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."

Hitchcock vs. Radio Part 1: The Lodger

I love Alfred Hitchcock's works - and I love old-time radio! I've examined how the two are connected before in a previous post which looked at radio adaptations of stories which were dramatized on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

But Hitchcock was primarily a filmmaker and many of his movies were adapted on the radio. I thought it would be interesting to listen to each old-time radio adaptation of every Alfred Hitchcock film and then see what I discover. Let's begin!

The Lodger

• Forecast (July 22, 1940): starring Herbert Marshall
• Suspense (December 14, 1944): starring Robert Montgomery
• Hollywood Star Time (May 19, 1946): starring Vincent Price and Cathy Lewis (who substituted for Ida Lupino)
• Mystery in the Air (August 14, 1947): starring Peter Lorre and Agnes Moorehead
• Suspense (February 14, 1948): starring Robert Montgomery

The Lodger was adapted five times; of these, only the Forecast program referenced Alfred Hitchcock's film as it was used as the pilot episode of Suspense. But it was an incomplete adaptation and when Suspense became a series it was without Hitchcock's involvement.

Suspense adapted the original novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes twice, both with Robert Montgomery as the star. The first was a half-hour, the second was one-hour, but, like most hour-long episodes of Suspense it's not really much different than the shorter version - just padded a bit. The Hollywood Star Time is pretty good, although it takes considerable liberties with the novel! Peter Lorre is great in the Mystery in the Air version too, although again, just like Hitchcock's own film, no one used the novel as much more than a launching point.

Radio Recap: The Henry Morgan Show

So far I've used this 'Radio Recap' to visit old-time radio programs which fell into the mystery genre. Obviously, that's not all that I enjoy listening to; recently I decided to listen to what I could find of the ABC comedy program The Henry Morgan Show (1946-1947). I had only heard a couple of episodes in the past and I had mostly enjoyed what I heard, but the last time I tried to listen to whole series I was a little put off by the voices.

Well, voice. I've said many times before that I don't enjoy radio programs with performers who use squeaky or nasally tones for comedic effect. Unfortunately I really didn't take to Henry Morgan's sidekick Arnold Stang, who was in every episode of the ABC show. However, although I didn't find his voice funny, he did have some funny material on Mogan's program and as I listened to the whole series I gained a lot of respect for Stang's performance.

I was really drawn to Henry Morgan because of his wit - his sarcastic remarks, his love of satire and his willingness to mock his sponsor. Many radio comedians of the time made fun of their sponsors to some extent, but listening to all of Henry Morgan it is amazing to hear him constantly put down his sponsor Eversharp-Schick Razors. Usually the middle commercial of the program was read by Morgan himself and that's where he became most acrid towards his sponsor, such as noting the product cost $1.25, then suggesting other things which could be bought for that money, or claiming that using the product helped men save time only to result in a tragic outcome.

It feels like ABC and Eversharp-Schick really wanted a Jack Benny or Bob Hope program (especially ABC as they were a very young network). It's certainly different from where Morgan originated as a radio disc jockey. Instead of simply being Morgan at a microphone, ABC and Eversharp-Schick gave him a band and stooges. But if they'd actually listened to his material from his disc jockey days they might have realized that his brand of sardonic humour was not going to win over Bob Hope-sized audiences. Heck, in one episode Morgan informs his cast that they all have to adopt distinctive characteristics and gives them all traits from Jack Benny & Bob Hope's casts; it only lasts for one sketch.

Indeed, Morgan was malleable - he played a variety of different characters on the show, sometimes adopting accents. He certainly didn't disappear into his characters, but that Morgan wasn't putting himself (or his sponsor's product) forward was definitely against the grain. His trademark opening, "Good evening, anybody, here's Morgan," hints at the contempt he had for his own profession.

Listening to The Henry Morgan Show it's clear that it could never have really taken off, but the type of humour which Morgan performed did find audiences with other comedians in the post-war era - Stan Freberg, Mad magazine, Bob and Ray. It's notable to me that Bob and Ray never really altered their format from their days as disc jockeys - a Bob and Ray program from any point in their careers is mostly like any other program aside from what music is played.

But all that is to say that if you like old-time radio comedy - and especially satirical humour - The Henry Morgan Show is a very good program. My personal favourite show is the New Year's program from January 1, 1947, in which Morgan presents various pieces of dialogue, sound effects and music cues which he wasn't able to use in 1946, then introduces a sketch which assembles them into one ridiculous narrative!

New Essay: Black Lions & Black Panthers

My newest essay at Sequart has been released: Black Lions and Black Panthers: Wakanda as a Representation of Ethiopia. As it says on the tin, this essay explores similarities between Wakanda and Ethiopia. I hope you enjoy it!

Radio Recap: Murder Clinic

Murder Clinic is a show I had heard of but never actually sat down and listened to. When I finally became curious enough to look into the series I was surprised to learn there were only six episodes still known to exist from its one-year run.

Murder Clinic launched on Mutual in 1942 at the same time as Suspense. In fact, the series somewhat resembles that first year of Suspense, when the series would adapt famous detective stories by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, John Dickson Carr and T. S. Stribling. Perhaps that has something to do with why Murder Clinic only managed to secure one year - Suspense was doing the same thing, but with a bigger budget.

Murder Clinic only suffers a little from its lower budget. For a Mutual series, it's actually pretty well put together with large rotating casts. The gimmick of featuring a different famous detective hero adaptation each week is an interesting one. If only the whole series were still available it would be an interesting tour of what detective fiction of the mid-20th century was like. As it is, here's what remains:

• August 11, 1942: Dr. Henry Poggioli in "The Governor of Cap Haitien" by T. S. Stribling
• August 18, 1942: Max Carrados in "The Holloway Flat Tragedy" by Ernest Bramah
• September 22, 1942: Rosika Storey in "The Scrap of Lace" by Hulbert Footner
• September 29, 1942: Sir Henry M. Merrivale in "Death in the Dressing Room" by John Dickson Carr
• October 6, 1942: Hercule Poirot in "The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor" by Agatha Christie
• October 13, 1942: Police Deputy Parr in "Gulf Stream Green" by Frederick Irving Anderson

I've complained a few times on this blog about John Dickson Carr's writing, especially what was presented on Suspense in 1942-1943. To my amazement, I don't hate the surviving Carr episode! Actually, it's a pretty good piece of detective fiction which plays fair with the audience and doesn't talk down to them (usually my problem with Carr). If only his Suspense writing had hit that note!

I also have to single out the Dr. Poggioli story. The Poggioli story "A Passage to Benares" on Suspense was the subject of my most popular blog post on old-time radio. The adaptation of "The Governor of Cap Hatien" is another great Poggioli yarn (also collected in Clues of the Caribees with "A Passage to Benares"). It involves a bit of voodoo and, as per usual, Poggioli makes some brilliant deductions but is a little slow at implementing them!

I should also say that the Poirot adaptation is good; living in a post-David Suchet world it is difficult to accept any other performer in that role, but it's done very well.

If you enjoy detective fiction (especially by any of those six authors), it's definitely of interest to you. More about Murder Clinic can be gleaned from the page at the Digital Deli.

RIP: Sidney Poitier

The same day Peter Bogdanovich passed also saw the death of Sidney Poitier.

Poitier has always been one marked for the history books because he was the first black performer to win the Academy Award for Best Actor (for Lilies of the Field). For a time - particulary in the 1960s - he was simply one of the most prominent and respected black entertainers and went on to be sort of elder statesman in the film industry even after he stopped acting. I recall how when Denzel Washington won his award for Training Day he lifted it in salute to Poitier.

Poitier's body of work was criticized by James Baldwin because he tended to play very earnest, self-sacrificing men. Baldwin considered it something of a betrayal that in The Defiant Ones, Poitier's escaped convict character sacrificed his own freedom to save the life of Tony Curtis' character. There's certainly truth to what Baldwin wrote.

However, bringing it back to Denzel, on the flip side you have a film like Training Day. I was surprised when a friend told me he wasn't very enthused about Denzel winning the award. It's not that he thought Denzel's performance was lacking, but that he won it for portraying a horrible human being. My friend would have been happier if Denzel had portrayed someone he could present to his son as a role model.

On that score, Poitier really came through. His early film roles in the likes of No Way Out presented him as saintly; in Red Ball Express or Blackboard Jungle he had an edge but had to learn a lesson; films like To Sir, with Love and Lilies of the Field made him tender.

Yet I have to single out two films from his career as my favourites; one I only discovered last year, The Bedford Incident, which is almost a gross parody of a typical Poitier protagonist - he seems to be the high-minded idealist, the straight-shooter who knows what's what - but he's stuck in a nihilistic film that can have no happy ending! And I really love Sneakers where he played in a neat ensemble cast for a heist picture - it's lightweight, but very entertaining.

Rest in peace, Mr. Poitier.