bishop claims that Storm herself is responsible for it. It's a bluff, but a loud thunderclap convinces the lead officer to relent and agree to the original terms of their deal.

And that's it - just one page of the comic given over to Angola, but that's still the biggest role Angola has ever featured in a Marvel comic.

Strange that all the Angolan soldiers spoke English... it's not exactly common over here, speaking as an ESL teacher in Angola. It could just as easily have been set in the Congo or Nigeria - the story references Angola, but doesn't actually depict Angola. But I give Duggan credit for making a token effort.

New Appendix profiles

It has been a little while but I'm contributing a few profiles to the Appendix now and then. Here's three new entries I created: 3-21 (a Captain America foe); Viking (a Hulk foe); and Mark 12 Sonic Depressor (a Hulk device). I'm always happy to continue my involvement with the Appendix and hope I'll have more to share in the future!

Radio Recap: Hollywood Star Playhouse

Not too long after NBC's Radio City Playhouse ran its course, CBS launched a different kind of dramatic playhouse: Hollywood Star Playhouse. Those two programs are quite the contrast; Radio City Playhouse prided itself on having no particular theme or major stars. But Hollywood Star Playhouse brought big stars to radio - and it had a consistent theme: it was a suspense series. In fact, it was very much like another CBS program: Suspense.

Hollywood Star Playhouse ran on all three major networks -the 1950-51 season on CBS, 51-52 on ABC and 52-53 with NBC. It's interesting that there's very little of the show in circulation, considering how late it was; it was a transcribed program, you'd think there'd be a near-complete supply of episodes yet - no.

The stars who appeared on the show were pretty much the same names you'd expect on Suspense: Barbara Stanwyck, James Stewart, Ray Milland, Mickey Rooney, Joseph Cotten. To say nothing of radio players like William Conrad and Stacy Harris in supporting roles. The performances are great, so it's definitely a pity that so much of the series is missing today.

The stories themselves are quite good; several were written by Maurice Zimm (who'd written the great "Return Trip" for Suspense). One of Zimm's scripts, "A Question of Time" was adapted into feature film format as Jeopardy, starring Barbara Stanwyck (though Babs wasn't in the original radio version); that led Zimm to a full-time career in film.

However, the most famous spin-off of Hollywood Star Playhouse isn't the movie - it's The Six Shooter. It originated as an episode during the show's NBC run and then became an ongoing series. The Six Shooter was an unusual radio western in that it was very gentle; although it aimed for the same type of realism as CBS' Gunsmoke, it wasn't quite as violent.

The highlights of this series? There are a few. "A Question of Time" and "The Six Shooter" are good, but so are Vincent Price's unusual bullfighting drama "The Hour of Truth"; and maybe your only chance to hear Joseph Cotten in a science fiction drama is "The Tenth Planet" (it's a very 50s sci-fi story but Cotten sells it). Possibly the creepiest episode is "Haunt Me Not," which makes for some good late night listening.

I've often wondered why NBC resisted trying to mimick the success of CBS' Suspense. They had their own dramatic shows similar to Lux Radio Theater, but despite the huge postwar success of Suspense, NBC didn't really get into it until very late in the game, and even then, Hollywood Star Playhouse originated with CBS.

Radio Recap: Radio City Playhouse

Radio City Playhouse was an NBC program produced by Harry W. Junkin in 1948-1950. A fairly large number of episodes are still in circulation and I'd heard a few here and there, but until recently I had never attempted to hear exactly what the series had to offer to attempted to discern just what kind of series it was (beyond serving dramatic programs).

As it happens, Radio City Playhouse had no particular identity. The announcer stated in the first episode that "if a script meets the high standards of excellence, it may come from any writer anywhere; so long as the performance is truly inspired, it may be given by any artist without regard to name or fame." Which is really a subtle way of saying "we don't have a huge budget so don't expect to hear a lot of famous names being bandied about."

However, the debut episode "Long Distance" gives one the impression that Radio City Playhouse was a mystery-thriller program similar to Suspense. The play concerns a woman whose husband is about to be executed. Having just discovered evidence which will save his life, she frantically makes telephone calls to reach the governor and halt the execution. So it's very much like Suspense's "Sorry, Wrong Number," except that it isn't a tragedy. Since in both cases the female protagonist is rude towards the people trying to help her, it doesn't feel quite right when she ultimately succeeds in her goal.

But moving past that first episode, the series featured all sorts of dramatic tales and a few light comedies (although I don't think their comedy was very good at all). And this is completely fine - not every series needs to have a particular 'genre.' I criticized The Chase for being obtuse about its genre because some episodes strayed too far from the thriller format of the majority of programs. But Radio City Playhouse benefits from not being pinned down; it's all over the place, so not every episode will be towards each person's taste, but probably every old-time radio fan can find something they like.

It's interesting to note that a few episodes were written by Ernest Kinoy, whose name I know best from NBC's later program X Minus One. But on Radio City Playhouse he wrote small, intimate dramas such as "Ground Floor Window," the story of a young man with cerebral palsy who watches other people living their lives. You'd never guess it was the same author.

In the series' final year, a drop in budget is immediately apparent as it shifted from an orchestra to an organ. But the same people remained on staff (usually the same writers and actors), so it very much retained its identity from start to finish.

There are also two episodes that I want to highlight: "Five Extra Nooses" and "Correction" by Charles Lee Hutchings. The former is about capital punishment, the latter about yellow journalism. But they're extremely overwritten and heavy-handed, even to me, a person who agrees with the points being made. I've seen these episodes being pilloried in a few places online and unfortunately, I can't disagree.

There's an adaptation of Thomas Burke's "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" which is utterly infuriating; the original story was named the greatest mystery story of all time that same year, but the adaptation is extremely unfaithful and butchers what made Burke's story unusual; by the time Radio City Playhouse was done with it, it sounded like a half-baked Inner Sanctum script.

But there was plenty of good to be heard; they adapted Ray Bradbury a couple of times with "The Wind" and "The Lake" (the latter appearing as half of a double feature alongside Roald Dahl's "Collector's Item"). There was also decent adaptations of "How Love Came to Professor Guildea" and "Elementals" (both were done on Escape). An interesting episode titled "Two Moods from the Past" presented Balzac's "Passion in the Desert" and a supernatural story from Lafcadio Hearn. The series is uneven, but well-produced. You might just find new favourite!

Radio Recap: Star Wars

For a change of pace, today I'm going to talk about a so-called 'new-time radio' program (albeit a 40+ year old 'new' one). The Star Wars radio dramas.

As a fan of old-time radio and Star Wars I had been a little fascinated by this series' existence. It took me quite some time to actually seek it out and I'm glad that I did.

In case you're unaware, the radio dramas were produced by the University of Southern California with the first film adapted in 1981, Empire Strikes Back in 1983 and Return of the Jedi not covered until 1996 (during the 90s Star Wars revival mania).

The talent in the programs is pretty decent - the big notable draws are that Mark Hamill reprised Luke Skywalker for the first 2, Billy Dee Williams reprised Land Calrissian for the 2nd and Anthony Daniels reprised C-3PO in all three. Further, there was some interesting casting like Brock Peters as Darth Vader and John Lithgow as Yoda - not the same, but they work. The only performance I found lacking was Perry King as Han Solo. In the first play he delivered almost every line with a sarcastic tone which was often at odds with the tone of the scenes. Thankfully, he improved as the dramas continued.

But what really helped put the dramas over the top is that the adaptors were given access to all of John Williams' music and all of the distinctive sound effects. Since in an audio medium characters like Chewbacca and R2-D2 are nothing more than sound effects, it essentially added the 'originals' to the cast.

So are they any good? Yes and no.

The production quality is certainly well-above par for a new-time radio program - the music and sound effects cover up a lot of the plays' defects. There are some interesting new scenes added, particularly in the first play during which the first two episodes invent mostly-new scenes set before the start of the film (the 1st episode is a Luke episode which mostly uses the deleted scenes of him with his friends on Tatooine; the 2nd episode tells how Princess Leia stole the Death Star plans). But mostly, the plays' runtimes were puffed-up thanks to padding. The Star Wars films have a certain pace - they tend to move very rapidly from one scene to the next. But the radio dramas s-l-o-w it all down. Again, outside of the first adaptation, the dramas mostly didn't add new scenes. Instead, the existing scenes were increased in length as characters banter back and forth and repeat information which was already understood. It's clunky.

The other problem I would say is that the dramas didn't have a narrator. Whenever an action scene arrives, the drama becomes unbearably silly because everyone shouts out what they're going to do before they do it (or immediately after). A narrator could have helped make these moments clear without making the characters sound silly(er).

I suppose I could say that I recommend the Star Wars radio dramas to Star Wars fans, but that's obvious; still, if you're one of them and you really like audio drama then this is for you.

I was amazed to learn that these dramas were created by the same people who made Star Wars: Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell, an audio tape I owned as a child (and probably still have in a box somewhere). I always thought that tape was a bit juvenile (slightly below the Marvel star Wars comics I grew up with), but I loved it just as an oddity. I would've really enjoyed hearing the radio programs had I access to them back then!