Radio Recap: Matinee Theater

Matinee Theater is how I've chosen to describe a series that was known under two names: Dangerously Yours (July 2 to October 15, 1944) and Vick's Matinee Theater (October 22, 1944 to April 8, 1945). It was a romantic anthology program that starred Victor Jory in the lead role; all the stories were well-known tales from famous novels, plays and movies. It aired as a daytime program, so it's very different from the usual fare I blog about; the target audience would have been stay-at-home women, the same as the more famous radio soap operas.

I've referenced this series before, back when I was covering adaptations of works from Alfred Hitchcock's movies; I blogged a bit about Mr. and Mrs. Smith here and I blogged about Rebecca here. In both instances, I singled out Matinee Theater for providing the worst adaptations of those works by omitting all the tension and conflict from the original works; it's especially bad with Rebecca in trying to give that story a happy ending!

So far as daytime programming goes I rate Matinee Theater as a cut above the usual fare - the production values were strong and the performing casts were larger than most daytime shows. However, outside of the lackluster adaptations, I also have to say I don't get much from Victor Jory as a leading man; in every radio show I've heard him in, his performance has felt too knowingly melodramatic, too stagey.

The Old Time Radio Researchers have collections on the Internet Archive of Dangerously Yours and Matinee Theater.