12 Days of Christmas Radio Shows, Part 6: "The Bad Will Ambassador"

Today's program is an episode of Orson Welles' series Hello, Americans. This was a wartime program designed to foster good relations among the Americas and it primarily featured Welles teaching facts about South American countries in a fun way. But for Christmas, Welles came up with a full narrative, something quite different; it concerns an American businessman travelling in South America who refuses to give up his seat on an airplane to a child who wants to go home for Christmas. From then on, everywhere he goes, the businessman is followed by a man known only as "Señor" who seems to be silently judging him.

"The Bad Will Ambassador" originally aired December 27, 1942.

Tomorrow: The Hallmark Playhouse!

Radio Recap: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Let's talk about another syndicated radio series produced by Harry Alan Towers: the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (it was also broadcast as episodes of ABC Mystery Time).

To be clear, this is only going to be a recap of the 1954 series that Towers produced - I won't be referencing any of the many BBC adaptations, nor the long radio runs of NBC's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1930-1936), or the best-remembered version, NBC/Mutual's New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes which initially starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce (1939-1950). Maybe I'll visit them in a future Radio Recap, but it would take a lot of research on my part.

Towers' the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starred two big name actors in the lead roles - John Gielgud as Holmes and Ralph Richardson as Watson. Gielgud was in something of a slump; he was homosexual, and had been caught cruising for sex, which was a crime; he avoided prison, but his career slumped to a standstill, which naturally led him to Harry Alan Towers, who always had work for slumming professionals.

I find Gielgud is all right as Holmes, but he comes off as more austere than cerebral. A bigger problem is Ralph Richardson - as Watson, he had to narrate every episode and his delivery was a bit muddy. He'd drop his voice and mumble at times-- and not for dramatic effect.

Like most of Towers' programs, the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes has a small library of musical cues that it uses all the time; there's also scarcely any sound effects (other than a stock noise of hoofbeats on cobblestones that's used in the intro and at times to set a scene). The music is primarily a short piece of violin; sometimes it's introduced as what Holmes is supposedly playing at the time.

What the series had going for it was that it adapted the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories - there were no original scripts, unlike the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I've definitely found these adaptations to be effective; I can vividly recall the first time I heard the productions of "the Case of the Six Napoleons" and "the Dying Detective," which led to my own fascination with Doyle's short stories and novels. And as an Orson Welles fan, I do appreciate his turn as Professor Moriarty in "the Final Problem."

However, as much as I like Doyle's writing, I'm not certain that these are the best adaptations of his work. The first episode of the series is just terrible. Titled, "Dr. Watson Meets Sherlock Holmes," it begins as an adaptation of Doyle's short story, "the Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" but just before it reaches the climax, Watson shifts the narrative to describe how he and Holmes first met (as related in the novel "A Study in Scarlet"), then returns to the climax of the case. There is no good reason for this shift; if the episode had opened with Holmes and Watson's first meeting, the script would have been much improved. As is, it's so bad that if you try listening to the series in order, you might want to give up right then and there; but if you're willing to persevere, I do think this is a good Sherlock Holmes program, even if it's not the best.

You can hear every episode of Towers' the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in this YouTube playlist created by a fan.

Radio Recap: The Lives of Harry Lime

"That was the shot that killed Harry Lime. He died in a sewer beneath Vienna, as those of you know who saw the movie the Third Man. Yes, that was the end of Harry Lime-- but it was not the beginning; Harry Lime had many lives and I can recount all of them. How do I know? Very simple; because my name is Harry Lime."

Continuing from last Friday's post on the Black Museum, I'd like to talk about another syndicated radio program by Harry Alan Towers: The Lives of Harry Lime (1951). Er, if that is indeed the series' name; it's almost as often given by announcers as "the Third Man."

The Third Man was, of course, the 1949 movie directed by Carol Reed from Graham Greene's story. The film featured author Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) as a man who goes to post-war Vienna to accept a job from his old friend Harry Lime. He soon discovers Harry is actually a criminal.

I learned of the Third Man through the Lives of Harry Lime and when I finally saw that film, it became my favourite movie. But the radio series is not really part of the same continuity as the movie; they both star Orson Welles as a criminal named Harry Lime; they both feature the zither music of Anton Karas (believe it or not, Karas' score to the movie was a hit at the time). But perhaps the reason Orson's opening narration refers to Lime's "many lives" is because these stories aren't meant to be about the same person in the Third Man - instead they present alternate takes on him.

In the Lives of Harry Lime, Harry is roguish fellow; although he loves to swindle people, sometimes his inner goodness causes him to take pity on his victims; sometimes he gets outwitted; and sometimes he's pit against corrupt government or Nazis where it's considered morally correct for Lime to fleece them. But that's not the Harry Lime of the Third Man; part of the plot of the movie is Holly realizing that Harry isn't who he thought he was; Harry views himself as a good-natured rogue, but Holly is forced to confront the results of Harry's actions, the innocent children who die because of Harry's black market penicilin.

So, although the program invites comparisons to the Third Man it's really best that you take this series on its own terms - it's an adventure program. Harry gets to be genuinely heroic at times, such as in a nice playful moment at the climax of "5,000 Pengoes and a Kiss" where Harry forces a patrol of Hungarian policemen to give him their belts so that they'll be unable to chase him. Harry: "In all the famous chases in history, no policeman has been known to catch a fugitive and hold up his pants at the same time."

Other good episodes include "Turnabout Is Foul Play" in which Harry pretends to be an immensely moral man in order to swindle a government official; "The Bohemian Star" in which Harry masquerades as a journalist and gets the goods on a jewel heist; and there's the very intriguing episode "Man of Mystery" which was apparently written by Orson himself; he later expanded the plot another motion picture, Mr. Arkadin.

Welles appeared in a lot of radio shows for Harry Alan Towers but the quality of his output was variable. In the Lives of Harry Lime he was being called on to be the lead man - not merely a supporting player or narrator. Frankly, he wasn't always up to it. In much of Orson's radio work, he'd read through his scripts recklessly and even contemptuously; knowing that he sometimes didn't read scripts until he showed up for the broadcast, his performances could come over as unpolished (to put it politely). Sometimes Orson seemed very invested in his performance; other times, he sounded bored; on other occasions, he was speeding through the script, talking over his fellow performers as if in a hurry to be done with it; and then there are time where he garbles his dialogue (which is amazing for a transcribed program; I guess he refused to do retakes) and sounds either sleepy or drunk. All of this drags down the program.

You can hear every episode of the Lives of Harry Lime in this YouTube playlist created by a fan.

Radio Recap: The Black Museum

"The Black Museum, the repository of death. Yes, here in the grim stone structure on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard is a warehouse of homicide... where everyday objects: a skillet, a screwdriver, a photograph... all... are touched by murder!"

Somehow it's taken this long for me to post a Radio Recap of a Harry Alan Towers program.

In the 1950s, Harry Alan Towers produced a number of syndicated radio dramas, usually employing many of the same performers in each series - programs like Secrets of Scotland Yard, the Scarlet Pimpernel, the Adventures of Horatio Hornblower and today's entry - the Black Museum (1952). He liked to produce 52 episodes of his shows so they could be broadcast across an entire year. As best as I can tell, the syndicated episodes of the Black Museum were aired in the USA on Mutual.

The series was a crime anthology hoted by Orson Welles. Towers' shows tended to use a big-name actor to draw listeners to the show - but he went specifically after big-name actors who were having trouble in their career, and thus were desperate enough to work for him. Orson was then having an awful time with the IRS in the USA, hence the attraction to recording a lot of radio shows with Towers. The problem, of course, is that when Orson was just there to collect a paycheck he didn't put in his best effort. At least as narrator, that didn't mean he would sink the whole show-- but I've seen plenty of online reviewers remark that Orson sounded bored as he hosted the Black Museum. To me, it's variable - in some episodes he seems very into his craft; in others, not so much.

The show's gimmick is that Orson would be within Scotland Yard's Black Museum, introducing an object which was related to a crime of some kind; then the drama would begin in earnest, with Orson piping up only when exposition required his assistance. The Scotland Yard inspectors were played by a number of uncredited performers and changed with each episode.

I think the Black Museum is the best of Towers' programs; the man liked to recycle his music, whether the music fit the mood of the script or not. But the musical transitions on the Black Museum work pretty well. Towers also didn't like to use many sound effects on his shows, which really diminishes them; but because the Black Museum would be centered around a particular object, there would usually be a noise to accompany that object, giving the show a bit more heft.

There are some gruesome crimes recounted on the Black Museum, especially violence committed against women - "the Baby Jacket" and "the Brass Button" are two of the more violent episodes. There's a Jack the Ripper episode called "the Razor"; and there's a ghost episode, "the Chain!"

But some episodes don't quite work for me - "the Postcard" doesn't have a conclusion to its crime, ending on an ambiguous note.

As I noted before, the program Whitehall 1212 was also about items from Scotland Yard's Black Museum, but it's nowhere near as good, despite being produced by Wyllis Cooper. Stick to the Black Museum if this is a subject you're interested in.

You can hear the Black Museum on the Old Time Radio Reserchers' YouTube playlist.

OTR Detective Christmas, Day 10: The Shadow

Even the Shadow appeared in a few Christmas adventures over the years - in fact, Orson Welles and Agnes Moorehead starred in a Christmas adventure during the first year of Welles' tenure, which was usually more grim than his successors.

In "Cold Death" (December 19, 1937) we have a very familiar tale; Daniel Carver is the cold-hearted businessman who runs the company town Carverville. The Shadow identifies him as being just like Scrooge - so uses the methodology of A Christmas Carol in order to force a change of heart upon the man!

Another Christmas radio program tomorrow!

Radio Recap: Les Miserables

Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables was adapted to radio in 1937 in a format similar to how television would later create it's own prestigious mini-series adaptations. It aired on Mutual from July 23-September 3, 1937. Starring as the novel's hero Jean Valjean (and as the book's narrator) was Orson Welles, buttressed by Martin Gabel, Agnes Moorehead, Bill Johnstone, Everett Sloane, Frank Readick, Gwen Davies, Ray Collins and Alice Frost. It was during this time that Welles and most of the performers appearing with him founded the Mercury Theatre, which would make its true radio debut the following year with CBS' Mercury Theatre on the Air.

Listening to Les Miserables, it is very much in the same spirit as the subsequent Mercury Theatre on the Air - in part because Welles seems to have bit off a little more than he could chew. It's well-documented that Welles kicked off the Mercury Theatre on the Air by trying to quickly pare down Bram Stoker's Dracula into a viable hour-long drama and it was a struggle for his staff to assemble it in time. Similarly, it feels as though when he started Les Miserables's first episode he didn't have a final script for the series. The first five episodes go fairly briskly through Hugo's novel, but in the 6th episode the story jumps far ahead to the story of Jean Valjean entering the barricade to rescue Marius - whose entire romance with Cosette happened in-between episodes. Then the 7th episode is mostly a recap of the previous episodes, until finally adding Valjean's death from the novel.

But although the pace of the adaptation is uneven, it's a very well-produced program with terrific performances by Welles' regulars. I first heard this series before I had read the novel or seen any of the film adaptations - I came away feeling I had a decent grasp of what the novel's plot and themes were. I also think the 5th episode with the account of Valjean being buried alive is a piece of excellent radio, a very well-done bit of thriller melodrama.

You can hear all seven episodes of Les Miserables on this YouTube playlist.

Radio Recap: Lady Esther Presents Orson Welles

As many of my "Radio Recaps" have indicated, I've been immersed in the old-time radio hobby for many years now. I'm still amazed when I discover a program that I didn't know about but feel that I should have known about. Such a program is Lady Esther Presents Orson Welles.

When I first heard an episode of Lady Esther Presents Orson Welles I was dumbfounded; I love Orson Welles' work and this came out during a particularly strong peak of his radio talent. How had I missed this series before? The answer is... we old-time radio hobbyists can be a little inconsistent. Depending on which radio log or archive you turned to, Lady Esther Presents Orson Welles was either categorized as Screen Guild Theater, Orson Welles Theater, Mercury Theatre or even Orson Welles Alamanac! But Lady Esther Presents Orson Welles is truly its own series that needs to be separated out from other (related) programs.

Lady Esther Presents Orson Welles ran just a few months on CBS - September 15, 1941 to February 2, 1942. This came after CBS' fruitful partnerships with Welles on the Mercury Theatre on the Air and the Campbell Playhouse, but shifted him from an hour-long format to a half-hour one (which became the typical length for his radio shows thereon). Like those earlier programs, the series featured adaptations of popular works, particularly a few to which Welles was very warm towards ("I'm a Fool" was one he'd done before; "the Apple Tree" and "the Happy Prince" would both be dramatized again). However, the series also looked ahead to the format he'd adopt in the Orson Welles Radio Almanac where he would recite poetry and randomly share odd facts from an almanac.

The first few Lady Esther Presents Orson Welles programs are particulary odd as they feature Cliff Edwards reprising his character of Jiminy Cricket from Disney's Pinocchio, appearing on the program as Welles' conscience, reminding him of things he should share with the listening audience. They're very bizarre asides and I don't think they're successful, but at least they demonstrate the playful side of Orson Welles.

Welles was joined by a lot of familiar voices such as Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins, Dolores Del Rio and the music of Bernard Herrmann. Some of the programs featured original stories, such as the very good "That's Why I Left You" by John Nesbitt concerning a man's fable as to why he left his wife. There's a terrific adaptation of Saki's "the Interlopers" and the very funny "Maysville Minstrel" by Ring Lardner. Fans of Escape will notice there's an adaptation of "Wild Oranges"; I'm not particularly wild about that story to begin with and I find Welles' adaptation a bit tedious - the Escape was at least trying to be a fast-paced action story, while the Welles adaptation is concerned with despair and heartbreak.

But the most historically interesting episode of Lady Esther Presents Orson Welles is one we don't currently have: the debut broadcast of Lucille Fletcher's story "The Hitchhiker" aired on November 17, 1941. Welles later performed in the famed Suspense version but it would be great to hear that missing broadcast.

Truly, though, as an Orson Welles and Mercury Theatre fan, I would be very happy to hear more from this series. The few fragments we do possess demonstrate Welles and his contributors at their best.

We have only a few full episodes of this program, although various short excerpts from episodes are in circulation which suggests full copies of those episodes might yet emerge. There's a very good collection of Lady Esther Presents Orson Welles at the Internet Archive.

Radio Recap: The Orson Welles Radio Almanac

If you're a fan of old-time radio, then you have an opinion about Orson Welles. To some he's very well-regarded, to others he's considered over-rated. But because the single most repeated program in old-time radio history is Welles' Mercury Theater on the Air production of "The War of the Worlds," we are all inevitably exposed to his work.

I rather like Orson Welles. Some years ago you may recall I wrote a series of blog posts I titled "Jack Benny Without Jack Benny" in which I looked the episodes of Jack Benny Program in which Orson Welles filled in for a sick Jack Benny in the spring of 1943. Those programs worked out marvelously well, as Welles fitted into Jack's role very smoothly. Of course, as I reflected then, it helped that the Jack Benny Program was a well-honed machine and Welles was being supported by Benny's usual supporting players and by Benny's writers (Ed Beloin and Bill Morrow), in fact by the writing team I consider Benny's finest. These caveats aside, there was no guarantee that Welles could substitute for a seasoned comedian like Jack Benny, but he did and did it quite well (You can revisit my Jack Benny Without Jack Benny blogging series here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6).

In the fall of 1943, Welles didn't have a regular radio program; he was the star of Suspense for a solid month of great performances, but mostly his radio appearances were confined to guest performances. Most of his time in the fall seems to have been spent touring his Mercury Wonder Show, a traveling magic show he performed for servicemen. He also took the romantic lead in the movie Jane Eyre; for a man whose early career had been one controversy after another (many of them intentionally courting controversy), the Orson Welles of late 1943 seemed like a pretty conventional Hollywood movie star - saluting servicemen, cracking jokes with Bing Crosby and appearing on screen in a popular melodrama. But in January, 1944, Welles had a brand-new radio series with many of his Mercury Theater regulars. It was called the Orson Welles Radio Almanac - and it was a comedy-variety program.

The Orson Welles Radio Almanac aired for 7 months over CBS from January-July, 1944. The series was sponsored by Mobilgas, who had previously sponsored Information, Please, suggesting someone at that company wanted to promote highbrow programming on the radio. And the series was a bit highbrow as in-between the comedy sketches and musical numbers (most of the series music was directed by Lud Gluskin of Suspense; it also benefited from appearances by the All-Star Jazz Group) Welles would close many episodes by reading a soliloquy from Shakespeare.

Apparently Orson had been building toward the Orson Welles Radio Almanac ever since his guest host duties on the Jack Benny Program. He had indeed gone over very well as a comedian and he'd done well for CBS over the years. He worked some of his performances on the Mercury Wonder program into his new series. You might think a dramatic performer such as Orson Welles would be an odd fit for a comedy-variety program. You'd be correct.

If you are well-versed in Orson Welles' performances then you know that Orson the guest performer and Orson the lead performer are two very different animals. When Orson made guest appearances on Jack Benny or Bing Crosby, he was reading off scripts built by those programs' tested and true methods. Even if he flubbed a few lines (and Orson being averse to rehearsals, he inevitably flubbed lines) the lead performers would keep the show on track. Even when he subbed for Jack Benny, he was still being guided by personalities like Phil Harris, Dennis Day, Don Wilson and Mary Livingstone, who all knew how to keep the comedic energy going.

By contrast, you can sample any of the comedic performances Orson directed on the Mercury Theater on the Air, the Campbell Playhouse or any of his other Mercury programs. At best, they're patchy. I think Orson had pretty chops as a comedy performer but not as a comedy producer.

Throughout, the Orson Welles Radio Almanac demonstrated Orson was not quite right as a comedic lead. There are a lot of flubs in the programs, mostly caused by Orson. You'll never wonder whether a line was flubbed or not as Orson tended to draw attention to them, whether he or a co-star were responsible. Orson was always a bit crabby and perfectionist and it really comes out in the sheer number of times he botched a joke in his delivery, bemoaned a co-star for flubbing their line or fired a few shots at his writers for giving him inferior material to read.

Easily the oddest part for me listening to the Orson Welles Radio Almanac was the commercial spot in the first broadcast, which was read by Ray Collins of the Mercury Theater. In an attempt to contrast other radio comedies who had commercial pitchmen that were ridiculously enthusiastic about the sponsor's product (Don Wilson, Bill Goodwin, Harlow Wilcox), Collins' pitchman character is extremely reluctant to talk about the sponsor's product and keeps missing Orson's hints that he should start pitching the product. It's different, and it doesn't work; it's so off-kilter, it actually sounds like Collins was trying to sabotage the sponsor. Perhaps Mobilgas thought so too, because Collins was kicked off the show by the following week and replaced by Jack Mather.

For the first month there were many gags about Orson being edited by the network censor. There were joks about Orson's fan club who swooned over him as though he were Frank Sinatra. Agnes Moorehead appeared for the first few months as Orson's secretary. Many of the gags could have been told on any other comedy show; the frequent jokes about how thin Frank Sinatra was certainly sound just like every other 1944 comedy show, but that same joke would appear every week.

Is the series a trainwreck? No. The frequent flubs and poor production decisions bring it down, but Orson was aided by relying heavily on guest stars. The likes of Groucho Marx, Dennis Day, Lucille Ball, Ann Southern and Robert Benchley all knew how to handle themselves on a radio comedy show and they did their best to keep the laughs coming. A few seasoned radio voices turned up to support Orson like John Brown, Walter Tetley and Hans Conreid.

There's also one episode that I think is a pretty great radio comedy. The June 14, 1944 episode is an episode-long sketch that satirizes Hitler through a fake war between Texas and Arkansas. Barton Yarborough turns up in his best southern drawl and the Hitler figure is performed by Cliff Nazarro, a frequent voice heard on the Jack Benny Program. And if you're a Suspense fan, you'll really enjoy Orson performing in a satire of his role in the two-part "Donovan's Brain" which appeared in the May 31, 1944 episode (just after the two-parter aired).

Most of the Orson Welles Radio Almanaac has survived. It's not great comedy-variety programming, but if you don't mind a little bit of cringe, you might enjoy it. You can hear the surviving episodes of the Orson Welles Radio Almanac on the Internet Archive split over two pages, the first part here, the remainder here.

Another post about an unlikely radio comedian follows tomorrow...

War of the Worlds Turns 85!

The 1938 broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" on Mercury Theater on the Air has become possibly the most-heard radio drama in the history of radio thanks it's repeated replays over the decades. Certainly it was among the first old-time radio shows I heard as a young listener, thanks to the LP copy owned by my father.

I'm sure it seems passé to other OTR fans to be talking about "War of the Worlds" - or even cliché with Halloween upon us. Still, I'm linking to an article about "War of the Worlds" because it appears at my employer's website, and how often do they post anything about OTR? With quotes from one of my colleagues? That's worth celebrating!

Halloween Broadcast of Notorious War of the Worlds Radio Drama Turns 85

Radio Recap: This Is My Best

This Is My Best was a radio anthology series that ran from September 5, 1944 to May 28, 1946 on CBS. Less than half of the series' episodes are in existence now, and that's a real shame.

For This Is My Best was, for a time, produced by Orson Welles. Welles made a few appearances as a performer in the series' early months, but as of March 13, 1945 and a radio adaptation of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," Welles took control of the program. Under his guidance, the series basically became another Mercury Theater on the Air. In fact, as the first episode of the series I heard was "Heart of Darkness" I mistakenly thought it was the first episode of the series and that the program was (and had always been) Welles' program. It looks like Welles left the series at the 1945 summer break so he wasn't really involved for very long.

The series was sponsored by Cresta Blanca wines, who had an appealing commercial jingle. Post-This Is My Best they briefly teamed up with Roma Wines to sponsor Suspense, which is where I'm most familiar with their advertisements.

Looking at what remains of the series, what stands out? There's a terrific production of Norman Corwin's comedic "The Plot to Overthrow Christmas." We have most of an adaptation of James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" starring Thurber's fellow New Yorker author Robert Benchley - it's extremely funny. Welles crafted an odd adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" that doesn't really retain the easy humour of Fitzgerald's work nor is as faithful to the text as the Escape adaptations I've written about on this blog. Welles adapted Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Master of Ballentrae" but with just a half-hour the story can't really breathe. Jack Benny starred in a comedic program called "Babes in the Woods" but the style of comedy is quite different than what he perfected on his own show.

The series is, like most dramatic anthologies, inconsistent. But the best of the series ("Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty") really stand out and suggest that we old-time radio fans are poorer for the absence of so many other episodes in existing collections. Here's an incomplete collection at the Internet Archive.

Radio Recap: Hello Americans

I'm a great fan of Orson Welles' work - especially his radio programs. And yet, I hadn't given much thought to his series Hello Americans, which aired from the fall of 1942 to the winter of 1943. The episodes I had heard seemed a little difficult to quantify... what exactly was Hello Americans? The disparite episodes I heard seemed to have little in common beyond a the subject of South America.

I've now heard all of Hello Americans and now know... it was disparite by design. Welles had been sent to South America before to help promote pan-Americanism during World War II; that turned out to be something of a disaster as none of the films he attempted to make were ever completed (the fragments were sown together as It's All True) while at the same time his excellent film the Magnificent Ambersons was edited against his wishes during his absence.

But Hello Americans leaves us with something positive from Welles' venture down south. This show lasted only 12 episodes - and Welles missed 2 of them! - but despite the scattershot nature of the contents it is fascinating to listen to, as well as quite educational. The series performed a quick overview of South American history and samplings of South American culture - most especially in terms of music, represented by guests such as Carmen Miranda and Sir Lancelot. When Welles missed two episodes the time was filled (brilliantly, IMHO) by all-music programs featuring some of the artists Welles had previously hosted.

The oddest ducks in this very odd flock by far are the three episodes given over to "the Alphabet," in which Welles attempted to discuss South America with a letter representing various significant topics. But that "various" means the episodes are not very focused - he provides multiple words for each letter, so that the first installment only covers letters A-C! At that rate he could surely have kept it going quite a bit longer, but instead he tore from C to S in the second episode, during which he started a lengthy side drama about slavery which continued into the third and final chapter.

Again, this is not a typical radio program; it's part music, part drama, part educational. If you like Welles or you enjoy a bit of samba and calypso, you'll want to hear this program.

Every episode of Hello Americans is available at the Internet Archive.

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 3: Rebecca

Rebecca

• Campbell Playhouse (December 9, 1938): starring Orson Welles, Margaret Sullvan and Agnes Moorehead.
• Lux Radio Theater (February 3, 1941): starring Ronald Colman, Ida Lupino and Judith Anderson (reprised her film role).
• Screen Guild Theater (May 31, 1943): starring Joan Fontaine (reprised her film role), Brian Aherne and Agnes Moorehead.
• Matinee Theater (January 21, 1945): starring Martin Gabel and Gertrude Warner.
• Hollywood Players (October 1, 1946): starring Joan Fontaine (reprised her film role) and Joseph Cotten.
• Screen Guild Theater (November 18, 1948): starring Loretta Young and John Lund.
• Lux Radio Theater (November 6, 1950): starring Laurence Olivier (reprised his film role) and Vivian Leigh.

Dephne du Maurier's Rebecca was a famous novel before it became an Alfred Hitchcock film, so it's not too surprising to discover that it was adapted to radio prior to his movie. Orson Welles' adaptation is interesting in part because du Maurier appeared at the end of the drama (also, Orson makes a joke about the name of the novel's protagonist). One can see from this production that Hollywood was surely trying to bring Rebecca to the screen.

Hitchcock, of course, wasn't especially found of the movie, even though it brought him the highest accolades of his career. It's certainly a much more conventional film than most of his pictures. The adaptations which followed the movie were a mix of film and novel adaptations - the Lux Radio Theater and Screen Guild Theater versions were clearly drawn from the film, while the Matinee Theater version seems mostly a novel adaptation.

The first appearance of the script on Screen Guild Theater came one week after their adaptation of Shadow of a Doubt, so they were surely fond of Hitchcock on that program! The two Screen Guild adaptations share a script with the Hollywood Players script. Notice also that Joseph Cotten was present in the Hollywood Players version; we'll see his name a lot in these blog posts as he was a very busy man on radio, but it's neat that a genuine Hitchcock star appeared in so many of Hitchcock's adaptations.

The fidelity of the various adaptations waxes and wanes, primarily based on how much time they had to tell the story. Lux Radio Theater fits in all the highlights from the film, but screen Guild had to drop a major character (Rebecca's cousin) in order to make it fit (fortunately, Mrs. Danvers is enough of an antagonist on her own). Interestingly, the Screen Guild did not remove the minor character Frank Crawley - mainly because he provided useful exposition.

Interestingly, Laurence Olivier reprised his role on Lux Radio Theater 12 years after the film's release. Notably, Olivier's lover Vivian Leigh took the lead role in that version - he had campaigned for her back in '38 and been very disappointed when the part went to Joan Fontaine.

The Matinee Theater adaptation is pretty lousy. The novel and film are a decent mix of romance and ambiguity but this simplified version has an absurd happy ending where Mrs. Danvers simply leaves and Manderlay is not destroyed!

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 2: The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps was one of the greatest films from Alfred Hitchcock's pre-Hollywood career (the greatest, according to me). Unlike yesterday's look at the The Lodger, here we have a story which was adapted to old-time radio from both the original novel and the Hitchcock film. Interestingly, this time the first adaptation was of the movie!

• Lux Radio Theater (December 13, 1937): starring Robert Montgomery and Ida Lupino.
• Mercury Theater (August 1, 1938): starring Orson Welles.
• Studio One (March 23, 1948): starring Glenn Ford and Mercedes McCambridge.
• Suspense (March 3, 1952): starring Herbert Marshall.

Now, I love John Buchan's novel The Thirty-Nine Steps an awful lot as well, so I'm certainly not bothered by attempts to adapt the book instead of the movie. The Lux Radio Theatre adaptation is the one time Hitchcock's film was adapted to radio. Lux Radio Theater was an extremely well-produced program which would dig up good performers even when the originals weren't available (as is the case here). It's a good production but the dynamic between Robert Montgomery and Ida Lupino is lacking - they essentially argue in every scene they share, yet still declare they're in love with each other at the end. It's really not credible, unlike the Hitchcock film's efforts at convincing us that Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll's characters gradually fell in love.

The other three are adaptations of the novel and they're all pretty good, but I have to give the highest honours to Suspense simply because with only a 30-minute production they were able to condense the novel down to its most essential moments. It's a stellar piece of adaptation. The Mercury Theater version, on the other hand, tries to be a little too artsy and then has trouble fitting the story into an hour! Orson Welles made a comment about the Hitchcock film at the end of his adaptation:

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you missed Madeleine Carroll in our stag version of The Thirty-Nine Steps, the young lady in the movie, in common with almost everything else in that movie, is the child of its director's own unparalleled and unpredictable fancy. If you missed anything you must blame Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. If you were surprised by anything, you must blame us."

A Game Most Dangerous, Part 1: Introduction

In 1924, Richard Connell wrote a fine short story titled "The Most Dangerous Game". The plot concerns a hunter named Rainsford who is washed overboard at sea and finds himself on a Caribbean island inhabited by General Zaroff, a Russian hunter. Zaroff is a great fan of Rainsford and treats him with the utmost hospitality, but as they talk about hunting it comes out that Zaroff has tired of hunting big game as he no longer finds it suitably challenging; eventually Rainsford learns Zaroff's new passion is hunting men. When Rainsford refuses to join in the hunt, Zaroff makes him his next prey.

It's a simple story but certainly effective; I have the short story as part of a terrific anthology called Great Tales of Action and Adventure. I've seen it claimed on the internet that it is the most heavily-anthologized short story of all-time -- but that sounds over-zealous. More anthologized than Poe, Wells, Doyle? It has definitely been republished more often than most, especially considering Richard Connell was never a huge name as an author. Today, "The Most Dangerous Game" is the only work of his which is remembered at all.

A large part of why the story is remembered is due to the thrilling 1932 motion picture adaptation, starring Joel McCrea as Ransford and Leslie Banks as Zaroff. The film did quite a bit to popularize the "man is the most dangerous game" trope and I dare say most adaptations of the story look first to the film, not Connell's story. The film version added Fay Wray as a love interest who is similarly stranded on the island and gave her an inebriated brother to provide comic relief. The brother's death isn't treated in a satisfactory manner since it requires Zaroff to break his code (the whole reason he hunts men is because of the sport and he always give them a fair chance; the drunken brother has no chance at all). The film also visualizes something which was only hinted at in the story -- that Zaroff keeps his victim's bodies as trophies.

Being a great fan of old-time radio, I enjoyed the adaptations on Suspense and Escape. The Suspense version from September 23, 1943 stars Orson Welles as Zaroff and Keenan Wynn as Rainsford. The Escape version from October 1, 1947 has virtually the same script but features Paul Frees as Rainsford and Hans Conreid as Zaroff. You may be surprised to learn that although I count myself an enormous fan of Orson Welles, I prefer the Escape version! Largely, I prefer it because Paul Frees is such an excellent Rainsford, capturing the hero's shifting moods from cunning to desperate to determined. You can hear the Suspense version on archive.org here and the Escape version here.

Anyway, I'm kicking off this series "A Game Most Dangerous" because I noticed there were quite a few comic book stories which (*ahem*) borrowed liberally from "The Most Dangerous Game", particularly during the 1940s. For fun, I'm going to review a few of those stories and give them a rating out of 100 based on how similar they are to the original source material. My scoring will be based on:

The Hunter:

• A Russian nobleman (/4 points)
• Who is a big game hunter (/4 points)
• But is no longer challenged by big game (/4 points)
• So he hunts men on his secluded island (/4 points)
• Justifying this through a eugenics/Darwinian philosophy (/4 points)
• He is aided by his servants, including a disfigured mute (/4 points)
• And his vicious hunting dogs (/4 points)
• He obtains his prey by scuttling nearby ships (/4 points)
• His victims are given a time limit of 3 days; if they are alive at the deadline, they win the hunt (/4 points)
• As a further example of his sense of "sportsmanship", he will deliberately prolong the hunt if he finds it interesting (/4 points)
• His victims are placed on display in his trophy room (/4 points)

The Hunted:

• A famous big game hunter (/4 points)
• Who philosophizes about what (if anything) animals sense while being hunted (/4 points)
• He is cast overboard and finds himself on the hunter's island, alone (/4 points)
• The hunter knows him because of his reputation (/4 points)
• When he learns the hunter's scheme he refuses to hunt alongside him (/4 points)
• Hunted by the hunter, he flees into the wilderness trying to avoid detection (/4 points)
• His only tool is a knife which the hunter gave him (/4 points)
• In time he constructs traps to kill the hunter or his servants (/4 points)
• He survives the ordeal by leaping over a cliff (/4 points)
• Although the hunt is over, he confronts the hunter and duels him to the death (/4 points)

The Island:

• Is a tropical island in the Caribbean (/4 points)
• Surrounded by dangerous reefs which wreck ships (/4 points)
• The island has a dangerous swamp (/4 points)
• And high cliffs (/4 points)

Join me as I begin A Game Most Dangerous! I expect rather fair sport.

OTR Holiday Month Day 2: A Christmas Carol

No Christmas season would be complete without Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I grew up enjoying the 1951 film version, Scrooge, but I believe the single best adaptation of the tale occurred on Orson Welles' Campbell Playhouse on December 24, 1939. It features Orson as the narrator with Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge and Welles' Mercury Players in the other roles.

Lionel Barrymore made his performance as Scrooge an annual tradition on the radio for many years and this time, with the best radio players in the medium, it comes off amazingly well. You can listen to it at archive.org here.

More OTR holiday programming tomorrow!

Dracula Month Day 15: Mercury Theatre on the Air - Dracula

In the 1930s, Orson Welles & John Houseman's Mercury Theatre became a New York sensation and that led CBS to bring them to radio in 1938 for The Mercury Theatre on the Air. Welles had lofty ambitions for the kind of stories which the program would tell, a mix of plays and adaptations of popular novels. Welles intended the premiere broadcast to be an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island but ultimately shifted it ahead one week and instead wrote a very quick adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula for the July 11th premiere.

Although the most famous broadcast of The Mercury Theatre on the Air would be their version of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, the series didn't tread very often into the realm of science fiction/supernatural; in that sense, Dracula doesn't entirely make sense as a premiere broadcast. It's also remarkable that, considering his stage background, Welles wanted to adapt the novel, not the play. But as I've said before, the novel is so very much superior to the play and although every account of the adaptation process states it was a grueling one because of the sheer volume of prose Stoker wrote, Welles seemed to know the book was the correct source material.

The radio episode condenses the entire novel to an hour very faithful. Poor old Quincey Morris is omitted (as he often is) but the rest of the major characters are present. Welles performed Dracula and Dr. Seward with various sections narrated by the particular point-of-view characters, as in the novel. My favourite performance belongs to Martin Gabel as Van Helsing, who belts out his lines with tremendous fury (particularly at the climax as he screams "Strike, Harker!"). In all of old-time radio, this is just about the only time Dracula was adapted to the medium. Go check it out at archive.org, it's one of old-time radio's best horror broadcasts.

Who Knew? Two Shadow comic book reviews (900th post)

I kinda like the Shadow. I came to the character through the old radio show; it could be campy and juvenile at times, but had a number of very good episodes. Further, I really liked the 1994 motion picture - and not only because I was compared to Alec Baldwin in that film (I wish!). I've read the first Shadow novel the Living Shadow and many of the comic book interpretations of him; the 1970s DC comic was pretty good; the Archie comic was a travesty, but I found it morbidly fascinating enough to explore in-depth in my series of "Bitter Fruit" posts; and of late he's been published by Dynamite Entertainment.

Dynamite Entertainment is one of those publisher names chosen by publishers who don't really want to be known for making comics (see: Boom! Studios, DC Entertainment). Many of the titles in their output are licensed from various sources. To me, it seems as though Dynamite is always trying to get in on some of the sweet Hollywood-friendly projects in comics; I have to imagine part of the reason they're making comics about Doc Savage, the Phantom and Miss Fury is they know someone in Hollywood is shopping scripts around. And yet, if they are seeking some Hollywood synergy, it has not happened: the Green Hornet; the Lone Ranger; John Carter. All had Dynamite titles, all had disappointing films. Who would watch the farcical film version of the Lone Ranger and decide they'd like to read Dynamite's comic version - which is played straight?

Earlier I posted a negative review of Dynamite's Shadow #1 and have read a few of their Shadow books since. With a recent sale going on at Comixology, I elected to try the first issues of two recent Shadow comics: Justice, Inc. #1 and Twilight Zone: The Shadow #1.

Justice, Inc. teams up the Shadow with Doc Savage and the Avenger, two other pulp heroes published by Street & Smith (I've blogged before about the Avenger's comic by Jack Kirby). Team-ups are another thing Dynamite rather likes - they keep trying high-concepts like "Gold Key shared universe," "Jack Kirby shared universe," "King Features shared universe," "public domain shared universe," and so forth. This season: "Street & Smith shared universe."

The cover of Justice, Inc. #1 by Alex Ross prompts another digression (I promise, we'll get to the comic eventually): Dynamite made their name through the use of variant covers. You could say they're the company Alex Ross built, given the ubiquity of his covers. But then, Ross seldom does interior work art for them. Indeed, while they often snap up great cover artists (John Cassaday, Darwyn Cooke, Francesco Francavilla) and have hired a pretty good crop of big name writers (Garth Ennis, Matt Wagner, Roger Langridge) the interior art is usually made by someone you've never heard of before; pointing again to my review of the Shadow #1, that's a problem when the storytelling goes wrong. Dynamite seldom seems to hire proven talent, talent who many previous successes. Indeed, few even seem to go on to wider acclaim. There's always a chance that Dynamite may discover a major new talent, but they tend to lack the combination of established names and up-and-coming names found at the likes of Boom!, Valiant or IDW.

Justice, Inc. #1 is written by Michael Uslan and drawn by Giovanni Timpano (many Dynamite artists seem to be from Italy). Michael Uslan is famous for being the man who snapped up the film rights to Batman and Swamp Thing back when they were going for a song and has been linked the Batman films ever since. He's also written the Shadow before and seems to have a lot of affection for heroes of the 30s & 40s. He was also, unfortunately, responsible for the 1990s revival of Terry and the Pirates which transformed Terry Lee into a totally radical 90s teen. It was drawn by the Brothers Hildebrandt which absolutely guaranteed beautitful art, but - seriously - don't look it up. You will cringe.

Although the series is titled after the Avenger's organization, he's not quite in the comic - in fact, the story, set primarily iin 1939, is before he's become the Avenger and it appears his origin is being set up through this series. Thus, there are none of his operatives appearing. For that matter, Doc Savage's operatives (the Fabulous Five) are absent, with him instead dallying with H.G. Wells, Albert Einstein & Howard Hughes (the League of Fair Use Gentlemen?). Also strange is that although all three men operated in the same time frame in the pulps, the story concerns the Doc Savage of contemporary times time-travelling to 1939. Perhaps the plan is for there to be two Doc Savages in this story? In fact, '39 Savage doesn't even have the Man of Bronze's distinctive appearance; of them all, only the Shadow is fully developed in 1939 and his pulp foe the Voodoo Master is the antagonist.

Like so many comic books of the 21st century, the cover(s) promises something which does not happen (the Avenger, Shadow & Doc Savage do not meet. It seems frequently that what you see on the cover of #1 won't appear in the interiors 'til #6. In fact, the story seems instead to be getting the drop on Twilight Zone: The Shadow with what have to be intentional references to Twilight Zone episodes "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (something on the wing of an airplane) and "The Odyssey of Flight 33" (time-travelling airplane passengers see dinosaurs).

Even if you've never read the Avenger, you'd never guess his wife and daughter were about to die, would you?

I understood the events of Justice, Inc. #1, but there simply isn't much of a plot; it's primarily set up, teasing the Avenger's origin, establishing the Shadow, establishing the Shadow's "other self" Lamont Cranston; establishing the Voodoo Master, introducing two Doc Savages, sending one Doc Savage back in time... it simply runs out of pages. People who love these characters and have faith in Uslan will not doubt follow it to the end. As a casual Shadow fan and a non-fan of the Avenger and Doc Savage, I won't finish this series.

Twilight Zone: The Shadow #1 comes with a beautiful cover by Francesco Francavilla, one of my favourite artists. How can you possibly tell a Twilight Zone crossover with the Shadow when said program was an anthology series with no recurring elements? The cover begins to hint this can be done as Francavilla has essentially dropped the Shadow into the TV show's opening credits. The story itself is by David Avallone (writer) and Dave Acosta (artist). I am not familiar with either man, but Avallone's IMDB page credits him with all kinds of film & television work from VR Troopers to what appears to be a series of softcore porn video work. And nothing say "good writing" like porn! Dynamite brought him into comics which seems like validation to my Dynamite-wants-to-be-in-pictures theory. Dave Acosta seems to have made his entire professional career drawing for Dynamite. Can anything good come from this concept by these creators? Let us see!

Even people who may not have ever seen the Twilight Zone may use it in conversation, say when a strange coincidence occurs ("you've just entered the Twilight Zone!"). The Twilight Zone's stories are best-recalled as nightmarish scenes of people having inexplicable encounters with the paranormal, losing their identity and their very control over reality. This is much of what occurs in Twilight Zone: the Shadow. The story opens with the Shadow attacking a Nazi rally in the US, then having a car accident. When he wakes up, he's Lamont Cranston, the man who the Shadow often poses as (on the radio Lamont & the Shadow were the same person, but in the pulps they were separate). A fight with a very pulpy-looking Shiwan Khan occurs, Lamont seems to die - then finds himself transformed into Orson Welles, about to perform the radio episode "The Temple Bells of Neban"! What a great cliffhanger!

Amazingly, this odd concept delivers where the seemingly-straightforward concept of Justice, Inc. faltered. By the end of the issue, the reader has seen the Shadow's reality collapse around him and seen the character confronted with his own fictional nature. It works! We have a weird mystery with the hero's sanity on the line and we have the Shadow leaping into action and fighting familiar foes. It is a legitimate Twlight Zone comic and a legitimate Shadow comic. Author Avallone's past history didn't give me confidence, but this was ultimately a fun read and one I intend to follow up and complete.

Winners: David Avallone; the Twilight Zone; the Shadow
Losers: Alex Ross; the Avenger; the Fabulous Five

31 Days of Suspense: "The Hitch-Hiker"

Happy Halloween!

Today I'm very pleased to wind down "31 Days of Suspense" by presenting my personal favourite episode of the series: Lucille Fletcher's masterful program "The Hitchhiker" with star Orson Welles which you may download from archive.org here!

This episode is so lauded that it's easy to forget it came extremely early in the series' history - only the 10th episode aired! Of course, with a fine writer like Fletcher, an able producer such as William Spier and radio's own boy genius Orson Welles commanding the episode, how could it fail?

I love the ambiguity of this episode's climax. It explains so much, yet tells so little - as a great ghost story should. This episode began Fletcher & Welles' associations with Suspense (and was only Spier's second episode), something both they and the show profited immensely from.

I suppose I'm mandated to mention this script was also adapted to television as an episode of the Twilight Zone, but much as I enjoy Serling's program, I have to say I'm a purist - I prefer the radio play.

This brings 31 Days of Suspense to a close; thank you for indulging me! If you're a fellow Suspense fanatic, I'd like to see your own lists of favourites! And if you weren't a Suspense fan before... perhaps you are now?

Jack Benny Without Jack Benny, Part 6 of 6

We have reached the end of the series; on April 11, 1943, Jack Benny returned to the Jack Benny Program after missing five weeks of shows; however, guest host Orson Welles is still on the premises, offering us a fantastic instance of Jack's jealous ego.

Follow along with this link (right click to download from archive.org).

I should note, Jack had used guest hosts before - Herbert Marshall filled in on February 2, 1941 and later Robert Taylor would fill-in on May 16, 1948. There's even an episode where Jack appeared (April 3, 1938), but the show opened with George Jessel hosting - in each of these instances, Jack was deeply resentful when he returned to the studio and found his cast much preferred the guest host over himself. Such is the case again as Jack deals with the four week fill-in Orson Welles delivered.

The show is set in Jack's bedroom as he's supposedly still bed-ridden. This means more of Rochester than usual (as he must nursemaid Jack) and no one ever complained about having too much Rochester! Rochester supplies cough medicine made from gin ("You'll find very few pharmacists with the imagination I've got!") and sets up the toaster in the bed to keep Jack's feet warm. Rochester fields a call from his girlfriend and asks Jack if he can have the night off; when Jack refuses, Rochester invites his girl to the house instead!

As Mary arrives, there's this gem:

Jack: "Rochester, what are you doing with my cough medicine?"

Rochester: "I was holding it up to the light and some of it ran down my throat!"

As Jack insists he has to return to his show, Mary begins gushing over Orson's prowess as a performer; Jack begins to slowly smolder in his bed (and not because of the toaster). Jack grouses, "I was sick in bed for five weeks, he didn't even send me a basket of fruit! I finally had to wire him!" Ah, it's good to have Jack back!

Phil arrives next with a gag about his wife (Alice Faye)'s lousy baking. Naturally, Phil is the one most upset at Orson's exit.

Phil: "Gosh, I'm sure gonna miss Wellesy. Without him the show won't have no refinement, no culture, no class!"

Jack: "It won't have no Harris if you don't shut up!"

When Rochester asks if Benny would like to see his doctor Jack retorts, "No, I've been lying in bed all week because I can't find my pants!" The doctor is played by Frank Nelson, so you can guess he won't be entirely helpful (later in the show Nelson's characters were truly antagonistic towards Jack - at this stage, his characters' attitudes might best be described as apathetic). The doctor keeps making references to his other patients being pets, meaning Jack was too cheap to hire a real doctor.

Jack: "Now Doc, would you mind examining me? I've gotta go down to NBC and do a broadcast today."

Frank: "Why? Is Orson Welles sick?"

After the doctor leaves, Jack and Rochester have one of their famous sing-song exchanges:

Jack: "Oh, Rochesterrr...?"

Rochester: "Yes, boss?"

Jack: "Why are you pouring my cough medicine into those cocktail glasses?"

Rochester: "I thought it might liven up the partyyy!"

Jack's boarder Mr. Billingsley (show writer Ed Beloin) drops in to offer some of his standard non sequiturs.

Jack: "We were just talking about you, Mr. Billingsley, your ears must be burning."

Mr. Billingsley: "Well, I'll have to call the fire department, I've got a new hat on!"

Mr. Billingsley winds up hiding under Jack's bed ("in case your husband comes home") and bumps his head, recalling the previous two weeks' gag of Radcliff (co-writer Bill Morrow) bumping his head. Don and Dennis arrive, setting up a fantastic "I worry about things like that" piece:

Jack: "I have a hunch we're gonna have a pretty good show today."

Dennis: "Without Orson Welles?"

Jack: "Yes."

Dennis: "Gosh, the Orson Welles Program without Orson Welles? I worry about things like that!"

Rochester passes around scripts ("everyone gets a script and a glass of cough medicine!"). Miss Harrington (Verna Felton) returns to once again herald the arrival of Orson Welles (this time Mary greets her with "Hello, Slugger."). Miss Harrington begins insulting Jack, much as every other character she portrayed on the show over the decades would. Orson arrives, accompanied by his fanfare and gong.

Orson seems to have more trouble than usual keeping a straight face and all on account of Jack! Orson asks to observe while Jack rehearses the program, to which Jack relents. Upon remarking he doesn't have a chair, Orson is offered Mary, Don, Phil and Dennis' seats, causing Jack to angrily suggest Orson take his bed. Orson thinks comedy is best when unrehearsed and suggests they only rehearse the musical pieces, ordering Dennis to sing his song.

After Dennis' song, Orson insists Jack is in control; Jack asks Dennis to cut half a minute from his song, but Orson objects; Jack relents and suggests Dennis add half a minute, but Orson objects to this as well; Jack tells Dennis to leave it alone, which Orson also objects to, much to Jack's growing anger, at which point he flubs and calls him "Oris," leading to a great ad-lib:

Jack: "It took him ten years to build up the name Orson Welles, I made it Oris in one second!"

Jack follows this up by stepping on one of Orson's lines, to which he apologizes; it's interesting to note how few flubs there were in the previous five weeks, but now that Jack's back - flubs, ahoy! When Don asks to practice his commercial Jack refuses; this causes Orson to intrude again, and he's so enraptured by Grape Nuts that he basically does Don's commercial for him. Unfortunately, during this Jack protests, "But Oswald!" which might have been a deliberate flub; Orson cracks up again and pauses the commercial to say to Jack in an aside, "Now you know I can't louse up the sponsor's name!" By this point, it sounds like most of the cast and audience have lost it and Orson's attempts at getting back on track only lead to more flubs! Glorious, beautiful flubs!

Frank Nelson's doctor returns and accidentally gives Jack a sleeping pill; Orson volunteers to take Jack's place once again!

And so we leave this look back at the five week phenomenon which was "Jack Benny Without Jack Benny." In 1944 Orson Welles made another stab at comedy with his Radio Almanac series, but bereft of Jack's cast and writers, it didn't pan out. Later in 1943, Orson would once again take over another program for a month when he became the featured player on Suspense for four consecutive broadcasts. As he didn't have a program of his own at the time, it was a neat idea for him to usurp two of the most successful shows of the era and both are memorable outings.

I've spent a lot of years listening to old-time radio and the Jack Benny Program is one of the best series; if you ever want some recommendations, drop me a line!

Jack Benny Without Jack Benny, Part 5 of 6

We have reached Orson's final appearance as host of the Jack Benny Program with this, the April 4, 1943 episode.

Unfortunately, archive.org does not have this episode in their Jack Benny archive, but you can follow along using this link to the episode as prepared for a podcast series on Orson Welles at archive.org (right click the link to download).

The episode opens again with Gilroy & Radcliff's diner as the cast enter the premises one at a time; Radcliff hits Phil with a pie, unable to stand hearing Phil's corny jokes; hiding from Phil, Radcliff again ducks under the counter, bumping his head.

Mary phones up Jack in a one-sided telephone conversation which serves to inform the audience Jack will return for the next week's show; it also sets up next week by revealing how jealous Jack is of Orson. Phil is the cast member most disappointed to hear Orson will be leaving, insisting the two are "cultural buddies" and have a "lend/lease agreement on brains."

Verna Felton returns as Miss Harrington; this time Mary returns her greeting with "Hiya, Muscles." As in last week's broadcast, Orson's entrance is marked by fanfare.

Orson: "Well, uh, Mary what do you hear from Jack? Have you talked to him lately?"

Mary: "Yeah, I just had him on the phone. Jack's feeling fine now and says he'll be back on the show next week."

Orson: "Well!"

Dennis: "Looks like you'll have to hit the road, bub!"

Orson: "Dennis! Naturally, now that Jack feels better he should resume his rightful position. As for myself, I shall fold my tent like an Arab and silently steal away."

Phil: "When you put it that way, Orson, I could sob!"

I can't do Phil's tearful delivery justice; hear it for yourself, I think it gets funnier every time Orson repeats his "fold my tent" dialogue, causing Phil to mourn for him each time.

Once again the diner piece ends with Radcliff ducking under the counter, the gang heading to the studio and Orson uttering "last one to the studio's an old tomato!" Well, it's mostly like the previous week.

Following a jazzy number by Phil's band, Orson repeats his "fold my tent" line, again upsetting Phil.

Orson: "Seriously, I'm going to miss all of you, and if I ever get my own program I'd like to have this gang sign up with me."

Don: "You mean you'd like to have us work for you?"

Orson: "Yes. Of course, I don't know if I could meet the salaries that Jack's been paying you."

Mary: "They're really lousy. Why do you wanna meet them?"

Orson asks them to give him their phone numbers; Phil, Don and Dennis comply but Mary asserts if she gives Orson her number, he's liable to call her up for a date. When Orson insists he wouldn't, she retorts, "then you can't have it."

Orson goes into his announcement on the week's sketch: the cast expect something Shakespearean (Phil suggests "the Taming of the Stew"), but Orson has prepared for them "Little Red Riding Hood."

Phil: "Little Red Riding Hood? Ain't that kinda juvenile for you and me, Orson?"

Orson: "Perhaps, Phil, but I think the kiddies who are listening in and observing this playlet especially for them. Now I will play the part of Old Man Hood, an elderly farmer who lives at the edge of a forest. Mary will be my daughter Red and Dennis will be my son Robin, ha! ...Robin Hood. Are you giggling, kiddies?"

Orson continues the gag of making lousy jokes then addressing the kids in the audience throughout the impending skit. Don will play a tree in the woods ("which only God can make"), Phil is cast as the woodsman. Mary takes a second part as Red's mother and likewise, Orson will be a wolf.

Mary: "In that case, here's my phone number, Baby Face."

Orson: "Thanks, Mary."

Dennis: "This play is really crazy. Mary is her mother and her daughter, Orson is her father and the wolf, and Wilson is a tree that giggles. I worry about things like that!"

Dennis' "I worry about things like that!" is a running gag with a lot of life outside of these guest programs.

Orson: "What are you going to sing tonight?"

Dennis: "A song."

Orson: "A song, that's fine. And what's the name?"

Dennis: "Dennis Day."

Orson: "The name of the song!"

Before Dennis can sing, Rochester phones, but this time his call is preceded with Orson's fanfare! This cracks Orson up for a moment; Rochester is prepared to leave Orson's employ "after four weeks of sheer bliss." In describing his contract with Jack Benny to Orson, Rochester says a lawyer looked at it and declared, "Mr. Lincoln wouldn't like this." Rochester signs off by stealing Orson's "fold my tent" routine, to Orson's chagrin. Following Dennis' song:

Orson: "You have a marvelous voice, there's no getting away from it."

Dennis: "Well, if it's so marvelous, why do you want to get away from it?"

Orson: "I don't want to get away from it, I paid you a compliment, you little brat!"

Dennis: "Oh!"

Orson: "And now, ladies and gentlemen... on second thought, Dennis, here's your phone number back."

The sketch begins, even as Phil points out they never cast the part of the grandmother; Orson promises the grandmother will be a surprise (any long-time fan who recalls the instances where Jack promises a "surprise" bit of casting already knows who grandmother will be). Orson starts the sketch proper with Jack's familiar: "Curtain! Music!"

Orson adopts a scratchy "rube" voice for the role of Red's father - quite a thing to hear a Shakespearean performer attempt! Grandmother calls up and her voice is immediately recognizable as long-time guest star Andy Devine (last heard 3 weeks prior)!

As Red heads over to grandmother's house there's a great sound effects gag as Mary notes the "howling wind" (with accompanying effect) and "falling snow" (to the sound of a jackhammer). Orson re-enters the story declaring, "It's me, kiddies, I'm a wolf now." Don inserts a Grape Nuts commercial as Mary describes the contents of her basket.

At grandmother's house, the wolf threatens to eat her:

Orson: "Hold still! It'll be over in a minute!"

Andy: "Should I take my boots off?"

Orson's attempt to imitate Andy Devine is pretty lousy, but hey, any excuse to have Orson talk in a funny voice. Phil arrives to kill the wolf, but the swallowed Andy protests at being chopped up and thus the skit ends - like so many of Jack's skits - without an ending. I've heard the Jack Benny Program compared to the Muppet Show and in a sense they were kindred programs - both headed by flustered men unable to properly corral the entertainers into the reputable players he wanted.

Orson delivers a farewell at the end of the show, bringing his tenure to an end; Mary whispers in "Good night, Doll" at the last second.

Tomorrow: Jack Benny returned to his show for the April 11, 1943 broadcast but Orson Welles had yet to exit!