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!