Station Featured: KGU, Honolulu, Hawaii
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Radio silence is...well, silence on the radio. Sometimes it happens by accident (and usually prompts people to quickly change the station to make sure the radio isn't busted or the power isn't out). Sometimes it happens by design - like during Remembrance Day observances at eleven o'clock every November 11th. Sometimes it's maintained as a sign of respect when someone is laid to rest.
There is a civilian radio operator's code (procedure word, or more commonly, "Proword") used to command silence on the air: "Seelonce seelonce seelonce". The order clears the airways so that fainter signals (like a distant "mayday!") can be heard.
And then there was the moment when all of North America went silent.
On June 2, 1942, all radio stations from Canada to Mexico went silent. Several months after the attack on Pearl Harbour, a new air raid alert was sounded, and all radio stations were ordered to cease broadcasting.
The reason for the radio silence: On December 7th, 1941, Japanese forces used the AM radio signal from KGU Honolulu as a homing beacon, allowing their ships and planes to zero in on Hawaii - and Pearl Harbour. Silencing all radio stations thwarted attempts by bombers and kamikazes to hone in on further North American targets.
Imagine the terror and confusion. at the time, with the exception of newspapers and film news reels at the cinema - there is no other immediate source of news.
You turn on the radio and find its dead. You turn the dial. Nothing but the hiss and sizzle of static on the air.
Something very bad has happened, if every station is off the air. but you have no way of finding out what's happened - because your only source of instant news is gone.
There's no word of where the air raid is targeted. There's no word if the air raid had already begun and destroyed North America. There's nothing but silence. The curiosity - and fear - must have been devastating.
In today's terms: imagine hearing an air raid (or tornado alert) siren. Your first instinct is to turn on the TV. Nothing but static or a "no signal" indication. You turn next to the radio. Silence. You turn on the computer, your cell phone, your iPad - whatever it is you use to get instant access to the outside world - and you find "no service".
Your world shrinks to the four walls and the open air about you.
You have no idea where the war front is; for all you know, civilization outside your immediate environment has been snuffed out, and there's no one left alive but you and your neighbours.
Imagine the relief, then, when the radio stations began broadcasting again, the night of June 2, 1942.
So, while the Golden Microphone apologizes for its own radio silence these last couple of weeks, we're happy to announce it's not because of technical blunders, shipwrecks, state funerals, or air raids. Moving - and writing a book - has interrupted our broadcast. By November 1st, we should be broadcasting faithfully once more.
Stay tuned!
Friday, October 7, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Stuff You Can't Get Away With Today - Vincent Price
Radio Program(s) Featured: The Saint. Suspense/Detective. 1940-1951. NBC, CBS. Characters created by Leslie Charteris and adapted for radio.
------
When I say Vincent Price, how many ghoulish characters do you see? Do you remember such films as The Fly, House of Wax, The Bat or The Pit and the Pendulum? Do you see him as Richelieu in The Three Musketeers, playing opposite Gene Kelly? Or the sinister husband in The House on Haunted Hill? Or the eccentric inventor in Edward Scissorhands? Do you remember him reciting poems and wearing costumes in The Hilarious House of Frankenstein (a Canadian kids' show, no less)? Do you hear that unique and eerie voice laughing at the end of Michael Jackson's Thriller?
Or do you recall his light and witty repartee with taxi drivers, sweethearts and ne'er-do-wells on Old Time Radio's classic detective show, The Saint?
Vincent Price was the actor with the longest run time as the Saint, playing the main role of Simon Templar from 1947 to 1951. The Saint was always known as a bit of a lady's man, though most of the ladies in question were a bit...well...vacuous. He also had a knack for finding the nosiest - and sometimes funniest - of all taxi drivers, but that's for another issue.
But if you listen to the end of most of the episodes of the Saint, especially the ones with Vincent Price, you'll hear him step out of character. Sometimes it was a quotation from literature about the vices of mankind and the consequences it represents. Sometimes, it was an appeal for charitable donations to CARE (which still exists today), or suggestions to buy United States Savings Bonds, or reminders to "exercise extreme care with fire while living, working or visiting in or near forest and woodland areas" ("Contract on a Saint", aired July 9, 1950).
They were Public Service Announcements. I don't know the source of the PSAs, or if they were Vincent's own idea. I do know that two in particular catch my attention - one, because of its passion and historical significance, and one because you couldn't get away with it today.
These days, Public Service Announcements are usually paid for by private or charitable organizations, and they're often prefaced by a reminder that the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the broadcaster. And it could be just my impression, but it seems today we can only talk about serious topics either through a PSA (a.k.a. a good excuse to flip stations), or through sarcasm and rhetoric (like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, or The Colbert Report).
And sometimes, TV isn't the media of choice at all. I think of George Takei's response to Clint McCance, an anti-gay, former Arkansas School Board Member. The short response, filmed for the Trevor Project, was posted directly to YouTube, where it went viral, spurred on by exposure in Facebook and countless blogs. But aside from the Trevor Project, this clip has no association with any other broadcast, not a television series, not a documentary - it stands on its own.
By contrast, in terms of The Saint (and some few other programs, like The Shadow), the message was stated boldly and simply, without any mention of who is behind the message or why it's being said. The PSA is associated with the program and with Vincent Price. In fact, I can't prove one way or the other if they're the opinions expressed by the show, the network or by Vincent Price himself.
But what caught my attention wasn't so much what was said, so much as I was taken aback by it. My own reactions gave me pause to consider the history I was listening to.
In the first of the two featured episodes below ("Author of Murder", July 30, 1950), you'll hear a passionate plea for racial and religious tolerance. I caught myself thinking that I didn't need to hear it, because I already took racial tolerance as a given. We learn about it in school, on TV, in movies, you name it.
But then I realized, in 1950, the Jim Crow Laws were still in effect in the Southern US. In 1950, "separate but equal" was a driving force for everything from law to architecture. Blacks could apply for only certain jobs in certain places; pay scales were based on a colour bar; some restaurants, schools and waiting rooms were legally off limits to Blacks; there were even separate drinking fountains for Whites and for Blacks. Some states even made distinctions between White, Black and Coloured - people of mixed races - which added another layer of complexity to the law
In fact, this episode was aired 5 years before Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat on that bus, 10 years before To Kill a Mockingbird, and 13 years before "I have a Dream."
At the time of this broadcast, racial segregation was taken seriously. These nearly 100 year old laws were staunchly upheld by legislators, religious leaders and political figures. So for Vincent Price to speak out, he wasn't just at risk of ridicule. He was at risk of making very powerful enemies.
I'm not saying that Vincent Price was a forerunner of Civil Rights, or any more important than Martin Luther King Jr., or any other spokesperson for Civil Rights. And I'm not saying that today is any less racially intolerant than yesterday, either. (If you don't believe me, talk to the wrong person about Muslims, and you'll get an earful, especially today, this the 10th anniversary of 9/11).
What I am saying is that radio programs offer the opportunity to listen to history, as it unfolded - and as it unfolds - so long as you listen to the little details (the names and accents of the bad guys, the PSAs and the commercials), and consider them in a historical context.
But there is one PSA that I don't think could be aired these days, not without the "views expressed" warning, and even then, not without some ridicule.
The PSA at the end of "Nineteen Santa Clauses" (Christmas Day, 1945) is an appeal for all people to take advantage of their freedom of worship as protected by the U.S. Constitution, and to practice their faith openly and without shame. Vincent Price advocates the integration of faith in all aspects of life.
What a change from today. These days, I can't recall the last Christmas special I watched on TV that featured a church outside of a passing, nostalgic reference. And most times, when you see political figures or fictional characters who adhere faithfully to one religion or another, they're oftentimes vilified as ignorant, racist, hypocritical, closet homosexuals or pedophiles, and/or fear-mongering terrorists.
There are at least two other reasons why I doubt you'll see a PSA like this in today's mainstream television (with the exception of a channel dedicated to all things spiritual, of course).
First, conspicuous by their absence are references to mosques and temples. Only Judaism and Christianity are mentioned in the PSA (though one could argue "religious leaders" refers to any religion). Secondly, it assumes that without faith (i.e. atheism), "the family and community become unstable", and that non-adherents are incapable of inner peace. I suspect those outside of Judaism and Christianity - or outside any faith - would have been up in arms against NBC and Vincent Price for implying that adherence to only these two religions could prevent the unraveling of family and community life.
I think his heart was in the right place, but...you couldn't get away with it today.
Say what you will about the content of the message; what I want to bring forward is that in studying old time radio, you really are delving into history - broadcast history that predates a lot of legal and civil battles that we now take for granted. And history has not always been kind or pretty, but sometimes, its actors have meant well.
Without further ado, let's step back in time and listen once more to Vincent Price as...The Saint!
-------
Radio Spotlight: The Saint, "Author of Murder". July 30, 1950.
Radio Spotlight: The Saint, "Nineteen Santa Clauses". December 25, 1949.
Bonus feature: "I have a dream." Martin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1963.
------
When I say Vincent Price, how many ghoulish characters do you see? Do you remember such films as The Fly, House of Wax, The Bat or The Pit and the Pendulum? Do you see him as Richelieu in The Three Musketeers, playing opposite Gene Kelly? Or the sinister husband in The House on Haunted Hill? Or the eccentric inventor in Edward Scissorhands? Do you remember him reciting poems and wearing costumes in The Hilarious House of Frankenstein (a Canadian kids' show, no less)? Do you hear that unique and eerie voice laughing at the end of Michael Jackson's Thriller?
Or do you recall his light and witty repartee with taxi drivers, sweethearts and ne'er-do-wells on Old Time Radio's classic detective show, The Saint?
Vincent Price was the actor with the longest run time as the Saint, playing the main role of Simon Templar from 1947 to 1951. The Saint was always known as a bit of a lady's man, though most of the ladies in question were a bit...well...vacuous. He also had a knack for finding the nosiest - and sometimes funniest - of all taxi drivers, but that's for another issue.
But if you listen to the end of most of the episodes of the Saint, especially the ones with Vincent Price, you'll hear him step out of character. Sometimes it was a quotation from literature about the vices of mankind and the consequences it represents. Sometimes, it was an appeal for charitable donations to CARE (which still exists today), or suggestions to buy United States Savings Bonds, or reminders to "exercise extreme care with fire while living, working or visiting in or near forest and woodland areas" ("Contract on a Saint", aired July 9, 1950).
They were Public Service Announcements. I don't know the source of the PSAs, or if they were Vincent's own idea. I do know that two in particular catch my attention - one, because of its passion and historical significance, and one because you couldn't get away with it today.
These days, Public Service Announcements are usually paid for by private or charitable organizations, and they're often prefaced by a reminder that the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the broadcaster. And it could be just my impression, but it seems today we can only talk about serious topics either through a PSA (a.k.a. a good excuse to flip stations), or through sarcasm and rhetoric (like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, or The Colbert Report).
And sometimes, TV isn't the media of choice at all. I think of George Takei's response to Clint McCance, an anti-gay, former Arkansas School Board Member. The short response, filmed for the Trevor Project, was posted directly to YouTube, where it went viral, spurred on by exposure in Facebook and countless blogs. But aside from the Trevor Project, this clip has no association with any other broadcast, not a television series, not a documentary - it stands on its own.
By contrast, in terms of The Saint (and some few other programs, like The Shadow), the message was stated boldly and simply, without any mention of who is behind the message or why it's being said. The PSA is associated with the program and with Vincent Price. In fact, I can't prove one way or the other if they're the opinions expressed by the show, the network or by Vincent Price himself.
But what caught my attention wasn't so much what was said, so much as I was taken aback by it. My own reactions gave me pause to consider the history I was listening to.
In the first of the two featured episodes below ("Author of Murder", July 30, 1950), you'll hear a passionate plea for racial and religious tolerance. I caught myself thinking that I didn't need to hear it, because I already took racial tolerance as a given. We learn about it in school, on TV, in movies, you name it.
But then I realized, in 1950, the Jim Crow Laws were still in effect in the Southern US. In 1950, "separate but equal" was a driving force for everything from law to architecture. Blacks could apply for only certain jobs in certain places; pay scales were based on a colour bar; some restaurants, schools and waiting rooms were legally off limits to Blacks; there were even separate drinking fountains for Whites and for Blacks. Some states even made distinctions between White, Black and Coloured - people of mixed races - which added another layer of complexity to the law
In fact, this episode was aired 5 years before Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat on that bus, 10 years before To Kill a Mockingbird, and 13 years before "I have a Dream."
At the time of this broadcast, racial segregation was taken seriously. These nearly 100 year old laws were staunchly upheld by legislators, religious leaders and political figures. So for Vincent Price to speak out, he wasn't just at risk of ridicule. He was at risk of making very powerful enemies.
I'm not saying that Vincent Price was a forerunner of Civil Rights, or any more important than Martin Luther King Jr., or any other spokesperson for Civil Rights. And I'm not saying that today is any less racially intolerant than yesterday, either. (If you don't believe me, talk to the wrong person about Muslims, and you'll get an earful, especially today, this the 10th anniversary of 9/11).
What I am saying is that radio programs offer the opportunity to listen to history, as it unfolded - and as it unfolds - so long as you listen to the little details (the names and accents of the bad guys, the PSAs and the commercials), and consider them in a historical context.
But there is one PSA that I don't think could be aired these days, not without the "views expressed" warning, and even then, not without some ridicule.
The PSA at the end of "Nineteen Santa Clauses" (Christmas Day, 1945) is an appeal for all people to take advantage of their freedom of worship as protected by the U.S. Constitution, and to practice their faith openly and without shame. Vincent Price advocates the integration of faith in all aspects of life.
What a change from today. These days, I can't recall the last Christmas special I watched on TV that featured a church outside of a passing, nostalgic reference. And most times, when you see political figures or fictional characters who adhere faithfully to one religion or another, they're oftentimes vilified as ignorant, racist, hypocritical, closet homosexuals or pedophiles, and/or fear-mongering terrorists.
There are at least two other reasons why I doubt you'll see a PSA like this in today's mainstream television (with the exception of a channel dedicated to all things spiritual, of course).
First, conspicuous by their absence are references to mosques and temples. Only Judaism and Christianity are mentioned in the PSA (though one could argue "religious leaders" refers to any religion). Secondly, it assumes that without faith (i.e. atheism), "the family and community become unstable", and that non-adherents are incapable of inner peace. I suspect those outside of Judaism and Christianity - or outside any faith - would have been up in arms against NBC and Vincent Price for implying that adherence to only these two religions could prevent the unraveling of family and community life.
I think his heart was in the right place, but...you couldn't get away with it today.
Say what you will about the content of the message; what I want to bring forward is that in studying old time radio, you really are delving into history - broadcast history that predates a lot of legal and civil battles that we now take for granted. And history has not always been kind or pretty, but sometimes, its actors have meant well.
Without further ado, let's step back in time and listen once more to Vincent Price as...The Saint!
-------
Radio Spotlight: The Saint, "Author of Murder". July 30, 1950.
Radio Spotlight: The Saint, "Nineteen Santa Clauses". December 25, 1949.
Bonus feature: "I have a dream." Martin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1963.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Radio Evolution - Richard Diamond, Private Detective
Radio program(s) featured: Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Suspense/Detective. NBC, ABC and CBS, total run time from 1949 to 1953.
For more information about the radio program, I recommend a visit to The Digital Deli Too.
----------
Richard Diamond, Private Detective aired on NBC (1949-1950) and later ABC (1951-1952), sponsored by Camel Cigarettes, and later by Rexall; later still, it moved into syndication on CBS in 1953, sponsored by Rexall.
Starring as the eponymous Richard Diamond is Dick Powell, a former song-and-dance entertainer. I love, love, love this guy's voice. It's as smooth and rich as melting chocolate ice cream. Powell's first role as hard-boiled detective was as Philip Marlowe, in Murder, My Sweet. And in almost all of few episodes of Richard Diamond I've heard so far, Powell often croons a song at the end of the program - and I don't mind it one bit!
Opposite Richard Diamond is a name you'll see come up often and likely in another post: Virginia Gregg. She plays the role of Diamond's love interest, Helen Asher. Gregg, that vixen of the airways, also played the role of Brooksie (the sweetheart of George Valentine on Let George Do It) and as Betty Lewis (on Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar).
Richard Diamond is a typical daily-fee-plus-expenses detective, ex-OSS detective. (OSS = Office of Strategic Services, a WWII intelligence office that predates the CIA).
Richard Diamond, Private Detective, actually has a double tie-in to TV. Richard Diamond's character was neatly split in two when he made the move to television - one half as the classic, smoky, dark-eyed, womanizing private eye; one half as the cool and comedic straight man.
The darker half of Richard Diamond's character appeared on TV four years after the end of the radio syndication run. Richard Diamond, Private Detective first aired on CBS in 1957, starring David Janssen (of TV's The Fugitive fame). It ended on NBC four years later, right back where the series had started from. Unlike on the radio, this Richard Diamond was a former cop, and he has both a love interest and a sexy secretary, the lucky dog.
Now here we would have had a great opportunity to compare one radio broadcast against its television counterpart. Both episodes are entitled "The Pete Rocco Case." The radio broadcast aired on October 4th, 1950. The television version was broadcast on September 9, 1957. However, sadly, every link back to the video of "The Pete Rocco Case" has come back either buggy or mislabeled (the clip labeled as "The Pete Rocco Case" is actually the third season episode "Act of Grace", which aired on October 12, 1959).
Still, what I can provide is a nice comparison between Janssen's sharp-tongued, narrow-eyed, hard-boiled TV detective, against Dick Powell's silver-tongued sarcasm. But something tells me you'd never catch Janssen crooning to a lady.
So what's the big difference between the radio and TV versions, aside from the obvious?
First of all, the medium changes the tempo and timing of the story telling. On radio, you can establish place, time and situation through dialogue or monologue, supported by sound effects and background music. The main character may say something a little like this: "Tuesday morning I found myself at the back of a greasy spoon reading the backs of my eyelids and drinking a gunpowder concoction erroneously labeled as coffee."
In a visual medium, all that can be replaced by the set of a diner, a table with half-eaten breakfast, a pot-bellied cook and some devilishly good looking private investigator yawning behind a newspaper. The difference? About five to ten seconds. That doesn't mean much, unless you have a strict budget of 25-30 minutes - a budget you need to keep right to the second, nothing over, nothing under. What time film saves needs to be made up elsewhere - silent reaction shots, footage of cars driving from A to B, establishing shots, etc.
I will say, it's a lot easier to follow a fight scene shown on TV than one heard on the radio. On TV, you don't have to worry about such awkward constructions as "(Gasp!) What are you going to do with that gun?" or "Now, I'll just hit you over the head! with this flower pot. There...that oughta keep you quiet." And seeing the guy with the white hat struggling with the guy in the black hat is a lot more entertaining than listening to two Foley guys dancing about on a sandy wooden platform. (Foley men were the sound effects artists.)
For a second thing, there's a time lag between the radio series and its televised incarnation. Tastes can change a lot in ten years. Take a more modern example: In the '80s and early '90s, Murder, She Wrote was all the rage; now, it's any one of the Law & Order or CSI series (or one of their many, many illegitimate offspring) - and even those are on the way out. I don't think a cozy-style murder mystery show would do as well in the 2000s as it did ten years before, and it certainly wouldn't do well in the hard-hitting and ultra-sexy 2010s.
Thirdly, I think it really does come down to the actor. On TV, it goes without saying: Image is everything. Compare the two pictures here: which one is more believable as a film noir style private eye?
<-- Dick Powell?
The producers of the TV version of Richard Diamond wanted to bring a certain something to the set, to satisfy a particular audience; and that excluded the chocolatey-voice Dick Powell and all his lovely songs.
So when we compare the two series against one another - the radio version with its Singing Detective and active, bubbly love interest, versus the TV version with its brooding lead man and husky secretary - I think you'd agree that there's very little in common between the two series except the title and name of the principle character.
But there's another side of Richard Diamond that the TV series of the same name doesn't express: the funny stuff - and the music, obviously. So Blake Edwards, the creator of Richard Diamond, took a new tack and revived the essence of what made Richard Diamond such a unique and entertaining character.
Among Blake Edwards' many other credits are films such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Operation Petticoat; but he'd also created another very famous TV detective - one who has all the suave wit of the original radio Richard Diamond...a fellow by the name of Peter Gunn.
Peter Gunn is another NBC night creature (later airing on ABC), contemporary with Richard Diamond, running from 1958 to 1961. Craig Stevens in the title role plays a real gone cat, a cool figure. But in the two episodes I've been able to see so far of Peter Gunn, Stevens isn't the only comedian. Even the barkeep, a pistol-packing mama from the days of Prohibition, can hold a tune and lance a one-liner from time to time.
I could go on about the differences between TV and radio, but nothing is better than letting you judge for yourself. In this case, I do have two identical stories to present to you, one from the Richard Diamond radio program, and one from Peter Gunn. Both involve a...well, I'll let you find that out for yourself. Both are funny, but for very different reasons. Pay special attention to the reactions of the main and supporting characters, and understand how the medium affects the act.
Without further ado, then, I present to you tonight's double-feature, inspired by Richard Diamond, Private Detective.
Oh - sorry, further ado forthcoming.
You may recognize some of this situational humour from another comedic suspense/mystery film series. You see, Blake Edwards created another one of the most recognizable characters in the world of crime fiction. He directed and co-wrote most of the Pink Panther films.
Henry Mancini wrote the theme songs for both The Pink Panther and Peter Gunn.
Okay, no more further ado. Enjoy the presentation.
Radio spotlight: Richard Diamond, Private Detective. "The Elaine Tanner Case" (February 12th, 1950). Listen until the end for the funny song by Dick Powell (even he starts to laugh at the sound effects).
All content courtesy of Internet Archive.
TV spotlight: Richard Diamond, Private Detective. "Act of Grace" (October 12, 1959). Item found on YouTube. Gotta love that car phone and the breathy, headless secretary (who had originally been played by Mary Tyler Moore).
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Radio spotlight: Richard Diamond, Private Detective. "Timothy the Seal", aka "To Guard a Seal." (February 5th, 1950) All content courtesy of Internet Archive. By the way, the movie Powell references at the end of the episode is "Mrs. Mike" - a movie in which Powell starred in 1949. The song he sings is the theme to the same movie.
TV spotlight: Peter Gunn. "Let's Kill Timothy". All content courtesy of Internet Archive. Aired on January 19, 1959.
For more information about the radio program, I recommend a visit to The Digital Deli Too.
----------
Richard Diamond, Private Detective aired on NBC (1949-1950) and later ABC (1951-1952), sponsored by Camel Cigarettes, and later by Rexall; later still, it moved into syndication on CBS in 1953, sponsored by Rexall.
Starring as the eponymous Richard Diamond is Dick Powell, a former song-and-dance entertainer. I love, love, love this guy's voice. It's as smooth and rich as melting chocolate ice cream. Powell's first role as hard-boiled detective was as Philip Marlowe, in Murder, My Sweet. And in almost all of few episodes of Richard Diamond I've heard so far, Powell often croons a song at the end of the program - and I don't mind it one bit!
Opposite Richard Diamond is a name you'll see come up often and likely in another post: Virginia Gregg. She plays the role of Diamond's love interest, Helen Asher. Gregg, that vixen of the airways, also played the role of Brooksie (the sweetheart of George Valentine on Let George Do It) and as Betty Lewis (on Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar).
Richard Diamond is a typical daily-fee-plus-expenses detective, ex-OSS detective. (OSS = Office of Strategic Services, a WWII intelligence office that predates the CIA).
Richard Diamond, Private Detective, actually has a double tie-in to TV. Richard Diamond's character was neatly split in two when he made the move to television - one half as the classic, smoky, dark-eyed, womanizing private eye; one half as the cool and comedic straight man.
The darker half of Richard Diamond's character appeared on TV four years after the end of the radio syndication run. Richard Diamond, Private Detective first aired on CBS in 1957, starring David Janssen (of TV's The Fugitive fame). It ended on NBC four years later, right back where the series had started from. Unlike on the radio, this Richard Diamond was a former cop, and he has both a love interest and a sexy secretary, the lucky dog.
Now here we would have had a great opportunity to compare one radio broadcast against its television counterpart. Both episodes are entitled "The Pete Rocco Case." The radio broadcast aired on October 4th, 1950. The television version was broadcast on September 9, 1957. However, sadly, every link back to the video of "The Pete Rocco Case" has come back either buggy or mislabeled (the clip labeled as "The Pete Rocco Case" is actually the third season episode "Act of Grace", which aired on October 12, 1959).
Still, what I can provide is a nice comparison between Janssen's sharp-tongued, narrow-eyed, hard-boiled TV detective, against Dick Powell's silver-tongued sarcasm. But something tells me you'd never catch Janssen crooning to a lady.
So what's the big difference between the radio and TV versions, aside from the obvious?
First of all, the medium changes the tempo and timing of the story telling. On radio, you can establish place, time and situation through dialogue or monologue, supported by sound effects and background music. The main character may say something a little like this: "Tuesday morning I found myself at the back of a greasy spoon reading the backs of my eyelids and drinking a gunpowder concoction erroneously labeled as coffee."
In a visual medium, all that can be replaced by the set of a diner, a table with half-eaten breakfast, a pot-bellied cook and some devilishly good looking private investigator yawning behind a newspaper. The difference? About five to ten seconds. That doesn't mean much, unless you have a strict budget of 25-30 minutes - a budget you need to keep right to the second, nothing over, nothing under. What time film saves needs to be made up elsewhere - silent reaction shots, footage of cars driving from A to B, establishing shots, etc.
I will say, it's a lot easier to follow a fight scene shown on TV than one heard on the radio. On TV, you don't have to worry about such awkward constructions as "(Gasp!) What are you going to do with that gun?" or "Now, I'll just hit you over the head! with this flower pot. There...that oughta keep you quiet." And seeing the guy with the white hat struggling with the guy in the black hat is a lot more entertaining than listening to two Foley guys dancing about on a sandy wooden platform. (Foley men were the sound effects artists.)
For a second thing, there's a time lag between the radio series and its televised incarnation. Tastes can change a lot in ten years. Take a more modern example: In the '80s and early '90s, Murder, She Wrote was all the rage; now, it's any one of the Law & Order or CSI series (or one of their many, many illegitimate offspring) - and even those are on the way out. I don't think a cozy-style murder mystery show would do as well in the 2000s as it did ten years before, and it certainly wouldn't do well in the hard-hitting and ultra-sexy 2010s.
Thirdly, I think it really does come down to the actor. On TV, it goes without saying: Image is everything. Compare the two pictures here: which one is more believable as a film noir style private eye?
<-- Dick Powell?
Or David Janssen? -->
The producers of the TV version of Richard Diamond wanted to bring a certain something to the set, to satisfy a particular audience; and that excluded the chocolatey-voice Dick Powell and all his lovely songs.
So when we compare the two series against one another - the radio version with its Singing Detective and active, bubbly love interest, versus the TV version with its brooding lead man and husky secretary - I think you'd agree that there's very little in common between the two series except the title and name of the principle character.
But there's another side of Richard Diamond that the TV series of the same name doesn't express: the funny stuff - and the music, obviously. So Blake Edwards, the creator of Richard Diamond, took a new tack and revived the essence of what made Richard Diamond such a unique and entertaining character.
Among Blake Edwards' many other credits are films such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Operation Petticoat; but he'd also created another very famous TV detective - one who has all the suave wit of the original radio Richard Diamond...a fellow by the name of Peter Gunn.
I could go on about the differences between TV and radio, but nothing is better than letting you judge for yourself. In this case, I do have two identical stories to present to you, one from the Richard Diamond radio program, and one from Peter Gunn. Both involve a...well, I'll let you find that out for yourself. Both are funny, but for very different reasons. Pay special attention to the reactions of the main and supporting characters, and understand how the medium affects the act.
Without further ado, then, I present to you tonight's double-feature, inspired by Richard Diamond, Private Detective.
Oh - sorry, further ado forthcoming.
You may recognize some of this situational humour from another comedic suspense/mystery film series. You see, Blake Edwards created another one of the most recognizable characters in the world of crime fiction. He directed and co-wrote most of the Pink Panther films.
Henry Mancini wrote the theme songs for both The Pink Panther and Peter Gunn.
Okay, no more further ado. Enjoy the presentation.
------------
Radio spotlight: Richard Diamond, Private Detective. "The Elaine Tanner Case" (February 12th, 1950). Listen until the end for the funny song by Dick Powell (even he starts to laugh at the sound effects).
All content courtesy of Internet Archive.
TV spotlight: Richard Diamond, Private Detective. "Act of Grace" (October 12, 1959). Item found on YouTube. Gotta love that car phone and the breathy, headless secretary (who had originally been played by Mary Tyler Moore).
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Radio spotlight: Richard Diamond, Private Detective. "Timothy the Seal", aka "To Guard a Seal." (February 5th, 1950) All content courtesy of Internet Archive. By the way, the movie Powell references at the end of the episode is "Mrs. Mike" - a movie in which Powell starred in 1949. The song he sings is the theme to the same movie.
TV spotlight: Peter Gunn. "Let's Kill Timothy". All content courtesy of Internet Archive. Aired on January 19, 1959.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Actor's Spotlight: Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Moorehead. American. Born December 6, 1900. Died April 30, 1974. Star of radio, film, stage and TV. Emmy award winner (Actress in a Supporting Role in a Drama, 1965). Golden Globe winner (Best Supporting Actress, 1944, 1964). Academy Award Nominee.
Radio program(s) featured: The Shadow, The War of the Worlds, Suspense
IMDB biography
Wikipedia biography
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Without a doubt, Agnes Moorehead is one of my all-time favourite actresses of radio and film. She was the original Margo Lane (sidekick and love interest of The Shadow). She worked alongside such greats as Orson Welles, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Vincent Price.
Most often, people remember her as Endora, She-of-the-Lofty-Eyebrows, the archetypal mother-in-law in the '60s & '70s TV sitcom Bewitched. Radiophiles may also remember her in Suspense, especially from her outstanding performance in a story entitled "Sorry, Wrong Number."
Among her many other credits, Moorehead was cast in three of Orson Welles most (in)famous productions: The War of the Worlds, The Magnificent Ambersons and Citizen Kane.
Moorehead in How the West Was Won, 1962
As Margo Lane, she had a dulcet voice. When I hear her soft and lively words, I imagine a high society woman in a tight-fitting wool skirt-suit and a broad but elaborate hat pinned at the perfect, most flirtatious angle. She had a wonderfully expressive voice. Sometimes I imagine her unable to hold a script while she acted, because she would act with her whole body, whether she had a visible audience or not.
In "Sorry, Wrong Number," she used a breathy, whiny, nasal voice. If "The Man In Black" hadn't announced her name, I would never have guessed it was her. What strikes me most about this performance is not her flawless delivery, but rather the way she stumbles, stutters and gasps - as an emotionally distraught woman might. The only reason why I don't like this episode is because I used to work on the phones in a call centre for a major telecommunications company, and the annoying call backs, the disconnects and the frantic clientele - it just strikes too close to home. It stressed me out!
Despite her lovely singing voice and softer tones, as you'll hear in the 1959 B-Movie The Bat she often adopted a reedy, tough, old-woman voice, with deep declarations of "Oh, that's ridiculous" and soaring exclamations of "Well!" And say what you will about The Bat, Moorehead is funny as heck when she wants to be, especially when playing against Lenita Lane (who plays her maid). Agnes Moorehead, playing the role of a funny murder mystery author, and it has Vincent Price in it? Come on, what more could I ask for?
(Though I want to know, in what world does a mystery author earn enough in royalties to afford a city apartment, a car, a house in the country, a maid of twenty years, a housekeeper, a butler, a cook and an upstairs maid? A famous movie/radio/TV/stage actress can maybe afford all that, but a mystery writer?)
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| Versatile, visually and vocally. (Hush...Hush, Sweet Caroline, 1964) And I don't think she believes anybody can pull in that kind of income off royalties, either! |
And yes, maybe she was prone to melodrama from time to time - but that was the style of the time, and she does it well, especially in comedy. Her expressive mannerisms - visual and vocal - have always been entertaining. Agnes Moorehead was the very essence of the leading lady in the Golden Age of Radio.
But I never liked her with pink hair...
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Radio Spotlight #1. The Shadow: "Death House Rescue." Aired September 26, 1937. This is the first full-length episode of The Shadow, and it stars both Agnes Moorehead and Orson Welles. All content courtesy of Internet Archive. For more information on The Shadow or for more episodes, please visit Internet Archive.
Radio Spotlight #2. Suspense: "Sorry, Wrong Number." First Aired May 25, 1943. All content courtesy of Internet Archive. For more Suspense, visit Internet Archive.
Movie Spotlight: The Bat. 1959. All content courtesy of Internet Archive.
v
Actor's Spotlight: Edmond O'Brien
Edmond O'Brien. American. Born September 10, 1915. Died May 9, 1985. Star of radio, film, stage and TV. Academy Award Winner (Best Supporting Actor, 1954). Radio program(s) featured: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.
IMDB biography
Wikipedia biography
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I could have started with any legendary artist of the Golden Age of Radio, but that's where everybody starts. Everybody has a story about Orson Welles or Agnes Moorehead, Frank Sinatra or Humphrey Bogart - and in days to come, I probably will too.
But why not start off learning about someone you've never heard of before, one who was a great star and familiar face - and voice - in his day.
"...Edmond O'Brien in another adventure of the man with the action-packed expense account, America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator...'Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.'"
O'Brien was the second of several actors to play the role of Johnny Dollar. He was born in NYC, and you can really hear that distinctive accent in his voice when he plays this character. Sometimes, actors reprising the role of the hard-boiled detective tend to lower their voices and stay in a narrow vocal range, but O'Brien mixes it up. To compare, Jack Webb of Dragnet fame was very much monotone (deliberately), on screen and on the radio, to the point where I just want to grab him by the lapels and shake him; but O'Brien keeps a level voice without being monotone - a voice befitting lawyers, cops and private detectives as portrayed in the 30s, 40s and 50s.
But on the downside, I find that his gruff accent isn't enough to distinguish his voice from others on the radio; in fact, in his efforts to be hard-boiled, he sounds villainous. There are no visual queues that help the audience distinguish one character from the other; voice, word choice and diction are the only three clues to who is speaking, so sometimes it's hard to tell who's winning, the good guy with the tough accent or the bad guy with the criminal drawl.
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| He can also play the part of a mouth breather, as he did in Julius Caesar (1953). |
But regardless, O'Brien was a consummate actor, as you can see in the two biographies posted above. As you'll see in the video below, acting as a young lawyer O'Brien has a nice, understated, nuanced style, with subtle facial expressions and posture that compliment his otherwise level voice. This is captured very nicely between 13:05-15:44 and again 1:16:18-1:16:46. Now, if you were to listen to 13:05-15:44 without looking at the screen, you might not actually hear the difference between one subtle emotion and the next; but when you watch him, you can see the caliber of his performance. I love his versatility in terms of voice and accent, too. When I compare the character of Johnny Dollar against the character of David Douglas, I can hardly imagine the voice is coming from the same man.
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| 1984 (1956 - confusing, I know, but that's the title of the movie, 1984) |
So in my humble opinion, I like O'Brien's work better in a visual medium than on the radio, but I still very much enjoy his style.
Radio spotlight: Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. "The Byron Hayes Matter." Aired March 24, 1951. This episode has lapsed into the public domain. All content Courtesy of Internet Archive. For more information, or to listen to more episodes of Johnny Dollar, visit Internet Archive.
Movie spotlight: An Act of Murder (1948). This movie has lapsed into the public domain. I especially enjoyed this movie; even though it's a bit of a courtroom drama, I loved the story. All content Courtesy of Internet Archive.
Theatre of the Mind
Early in high school, I went to the public library to borrow some LPs of popular music. And no, I'm not that old. It just so happens the library was old and outdated, not me. I swear.
Anyhow, quite by accident, I found an LP with this strange looking face glaring back at me - a face cast half in nightmarish shadows. I took the album home with me, along with an LP of The Nylons and one of Mike & the Mechanics. (There, that should date me!)
I dropped the LP onto the turntable and began to play it. At first, all I heard was the rhythmic crackle and pop of dust under the needle. Then, mysterious organ music played, and a strange, weaselly-sounding man began to laugh.
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Derisive laughter rose in crescendo. The voice sounded distant, muffled. "The Shadow knows..." Music and laughter intertwined, filling the kaiser-bun sized headphones with suspense and excitement.
For the next twenty-eight minutes I sat listening with my mouth open in a fascinated smile. I'd discovered something amazing! Almost no one I talked to seemed to know what a "radio play" was - not my high school friends, nor teachers, nor random strangers startled at my approach. The radio play then became something that was utterly special to me. The radio play became my discovery. My art.
I listened to two episodes on that LP - one episode per side. The first, I'll never forget, was entitled "The Firebug." The second episode...I forget. But I played the LP over and over again. And because it was due back eventually at the library, I made a copy onto cassette. Then I proceeded to play the cassette over and over again until the tape nearly snapped.
But what fascinated me wasn't just the acting or the plot or the sound effects, nor even the spooky atmosphere of the fireplace-crackling LP.
It was the information on the back of the album. It was a piece of the history of The Shadow and its most famous of actors: Orson Welles. At the time, Welles had been a very young man (and skinny), but he'd been a relative unknown. In fact, they never mentioned Orson's name in connection with The Shadow until after another great radio drama hit the air: The War of the Worlds - though that's a story for another day.
What interested me about this story was about how Orson Welles could move about in complete anonymity, because at the time, no one knew what he looked like; however, because of the extraordinary fame of The Shadow, his identity would be known the moment he spoke.
People really believed there was a Shadow, who walked into the studio and dramatized some case in order to remind the guilty that "Crime does not pay!" Some people honestly believed there was a crime-fighter who had the power to control men's minds.
So imagine for a moment: What if (because all good story ideas come from "What if") - What if a man who has a such a recognizable and feared voice should suddenly make his presence known in the middle of a bank robbery? Or a jewel heist? Or a hostage-taking?
What would happen if Orson Welles, known only by his voice and his crime-fighting fame, should speak to wary criminals through a hidden intercom?
The Golden Age of Radio still provides its listeners a thrill of the imagination, and that's the spirit I want to bring to this blog: a sense of fun, excitement and intrigue - not only in the sense of the content of these old broadcasts, but also to recall the impact radio had on its listeners.
And in case you'd like to suggest a topic or an artist, drop us a line at theatreofthemind at live.ca (address deliberately broken up to avoid all that pesky spam). The voice behind the Golden Microphone wants to hear from you!
So, welcome to the new Sanctum of the Golden Age of Radio: The Theatre of the Mind.
"Our story begins on a pleasant summer afternoon..."
Anyhow, quite by accident, I found an LP with this strange looking face glaring back at me - a face cast half in nightmarish shadows. I took the album home with me, along with an LP of The Nylons and one of Mike & the Mechanics. (There, that should date me!)
I dropped the LP onto the turntable and began to play it. At first, all I heard was the rhythmic crackle and pop of dust under the needle. Then, mysterious organ music played, and a strange, weaselly-sounding man began to laugh.
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Derisive laughter rose in crescendo. The voice sounded distant, muffled. "The Shadow knows..." Music and laughter intertwined, filling the kaiser-bun sized headphones with suspense and excitement.
For the next twenty-eight minutes I sat listening with my mouth open in a fascinated smile. I'd discovered something amazing! Almost no one I talked to seemed to know what a "radio play" was - not my high school friends, nor teachers, nor random strangers startled at my approach. The radio play then became something that was utterly special to me. The radio play became my discovery. My art.
I listened to two episodes on that LP - one episode per side. The first, I'll never forget, was entitled "The Firebug." The second episode...I forget. But I played the LP over and over again. And because it was due back eventually at the library, I made a copy onto cassette. Then I proceeded to play the cassette over and over again until the tape nearly snapped.
But what fascinated me wasn't just the acting or the plot or the sound effects, nor even the spooky atmosphere of the fireplace-crackling LP.
It was the information on the back of the album. It was a piece of the history of The Shadow and its most famous of actors: Orson Welles. At the time, Welles had been a very young man (and skinny), but he'd been a relative unknown. In fact, they never mentioned Orson's name in connection with The Shadow until after another great radio drama hit the air: The War of the Worlds - though that's a story for another day.
What interested me about this story was about how Orson Welles could move about in complete anonymity, because at the time, no one knew what he looked like; however, because of the extraordinary fame of The Shadow, his identity would be known the moment he spoke.
People really believed there was a Shadow, who walked into the studio and dramatized some case in order to remind the guilty that "Crime does not pay!" Some people honestly believed there was a crime-fighter who had the power to control men's minds.
So imagine for a moment: What if (because all good story ideas come from "What if") - What if a man who has a such a recognizable and feared voice should suddenly make his presence known in the middle of a bank robbery? Or a jewel heist? Or a hostage-taking?
What would happen if Orson Welles, known only by his voice and his crime-fighting fame, should speak to wary criminals through a hidden intercom?
The Golden Age of Radio still provides its listeners a thrill of the imagination, and that's the spirit I want to bring to this blog: a sense of fun, excitement and intrigue - not only in the sense of the content of these old broadcasts, but also to recall the impact radio had on its listeners.
And in case you'd like to suggest a topic or an artist, drop us a line at theatreofthemind at live.ca (address deliberately broken up to avoid all that pesky spam). The voice behind the Golden Microphone wants to hear from you!
So, welcome to the new Sanctum of the Golden Age of Radio: The Theatre of the Mind.
"Our story begins on a pleasant summer afternoon..."
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