Radio Recap: Romance

For much of the Golden Age of radio, CBS had three dramatic anthology programs whose single-word titles summed up what the audience could expect from the program. There was, of course, Suspense; then there was Escape. But how much attention have you paid to Romance?

Somehow, despite a healthy run on radio (1943-1957) and a large archive of episodes, Romance is a series I've seldom seen revisited by old-time radio fans. I first learned of the program's existence in John Dunning's On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio and his entry for Romance was pretty sparse and dismissive. He presented the data surrounding the program's timeslots and production credits but he didn't offer even one paragraph of commentary about the series itself.

Like all anthology programs, Romance was indeed a mixed bag, but the sheer scope of years and formats under which CBS presented Romance demonstrate that it's a program well worth seeking out. At times it was a sponsored program with big-name Hollywood stars; at times it adapted famous Hollywood movies (especially 1944-1946 when called Theater of Romance); sometimes it told romantic stories; other times it was "romantic" in a classical sense. In all its eras, it benefited from CBS' strong production values. And small wonder! The 1944-1946 programs (Theater of Romance) were produced by Charles Vanda of Suspense; the 1950-1953 programs were produced and written by Norman Macdonnell and John Meston just prior to their joint creation of Gunsmoke; and Suspense's Antony Ellis and William N. Robson oversaw the final years of the program, abetted by familiar names from Suspense and Escape like writers Kathleen Hite and E. Jack Neuman. Some scripts were even recycled from Escape, including "Wild Oranges," "Loup-Garou" and "the Cave."

During the period where it was called Theater of Romance it sounds like the same orchestra that performed on Suspense! Great radio performers like William Conrad, John Dehner, Harry Bartell, Georgia Ellis, Hans Conreid, Paula Winslowe and Lawrence Dobkin were heard on Romance through most of its history and the Theater of Romance included big name stars like Humphrey Bogart, Joseph Cotten, Cary Grant, Edward G. Robinson, James Stewart, Ray Milland, Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall.

The Theater of Romance era of the show is very interesting, although the movie adaptations are a bit odd - because the program's premise was that it was a romantic program, they would often strip the movie plots down to simply the romantic passages. The adaptation of "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," for example, is concerned more so with the titular Mr. Chips' relationship with his wife than his career as a schoolmaster.

Still, there are some especially fine programs during the Theater of Romance period. Be sure to check out Bogart in the murder story "Conflict" (September 11, 1945). From the rest of the series I recommend most strongly "Pagosa" (August 6, 1951), a western tale with William Conrad, Georgia Ellis, writer John Meston and producer Norman Macdonnell together prior to Gunsmoke; the sci-fi farce "the Strip Teaser and the Space Warp" (March 24, 1956); and the humorous "the Lady and the Tiger" (May 12, 1956).

You can hear the Old-Time Radio Researchers Group's collection of Romance episodes at the Internet Archive.

Radio Recap: Night Beat

Night Beat was an NBC program that starred Frank Lovejoy as Randy Stone, a newspaper reporter who "covered the night beat." Each program would find Randy investigating a human interest story or stumbling into one during the course of events. It aired 1950-1952 and was sponsored for part of its run by Wheaties, part of it by Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. Night Beat enjoyed a higher budget than other NBC dramatic programs so, for a change, I'm not here to register my usual complaints about NBC's repetitive musical choices. Night Beat had unique musical bridges, a large cast of characters (including familiar voices like William Conrad, Jeff Chandler and Howard McNear) and very good sound effects.

The pilot episode of Night Beat from 1949 is available and it's quite different from what the show became. It's not just that in the pilot Randy was called "Hank Mitchell" and was played by Edmond O'Brien, who went on to star in Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar instead (Frank Lovejoy used the same script for the 2nd pilot). In the pilot, "Hank" is outraged when a reformed criminal he knew is killed and is convinced his friend's old mob ties are responsible. "Hank" takes up a gun and goes seeking revenge; it's very noir, but -- outside of Randy's very noirish narration -- that wasn't the feel Night Beat ultimately went for.

Night Beat was a very humanist program. Randy Stone didn't solve problems with a gun or even his fists - like, ever. Typically, Randy would calm a person down by appealing to their character and what he learned about them across the drama. Indeed, Randy was a long-suffering protagonist whose goodness was often tread upon by the subject of that week's episode. In one episode, Randy was mugged by an old man who needed money for gambling. Randy then went looking for the old man to help him break his gambling habit and in the course of this he was repeatedly beaten up by bouncers at casinos. Randy seldom gets to prove his masculinity by shoving back, he's more likely to be the one who is shoved. In the era of noir-ish tough guys, this makes Night Beat's Randy Stone all the more unusual.

Towards the end, I wonder if Night Beat's budget was running out? One of the later episodes, "The Bomb On Flight 63," (September 4, 1952) uses a script recycled from NBC's the Silent Men that had been aired earlier that same year!

If you like a strong drama with a bit of action and mystery but think all the radio private eyes sound alike, you might do well to check out Night Beat for something a little offbeat. My favourite episodes include "The Man Who Claimed to Be Dead" (March 13, 1950) in which a man keeps insisting to Randy that he's dead and has men ready to vouch for it; "A City at Your Fingertips" (July 31, 1950) in which Randy dials a number at random and is answered by a woman being terrorized by her husband; "The Slasher" (November 10, 1950) in which Randy thinks he might have stumbled upon the identity of a man who disfigures his female victims; "Sanctuary" (June 22, 1951) in which Randy observes the showdown between the police and a man in a church tower; and "Somebody Stop Ann" (August 7, 1952) in which one of Randy's co-workers believes her children are in danger from her husband.

The majority of Night Beat is still in circulation and easy to find on old-time radio channels and websites. You can hear Night Beat on the Internet Archive.

Reflections on Angola in the New Issue of Artlife Magazine!

My wife recently published a new isuse of her Artlife Magazine and it includes a bit about our recent month-long visit to Angola with her impressions on art in Angola.

Artlife Magazine is available for free in digital format at her website, Bethany Illustrates. You can download a copy here.

Radio Recap: The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe

Rex Stout's detective character Nero Wolfe was heard a few times on the radio, the best-represented version being the New Adventures of Nero Wolfe from 1950-1951, which aired on NBC and starred Sydney Greenstreet. But there were a few other attempts to bring the character to radio prior to Greenstreet.

The first was on the Blue network from 1943-1944 as the Adventures of Nero Wolfe, a summer program run by Himan Brown of Inner Sanctum Mysteries. We have only one example remaining of that version: "The Last Laugh Murder Case" with Santos Ortega as Nero Wolfe and John Gibson as Wolfe's sidekick Archie Goodwin. The series went to Mutual in 1945 as the Amazing Nero Wolfe with star Francis X. Bushman as Wolfe and Elliott Lewis as Goodwin; the only surviving episode from that era is "The Shakespeare Folio."

That brings us to the New Adventures of Nero Wolfe and Sydney Greenstreet. Greenstreet was just terrific in the role - cantankerous, obstinante and, of course, always a step ahead of the other characters in the drama. I haven't read any of the Rex Stout stories but I do understand Wolfe didn't normally leave his home, instead using Archie Goodwin to perform the investigations while he would solve the case by expending as little effort as possible. In the New Adventures of Nero Wolfe, he did sometimes leave his home and encounter a case in the wild, much in the melodramatic means of other radio shows (such as the time Wolfe is invited to dinner and the host is murdered). But for the most part, Wolfe remained housebound, reluctant to take on a case and always haranguing Archie for arriving at conclusions too hastily. Goodwin, while performing the legwork (and often getting hit over the head, just like other radio private eyes) would also attempt to romance any woman who crossed his path, despite the alarming frequency at which they would end up dead or arrested. Rarely did Goodwin get the girl - more commonly he would be chided and mocked by Wolfe for his skirt-chasing.

For some reason, the New Adventures of Nero Wolfe seemed unable to lock down the part of Archie Goodwin, which is a shame. Still, they managed to cast three terrific actors in the part - Lawrence Dobkin, Harry Bartell and Gerald Mohr. Dobkin is my favourite Archie as he delivered his rejoinders to Wolfe with a delightful amount of sarcasm. Bartell was very good in the part as well, his voice falling somewhere between savvy and naive. I find Mohr a bit miscast, mainly because Mohr was already a leading man - indeed, he was still appearing on CBS' the Adventures of Philip Marlowe at the same time he was heard on the New Adventures of Nero Wolfe - and it's distracting to hear him demoted to sidekick on a different detective program. Mohr was a terrific radio actor but I think his distinctive voice is too distracting in this instance.

The Old-Time Radio Researchers Group has a collection of the New Adventures of Nero Wolfe on the Internet Archive.

Radio Recap: The Planet Man

The Planet Man was a juvenile adventure serial with a science fiction setting. It aired as a 15-minute daily syndicated program from 1953.

"This is the fascinating story of Dantro, The Planet Man, troubleshooter for the League of Planets organization, the law enforcement body for peace and justice in the celestial world - whose headquarters and center of operations are situated on the capital of all the planets, Planeria Rex. From Mercury to Pluto, wherever danger threatens the universe, you will find Dantro the Planet Man fighting for fair play."

When I say that Planet Man was juvenile, I mean juvenile. It's high camp, and there's an audience for that. If you're the sort who giggles their way through the 1980 Flash Gordon movie, then Planet Man will live up to your expectations.

The writing on Planet Man is so simplistic that I'm not even certain the creators knew what a "planet" is. I mean, why is our hero Dantro "the Planet Man?" He works for the League of Planets, not a singular planet. Why not "Interplanetary Man?" I mean, anyone from Earth could also claim to be a "Planet Man," just from a different planet than Dantro. But this is a show where the dictator of Mars is named "Marston!" And he has vicious "Marlions!"

Dantro isn't much of hero - he usually manages to get himself captured by the bad guy, leaving it up to one of his many sidekicks (a scientist, scientist's daughter, Texan engineer and two kids) to get him out of hot water. The announcer frequently had difficulty coming up with an appropriate cliffhanger at the end of an episode. Each time he'd spout off a series of questions to engage the listener, but some of them were as lame as, "did Slats set the circuits correctly?" If the question won't even be raised in the succeeding episode, maybe don't bring it up?

You can hear all the surviving episodes of Planet Man in the Old-Time Radio Researchers' Library collection on the Internet Archive.

Credit, undue

Following on from yesterday's post about Public Domain, I have a few thoughts about a current headline on comic book creators receiving their due credit.

Until recently, Marvel's official credit byline for the character Wolverine cited writer Len Wein with artists Herb Trimpe and John Romita (Romita designed the costume but Trimpe drew the finished comic). As of the recent movie Deadpool and Wolverine, Roy Thomas is now included at the end of the byline. This apparently came about because Thomas has for himself a very cutthroat talent agent - and because Wein, Trimpe and Romita are all deceased. Thomas has been very pleased with himself for getting a co-creator credit on Wolverine, although he did pause to complain that his name was listed last when it "should have" been first in a classic case of "shut up when you're winning."

Until I arrived on the internet in 1998, I didn't realize that Thomas was a bit controversial in comics fandom. I knew him only from his works, from the editorials he wrote on the letters pages of his various Marvel and DC titles over the years. I was especially flummoxed when I began to meet other fans of 1940s super heroes online and discovered none of them seemed to like Thomas' work very much. Why, wasn't it Thomas who did more than any other writer to bring back forgotten heroes of the 1940s to give them new adventures in places like Marvel's Invaders and DC's All-Star Squadron? Sure, they rejoined, and he did more than other writer to retcon 1940s heroes out of existence, kill them off or turn them into villains.

Heck, on at least three occasions Thomas brought out a story where a classic hero comes back, goes insane, turns evil, fights the heroes, then destroys himself (Toro in Sub-Mariner #14; Red Raven in Sub-Mariner #26; Marvel Boy in Fantastic Four #165). That should have been a clue to me.

Thomas' case for being Wolverine's co-creator is that he was the editor of Wolverine's first appearance and participated in the original brainstorming sessions for the character. I'd like to say it's not cricket to claim that this makes you a co-creator, but I'm afraid Marvel has already been building precedent along these lines. The Kamala Khan version of Ms. Marvel has always been credited as a co-creation of editors Sana Amanat and Stephen Wacker, writer G. Willow Wilson and artists Jamie McKelvie and Adrian Alphona. With the precedent established, why not take advantage of it?

Well, for one, you could injure your legacy. For Roy Thomas, he's an aging creator (turns 84 this year) and he's not liable to produce more art in the future as counterweight against his present legacy. Thomas was already someone fans had a few misgivings about - now they're looking at him as the true inheritor of Stan Lee's mantle, and not in a good way - that like Stan Lee, he wants to claim more ownership over ideas than he is due.

Comics don't pay very well and offer few incentives to reward loyalty, even for those who put decades of their lives into careers at the major companies. If you view the business from a libertarian dog-eat-dog perspective then sure, Thomas can demand and receive compensation for Wolverine and any other characters whose first appearances he might've edited (which his agent is apparently trying to do). You can "prove" you deserve more credits and more dollars from your corporate publishers. What you can't prove is how it makes you any better than Bob Kane.

For a man who rose up the ranks from fandom, Thomas hasn't had a great reputation within fandom and not because of sour grapes. I'm afraid that when Thomas passes on, fandom will not long mourn him. And that's a pity, because if he would just stick to his actual accomplishments he would leave a legacy to be celebrated.

"He's as short-sighted as he was when he created those damn characters." Public Domain Vol. 1: Past Mistakes review

I recently bought "Past Mistakes," the first collected edition of a new Image Comics series called Public Domain by Canadian writer-artist Chip Zdarsky. I've been a bit on the outside of comics for the last decade so while I was aware of Zdarsky being a creator on titles such as Sex Criminals and Daredevil, Public Domain is the first work of Zdarsky's I've read.

The concept behind Public Domain feels all-too-familiar. Singular Comics are the publishers of a super hero called "the Domain" who was originally created by Syd Dallas and Jerry Jasper. The Domain has become a massive franchise, the character appearing in blockbuster motion pictures. While artist Syd Dallas is invited to film premieres, he sees few other benefits from his creation's success - but as long as the fans are happy, he doesn't complain. Jasper seems to have done much better for himself, perhaps because his sister is the publisher of Singular.

So far, so on the nose. It's a familiar tale in comics, mostly reminiscent of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. But where Public Domain really gets moving is when Jerry's assistant Tanya Ko discovers a document that proves Syd is the true owner of the Domain. Syd doesn't really want to start a legal fight for his propery (especially when US law favours the side with the most money to spend) but over the course of "Past Mistakes" he resolves to fight for his rights for the sake of his sons Miles and Dave. Dave is something of a screw-up who can't hold on to a job, although he's very bright and chipper (possibly due to drug use); Miles appears to be the more grounded and relatable of the two brothers, up until he proves to be a gambling addict with massive debts that need to be paid. It's Miles' debts, above all, that cinches Syd's decision to go after his rights for the Domain.

I blogged before about Stan Lee in my joint review of I am Stan and Stuf' Said, so this blog has already aired my strong feelings on the shabby treatment comic book creators have received from their publishers and the outrageous methods corporations have used to assert control over character copyrights. Public Domain isn't merely a find-and-replace telling of the Lee/Kirby saga, there are also elements of Siegel and Shuster's struggles over Superman and Bob Kane's struggle against all of his betters.

I didn't realize Public Domain was an ongoing series when I bought the trade, I thought it was a single graphic novel - so you might see more posts about Public Domain on the blog in the future, I enjoyed it quite a bit!