Radio Recap: Screen Directors' Playhouse

Screen Directors' Playhouse was a program late in its arrival. NBC produced it from 1949-1951 and they really should have gotten on the bandwagon sooner! CBS had been adapted popular films and plays in the Lux Radio Theatre since 1934 and that series brought in very good ratings; yet NBC stubbornly persisted in investing its time and money into comedy programs. That worked well for them until the post-war years when suddenly dramatic programming started bringing in huge ratings for CBS (also, CBS raided their comedy talent, depriving them of many of their greatest assets). The great thing about adapting popular films to the radio is that the material has already been audience tested and approved! There's little to gamble, especially if you can bring along at least one of the stars of the movie for the radio adaptation.

What made Screen Directors' Playhouse different from Lux Radio Theatre? Or from Ford Theatre, Academy Award Theatre or Screen Guild Theatre? It's in the title: Directors'. Screen Directors' Playhouse attempted to spotlight the directors of the movies. Frequently they appeared at the opening and closing of the drama. Sometimes, however, they dramatized films whose director had passed on. In those cases a guest director would appear to discuss the film. In 121 episodes, the original director appeared 96 times. Usually at least one member of the original cast would appear as well.

The series was usually a half-hour program, which means the stories were much more clipped than the hour-long Lux Radio Theatre. From November 9, 1950 onward it held an hour-long timeslot. Pabst Blue Ribbon sponsored it at first, with RCA Victor, Anacin and Chesterfield chipping in later. In the latter part of the series the number of commercials gets out of control as several different products are advertised in a single broadcast.

I reviewed a few episodes of Screen Directors' Playhouse before when I was covering Alfred Hitchcock adaptations. Here are my reviews of their productions of: Llifeboat, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Shadow of a Doubt and Spellbound.

Outside of their Hitchcock adaptations, I have a few other episodes that I think are good programs. Although I'm not a western fan, I think the first episode's adaptation of Stagecoach is very good; the Gunfighter was a pretty good western drama too. The comedy episodes Ghost Breakers, Miracle on 34th Street and Hired Wife are both quite funny. And the thrillers the Night Has a Thousand Eyes, the Big Clock, Call Northside 777, D.O.A., the Dark Mirror and the File on Thelma Jordan are excellent stories. The Uninvited was a good horror program and the adaptation of the Spiral Staircase had some interesting audio tricks to convey the point-of-view character couldn't actually speak. Obviously like all film adaptation programs, it's hit-or-miss but at its worst, it's just uninteresting - it was never bad radio, even in its final months as it struggled under a reduced budget. For some of the films heard on this series, the Screen Directors' Playhouse adaptation was my introduction to the production and led me to seek out the original film.

The Old-Time Radio Researchers Group has a collection of Screen Directors' Playhouse on the Internet Archive.