The Journalist and the Redhead

As funny as Lucy was on TV,
co-workers say that she
was awfully good at giving
them this look.  It was usually
followed by extensive cursing.

This week on the OTR Express, we hear the climax to the "My Favorite Husband" program.  (Or for those who grew up in the TV era - "That Old Radio Show That Sounds A Lot Like 'I Love Lucy'").  We'll also have some good discussions about how many similarities there really were between the two programs.

Then we'll hear a detective show that I stumbled across in the last couple of years, and has turned out to be one of my favorite detective shows, from the characterizations, to the acting, to the no-easy-way-out script.  Unfortunately, this show - "Crime on the Waterfront" - didn't last long enough to even use the verb "last"... after a pilot show, it never got picked up by the sponsors.  You'll have to listen in the to show to know whether the failure of this show ruined the career of its leading man.

Enjoy this week's old time radio!

What's Thanksgiving...

One avid listener sent this photo of herself,
after realizing that the much-anticipated
Thanksgiving episode was not to be.

...without a little snafu?  Your glamorous host sat in Studio C of the XRB Radio studios the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and recorded a beautiful show.  Unfortunately, what went out over the air was an Old Time Radio Express show from back in September.

But on the bright side, we get to all extend Thanksgiving for another week and soak up some more turkey-day OTR.  And your host gets a break this Sunday eve, as his work from last week is (should be) going out over the XRB airwaves.

Enjoy the fixin's!

Johnny Dollar, Schizophrenic

Edmond O'Brien shown in his
younger years, pre-Hollywood
success...

No offense, Johnny, but 6 different actors in 14 years (not counting the 2 audition shows by Dick Powell and Gerald Mohr)?  You had more personalities than Sybil.

This week, we compare 2 of the more famous Dollars - one by a Hollywood veteran who freelanced in radio (and did a better job of it than most movie actors can say) and one by a radio guy.

Edmond O'Brien, our Hollywood star (yes, he was a star back then), played in some of the great box office hits, like "White Heat" and "Wild Bunch" and some lesser-known gems, like "The Hitch-hiker". He also starred as Johnny Dollar for two years.  He was good, though Dollar didn't have a lot of character in his run.  

....and Mandel Kramer, shown much
later in life, in his TV years on
"The Guiding Light"

Exhibit B is Mandel Kramer.  Kramer, the radio guy, gave Dollar sort of a cheshire cat grin/devil may care attitude.  Kramer was allowed to have a little fun with the role, as folks were turning off their radios and turning on their televisions.  If no one's listening, you may as well enjoy yourself. 

Sounds like Kramer has adopted the motto of the Old Time Radio Express.  Hey, whichever one of my personalities said that, quiet down!

Old Time Radio Obscurities...

This week on the Old Time Radio Express, your host brings you a couple of old time radio related obscurities.

First is Words With Music, a show with words...and music.  In this episode, we hear "The Gift of the Magi".  It's an interesting story and presentation, and you'll learn a little about the story's author as well as confectionary history on the program.



The next obscurity is A Voice in the Night starring an "internationally famous stage, screen and supper club star".  I'll leaving you guessing as to who it is. 



Here's a hint of who your "Voice in the Night" star is...
What, still no idea?



It's a night of old time radio that even the most ardent OTR fan might not have heard before.  So click on the title above, and enjoy!

Criminals Beware...

For tonight, on the Old Time Radio Express, they will feel the sting of The Green Hornet...and be outsmarted by gentleman detective Philo Vance.

Just click on the title of this blog posting, for an hour's worth of old time radio.

The Green Hornet was once billed as the crime fighter who took down criminals that "even the G-Men couldn't catch".  G-Men, a forerunner of the FBI, didn't take too kindly to the perception that there were criminals that would elude them, so the intro changed.  However, the Hornet's effectiveness was not diminished.

This week, we have "The Hornet Does It", in which the Hornet is framed for a hijacking he didn't commit.

On Philo Vance, the organist gets a workout, as this program lives up to all the cliches of an old radio detective show (sharp organ interludes, a detective whose every deduction is spot on, cops that are incredibly daft, and the obvious suspects never being guilty).   And yet, "The Green Girls Murder Case" is just as enjoyable as it must have been when it was broadcast back in 1949.  Enjoy, and check back next week for more great old time radio...

The War of the Worlds - A Halloween Classic

No, it's not the 2005 Spielberg movie starring Tom Cruise.  Nor is it the 1953 version starring Ray Bradbury.  Nor is it even a very faithful adaptation of the 1898 H.G. Wells novel.

No, this is the Mercury Theatre on the Air's original vision of "The War of the Worlds".  To understand the impact it had on American society, take a listen to last week's show after you hear this one. 

So, in what has become tradition - we celebrate Halloween by playing "The War of the Worlds", starring Orson Welles and his Mercury players, on the Old Time Radio Express.

Mercury Month - Week #4

Welles at his craft

This week we focus on the great man himself, the man who brought all the other players of the Mercury together - Orson Welles.

I do not suppose I shall be remembered for anything. But I don't think about my work in those terms. It is just as vulgar to work for the sake of posterity as to work for the sake of money.  - Orson Welles

Welles made his mark on old time radio before flitting off the Hollywood to capture America's imagination on film.  In this broadcast, we have him in a comedic role, guest starring on the Fred Allen Show.  Welles could do comedy just fine, thank you, as he even had a run as fill-in for Jack Benny when Benny was out sick for a 4 week stretch in the 1942-3 season.

I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time. - Orson Welles

And out of step he was, as we'll see next week on the Old Time Radio Express, when we play that instant classic - The War of the Worlds.  After the Fred Allen Show, we get you all prepared for everything you'll need next week.

Nobody who takes on anything big and tough can afford to be modest. - Orson Welles

And modest he was not.  As I'm sure he would have told you.

Mercury Month - Week #3



The Old Time Radio Express rolls out of the station tonight with two more shows featuring the talents of members of the Mercury Theatre troupe - George Coulouris and Edgar Barrier.

Coulouris is great in the WWII thriller,
"Watch on the Rhine", with Bette
Davis and Paul Muni.

Coulouris plays the title role in the B-grade detective show, Bulldog Drummond.  Despite the fact that Drummond ran for 8+ years, it is much less remembered nowadays than The Adventures of Sam Spade or The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.  The preservation of the majority of those shows on tape probably has a lot to do with it.

The film noir, "Cornered"
is on DVD and features
Edgar Barrier along with
crooner turned dramatic actor
Dick Powell.

Barrier and his distinctive voice narrate a "documentary" on the Pacific situation during WWII.  It's an interesting bit of radio, but if it's a documentary, then the term is used very loosely.

Enjoy! 

The Adventures of Nero Wolfe and The Strange Dr. Weird

Sydney Greenstreet played Nero Wolfe
for one season on radio.

This week we feature a detective who was, at one point, voted as a finalist for best detective in an ongoing series - Nero Wolfe.  (He ultimately lost to Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot).

The creation of a Noblesville, Indiana author, whose "Some Buried Caesar" Nero Wolfe mystery was named Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library's choice for "One Book, One City", Nero Wolfe was a corpulent, orchid-loving "foodie" who disliked leaving his comfortable, custom-made armchair, even to solve cases.

Wolfe came to radio at least 3 different times, none of which author Rex Stout particularly cared for.  (This was typical of the detective writers of the time.  Others like Hammett and Chandler were only loosely associated with the productions of the Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe series, associating their names with the programs for the sake of royalty checks, but otherwise despising the writing and, occasionally, the acting). 

But of the Wolfes to be on the air, Stout most enjoyed the characterization of the star we hear from this week - Sydney Greenstreet. 

Stick around after the Nero Wolfe episode for a nice Strange Dr. Weird mystery called "When Killers Meet".

A Look Back at History, OTR Style

Edward Arnold played Mr. President
on radio, but left his mark
primarily in film, starring in
pictures like "Meet John Doe"
and "You Can't Take It With You". 

This week on the Old Time Radio Express, we present a couple of historical events - one fictional, and two non-fictional.

First off is Mr. President, an historical drama which each week detailed an event - sometimes important, sometimes quite unimportant - from a U.S. President's life.  Esteemed actor Edward Arnold played the President every week, whose identity was kept secret until the end of the broadcast.  See if you can't guess this week's President, who is struggling to avoid letting the U.S. get pulled into war.

Speaking of war, we have an interesting soundbite from World War II, as might have been heard by our fighting forces in the Pacific.

And we've got another special treat - what I would argue might be the most famous radio news broadcast ever.  Disagree?  Feel free to leave comments on the blog!

Back in Black...

Another hot summer day and we celebrate with the color of the shimmering pavement outside...BLACK.

The Black Museum was a 52 episode BBC production whose main attributes are its gimmick (stories based on artifacts related to famous crimes worked on by Scotland Yard) and its narrator (American genius Orson Welles).  Likely Welles found himself lacking money while working on the movie Othello in Europe and agreed to record The Black Museum series for a little extra cash.  That would have been Wellesian.

Beyond the gimmicks, The Black Museum is standard crime fare spiced up by British sensibilities.

The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen is the second of the shows on the Old Time Radio Express.  Enjoy the episode of the "Fang Rubies and the Black Siamese".  Captain Philip Carney captained the ketch Scarlet Queen around the globe, finding adventure and beautiful women in every port.  One of my favorite shows. 

A quick bit of trivia about this particular show - Elliot Lewis as Carney plays opposite his lovely wife Cathy Lewis, as the beautiful but proper sister of the dead man.  The Lewises often worked in the same show, and the shows were the better for it.  Enjoy...

Father's Day Show

This week on the Old Time Radio Express we celebrate Father's Day with a non-OTR offering.  Yes, for dad, we'll veer off the beaten path.

I thought Dad would particularly enjoy something that he may have listened to himself on the radio, and so chose the 1963 Major League Baseball All-Star Game.  Names like Musial, Mays, Drysdale, Aaron, Yastremski all graced the field.

With only an hour on Sundays, I offer the game from the mid-6th inning on. 

But, as promised, I will also post the full broadcast of the game shortly.

So enjoy the crack of the bat, the old baseball announcers, the greats of the game, and of course, the old commercials...

Show #31 (June 13th) Famous Jury Trials & Perry Mason

I spent the weekend in Ithaca, New York, celebrating my law reunion, and to celebrate, have chosen two law-related old time radio shows for your listening enjoyment - Famous Jury Trials and Perry Mason.

The former, though less well-known, probably has more factual basis in the law than the latter.  Alas, Perry Mason on radio was a mix of a soap opera male lead and private detective.  The shows had neither the substance nor the flash of the famed TV series.

Nonetheless, I think you'll get a kick out of both series.

Duffy's Tavern & The Strange Dr. Weird

Picture Cheers, except set in a dingy bar somewhere in New York City with an absentee owner and a manager whose grammatical skills, or lack thereof, were a weekly source of comedy.  Toss in a dash of funny character actors and the occasional Hollywood guest star, and you've got Duffy's Tavern. 

The show was the brainchild of Ed Gardner, who played the lead character of Archie, the manager of Duffy's Tavern (pictured right).  As the story goes, Gardner was a producer on another show, and trying to get his actors to hit the perfect New York accent.  None could, so Gardner stepped up to the mike and showed them just what he wanted.  Within seconds, the cast was in stitches, and the voice of Archie was born.

This episode from December 18, 1946 guest stars Joan Bennett, who, in this author's humble opinion is underrated in terms of both looks and acting ability.  Check out this photo of Bennett to judge the former, and the film "Scarlet Street" for the latter.

We top this edition of the Old Time Radio Express off with The Strange Dr. Weird.  Because you can never go wrong with the writing team of Robert A. Arthur and David Kogan.

Show #29 - You Can't Do Business With Hitler and Lights Out!

The Old Time Radio Express celebrates Memorial Day with a couple of programs related to the evils that our fighting forces faced in WWII - namely, Hitler and the Nazis.

We start with a program more informational and educational than entertaining - You Can't Do Business With Hitler.  In fact, this is the premier episode of the program, cleverly titled "Heads They Win, Tails We Lose".  (As a sidebar, did anyone else play that game with a younger sibling when younger?  Or how about trying to convince your younger sibling to trade dimes for your nickels because they were bigger?  Or was that just me?)

Our second example of how radio battled Nazism is in Lights Out's production of a brilliant little radio play entitled "Execution", from April 27, 1943.

As I mention in the show, there are only 4 actors in "Execution" and although each primarily was a radio talent, allow me to cross media and make a movie recommendation for each.  Their talent deserves it.

The main Nazi, who has written the report, is voiced by Edgar Barrier.  He was not putting on a "voice" in this broadcast - that was his normal voice.  As you can imagine, he found himself playing a lot of Germans and other heavily accented characters, mostly villains, throughout radio.  Check him out in the Orson Welles/Joseph Cotten thriller "Journey Into Fear"

Mercedes McCambridge portrays the woman, and was an accomplished actress in both radio and film.  Her film debut, "All the King's Men", garnered her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.  If you want to hear her (but not see her) in something completely different, check out "The Exorcist".  You know the famous scene when the devil is talking out of the little girl's mouth?  Well, the lovely and innocent woman pictured to your right was that voice...only one of the most famous scenes in the horror genre!

Lou Merrill plays the soldier who leads the women up to the scaffold, and was all over radio, with a voice that was suited to both paranoid killers (on Lights Out) and Santa Claus (on The Cinnamon Bear).  He didn't do much in the movies, but has a nice bit part in the Orson Welles/Rita Hayworth classic "Lady From Shanghai".  He's one of the sailors in the early bar scene.  I can't find a picture of Lou Merrill on the internet for the life of me.  That tells you he was a true radio actor!

Lastly, the Nazi reading the report to Hitler had the most success of the four in the movies.  It was not for his looks, but rather for his versatile voice, that Mr. Hans Conreid relied on to get work.  Have you seen the Disney animated movie "Peter Pan"?  Then you've seen Conreid's work, as he play not one, but two roles, Captain Hook and Father Darling.  He was the quintessential supporting player on radio, comfortable especially playing kooks, both the violent kind on the horror shows and the professorial types on the comedy shows.  If you want to see Conreid's face, you can also see him in "Journey Into Fear" with Barrier.

One thing for sure, we'll hear lots more of McCambridge, Barrier, Merrill and Conreid....it'd be hard not to with how prolific they were.  Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Show #28 - Let's Pretend and The Easy Aces (and a treat)

This week on the Old Time Radio Express, we listen to one of the most well-respected children's program from the golden age of radio - Let's Pretend.  In fact, one of my first brushes with old time radio involved Let's Pretend, though I didn't realize it at the time. 

Believe it or not, one could check out LP's (records) from the Carol Stream library, much like cds and DVDs are available at libraries nowadays.  Well, I had my little record player at home, and remember checking out a record with dramatized fairy stories called Let's Pretend.  I can't tell you the names of the shows on the records the Carol Stream library had, but I'm certain they were Let's Pretend programs. 

After listening to this particular Let's Pretend episode ("The Six Swans"), I think you'll see why some of the various touches in the show still stand out years later.

We follow up with an isolated comedy of the Easy Aces, and end with an old time radio curiosity that you won't want to miss.  (Here's a photo clue to the surprise below...) Enjoy!

Show #27 The Adventures of Ellery Queen & Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

Detective, author, anthologist, inspiration for a magazine, movie star, radio star...who else could we be talking about but the renowned Ellery Queen?  Ellery Queen got his start in detective novels, as both the author (a pseudonym for 2 cousins) and detective in "The Roman Hat Mystery", published in 1929.  From there, Queen's star shone, and continues to shine today.  Yes, you can still subscribe to "The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine".

We enjoy the exploits and famous deductive skills of Ellery Queen on "The Adventure of the Vanishing Magician" from November 4, 1943.

The Old Time Radio Express follows Mr. Queen with the climax to "The Flight Six Matter" on Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.  It's Part 5 of 5, from February 3, 1956.  YTJD would continue on radio for another six years, ending as the last dramatic program on the air on the day radio died - September 30, 1962.

Show #26 - Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show & Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

"What's a Rexall?"  Phil Harris wondered this on one of the early broadcasts of the Phil Harris-Alice Faye show, and you may be wondering too.  Find out in this Mother's Day episode of the Phil Harris-Alice Faye show, in which Phil enlists his buddy Remley to help buy Alice a present.

The second show on the Old Time Radio Express is episode 4 of 5 of "The Flight 6 Matter" on Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.  Dollar chases the suspects to Acapulco, and may get into more than he bargains for.

Show #22 - Escape & Captain Midnight

This week, we escape to the Confederate South on Escape, as Harry Bartell stars in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" based on the famous short story of the same name by Ambrose Bierce. 

Escape was an anthology program of adventure shows, and is often thought of as the somewhat lesser kin to the long-running program, Suspense.  And though it is true that Escape only ran for 7 years (versus Suspense's 20), bounced around time slots (versus Suspense's fairly standard slot), had sporadic sponsorship (versus Suspense's long-running sponsors) and limited budget and big-name stars (versus Suspense's wealth of both), Escape is still just as good as Suspense. 

Take a listen to this show, and let me know if you don't agree.

By the way, star of this Escape episode, Mr. Harry Bartell, named this particular performance the favorite of his long career.

Captain Midnight is our second program, and was a kiddie serial aimed at young boys.  It told the story of Captain Midnight, secret government agent whose identity was so secret that even his superiors did not know it. 

Like every good hero, he had a backstory.  In WWI, he was fighter pilot who was sent on a mission surely to result in his death, but he piloted his plane back into friendly territory on the stroke of midnight, having completed his mission, and earning the moniker, "Captain Midnight". 

For more on Captain Midnight, check out http://www.otr.com/.  Until then, enjoy this isolated episode from January 10, 1949.

Show #21 - "The Lux Radio Theater"

This week on the Old Time Radio Express, I take a back seat to the old time radio (just as it should be, you say).  We present The Lux Radio Theater, and its presentation of "The Miracle of the Bells", a 1948 film broadcast on Lux later that same year (May 31, 1948).

"The Miracle of the Bells" stars Frank Sinatra, Fred MacMurray and Alida Valli (or simply Valli, as she was often referred to).  It's interesting to watch old movies and see a one-named actress without lasting impact pop up in the credits...most with one name seem to have cross-generational impact.  I'm thinking of Madonna, Cher, Lassie, Sabu.  To me, Valli shone her best in "The Third Man" (probably helped to have Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten surrounding her) and then was cast in nearly the same character in subsequent films, none of which was much good.  Granted, I have not seen her Italian filmography, so maybe she was fantastic in her native tongue. 

Radio is even harder for Valli, as she loses her looks and has to rely on a language which was not her first.  (The reference site radiogoldindex.com shows her performing in only 4 radio programs in her entire career.  Compare a Fred MacMurray - who was no radio man himself - at 96).  Regardless, "The Miracle of the Bells" is a nice Easter treat.  Enjoy.