December 5, 2024 • 41 mins
This episode celebrates the rich and colorful world of Golden Age radio. During this period networks were formed, stars were established, and iconic shows from The Shadow to Abie's Irish Rose, were created. This episode showcases genres like the sitcom and the thriller, and includes some of the most significant of works by Brown’s contemporaries including Norman Corwin, Lucille Fletcher, Arch Obler, and Orson Welles, including Sorry, Wrong Number, On a Note of Triumph and War of the Worlds.
Credits
- Executive Producers: Melina Brown, Sarah Montague
- Executive Director, CUNY TV: Chiqui Cartagena
- Director of Production, CUNY TV: Susan Iger
- Producer/Director: Sarah Montague
- Narrator: Margot Avery
- Concept and Script: Sarah Montague
- Associate Producer: Corinne Wallace
- Audio Production intern: Lucia Funaro
- Audio Engineer, CUNY TV: Lisa Gosselin
- Senior Audio Engineer, CUNY TV: Richard Kim
- Mixing: Lisa Gosselin
- Sound design and final mixing: John DeLore and Bart Warshaw
- Staff photographer, CUNY TV: Laura Fuchs
- Script editor: Allison Behringer
- Script reviewer: Zach Sansted
- Composer: Allison Leyton-Brown
- Archivists, CUNY TV: David Rice, Catriona Schlosser
- Branding and Graphic Design: Shae McMullin
- Publicity & Marketing: Multitude
- Audio Maverick was produced at THE HIMAN BROWN TV AND RADIO STUDIOS at CUNY TV, and made possible by the Radio Drama Network
About Us
The history of radio crackles to life with Audio Maverick, a 9-part documentary about one of the most visionary figures in radio, Himan Brown. Explore the Golden Age of radio through Brown's life, as we travel from the birth of audio drama to the programs that brought millions of families into their living rooms every night.
CUNY TV and the Himan Brown Archive assemble the story of how radio became an entertainment medium through archival audio of some of the most famous audio dramas, contemporary interviews with media scholars, and discussions with a new generation of audio mavericks that he inspired. New episodes monthly.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
>> You must be.
>> Tough wheat and puffed rice.
>> The adventures of Nero Wolfe.
Fred Allen. A Life of Writing.
>> You're hearing the soundof the Golden Age of Radio,
a sampler of some of the 12,000programs created for broadcast
between 1925 and 1976.
>> Thank you.>> This is Audio Maverick,
(00:24):
a celebration of the life andwork of radio great Himan Brown.
In our last episode,we followed Himan Brown.
From the start of his careerin entertainment radio.
>> I presented myselfas an actor.
Wouldn't they liketo have me read some poetry.
>> To his early successesas a producer and director?
>> I engage you,
(00:45):
I identify you, your imaginationwith all that's going on.
Otherwise, what isthe spoken word?
What is radio?You have to do that.
>> In this episode,
we learn about the largercreative world Brown
helped to shapeand that helped shape him.
In fact, this remarkableera came to a close just
as Brown launched his secondcareer with CBS Mystery Theater.
(01:09):
So the end of one era seguedinto the beginning of another.
I'm Margot Avery. Stay tuned.>> Oh, I won't stop coming.
>> In this episode,
we're going to zoom out our lens
so we can see the full landscapeof Brown's early career,
(01:31):
and so that you can feeland imagine and hear the world
of entertainment radioat its height.
It teamedwith creative geniuses,
prolific producers and genredefining programs.
This would soon catapultthe industry
to new creative heightsand Brown along with it.
(01:52):
We get the idea ofthe Golden age from the Greeks.
Apparently it referred tosome mythic time
when everyone lived happilywithout ever having to work.
Our broadcast Golden Age wasa very different story.
What made it goldenwas hard work and imagination
and an audience hungryfor content.
>> Again, the strainsof Manhattan Serenade
(02:13):
introduced the story of Mr. Aceand his wife, Jane.
>> So who wasHiman Brown sharing the airwaves
with dozens ofprolific producers like himself
and a few geniuses.
These contemporaries helpeddefine a new sonic culture,
and they explored some of thegenres in which he flourished.
(02:35):
During its first 20 years,
broadcast was a kind ofstone soup,
to which was added colorfulcharacters, absurd plots,
thrilling adventures, and weeklyservings of love and marriage,
among other ingredients.Who were the cooks?
As Brown'searly career demonstrates,
there was no art for art's sakein this period.
(02:56):
Advertising agencies werethe primary content producers,
and they assembled teamsof creatives
charged with linking contentto products.
People in advertising had been.
>> Quote, dramatizing a barof soap for decades,
which is when they wroteprint advertising,
they were often usingall sorts of strategies
of emotional appeal and drama.>> That's Cynthia myers,
(03:18):
who chronicles the link betweenadvertising companies and
programming in her book A WordFrom Our Sponsor,
she tells usthat the bigger agencies created
whole production teams.
>> They hired peopleto join their radio department
from all sorts ofdifferent backgrounds.
Some of themwere novelists or journalists,
some of themwere theatrical producers,
(03:39):
some of themwere musicians and composers.
And all those peoplethen were brought
in to kind of collaborateon these programs.
>> Take, for example,
Irwin Shaw,later a best selling novelist.
But at this period a classmateof Brown's
who had a turnfor comic vignettes,
so Brown hired him to write forthe serial comedy The Gump's.
(04:01):
Myers points out that the talentwas mostly uncredited because
the agencies wanted the public'sattention on the product.
>> So to give specificattribution to a specific author
was kind of beside the point
it was to take awayfrom the purpose of the program,
which was to sell soapor to sell cheese.
(04:22):
>> Nevertheless, even if theywere selling soap or cheese,
this group of journalists,novelists and playwrights
were still able to bringtheir inventiveness and charm
to the table and to the ear.
>> There was this thingin your house
and you heard people singing.You heard people talking.
People just couldn't wraptheir heads around
(04:43):
how and why that could be.
And so the word miraclewas used over and over.
>> That's Susan Douglas,
she's the author of Listeningin Radio
and the American imagination.
>> There were peoplewho wanted to know
where the littletiny people were inside the box,
who were making the musicand the voices.
(05:05):
>> Who were they?
They were the writersand directors and actors
and sound effects techniciansand engineers.
They weren't, of course,inside the box,
but they were stillexperimenting with the form.
>> During the heyday of radio.
Every genre came to relyon certain formulas.
>> That's broadcast historianLeonard Maltin.
(05:25):
>> And the, uh, the clevererwriters or writer producers
who fought thatand tried to find ways
to freshen the routine.
Others foundthat their their audience,
whether it would be housewiveson the soap operas or kids
listening to daily adventureshows like Jack Armstrong,
(05:45):
the All-American boy or a LittleOrphan Annie or a Superman,
The Adventures of Superman,you know,
found that people werecomfortable with formula.
>> One of the other signsof radio's development,
aside from more programmingand more money,
was the awarenessof the audience.
While there wasimplicit acknowledgement
(06:06):
that people were listening,
the audience became importantto agencies as soon
as they were also identifiedas consumers.
>> You know, there wasenormous interest in the 1930s
in what America was,who was in it.
>> That's Susan Douglas again.
In Listening In,she also explores the synergy
(06:26):
between audiences andprogrammers.
Understandingwho was listening shaped choices
about what they heard.
>> And, you know, some of thisis the result of there had been,
you know,serial waves of immigration.
And then there wasthe Great Depression,
which was catastrophic
(06:47):
and trying to figureout Who was still rich?
Who was still comfortable?Who was starving?
Where were people?
>> So the industry was gropingto define a society
that couldn't really defineitself.
>> And so radio performedkind of a dual
and seemingly contradictoryfunction.
On the one hand,
(07:07):
it did help cultivatea sense of a national culture.
When you had a hit show,
what these conveyed, suggested,
enforcedis that despite everything,
because 40 million peoplewould be listening
at the exact same timeto the exact same show,
(07:28):
and sharing in that culture thatthere was a national culture.
At the same time,
there were also local showsthat could convey local culture.
>> In 1970, four years after theGolden Age had come and gone,
Garrison Keillor launcheda long running radio show
(07:49):
called Prairie Home Companion.
It was an homage tovariety shows of the Golden Age,
and it reached a nationalaudience with folksy humor,
fake commercials,and musical entertainment.
>> Well, look who'scoming through that door.
(08:11):
I think we met somewhere before.
Hello, love. Are you.Hello, love.
>> But at either the localor the national level,
radio audiences were alsoindividuals,
and their hopes and dreamsand expectations
of what came out of the Magicbox varied accordingly.
(08:31):
If they were out of jobs,they needed to escape.
If they were homemakers,they needed to be diverted,
if they were partof the daily grind.
They wanted to identifywith others
like themselves and radio'screators,
even though they werein the service of commerce.
Invented characters andstorylines
that reflected very realconcerns about becoming American
(08:53):
without losing your past.
>> There was a lotof ethnic humor on radio
which drew from vaudeville.
Vaudeville was repletewith ethnic humor,
Irish humor, Jewish and Yiddishhumor, humor about Italians,
um, humor about Greeks,you know,
humor that drewfrom the immigrant experience.
(09:14):
>> I do ethnic Tanya,so very, very happy.
But of course,in my family you are so sweet.
You make me want to cry.
>> About the gaps betweenthe wealthy and the poor.
>> I asked you notto wear those earrings
and that cheap imitationnecklace.
You took them off your greed.
And after we got there, youcame out of the dressing room.
(09:34):
>> Oh, Steven,
I'm perfectly willingto let you tell me how to act,
but please don't give mepointers on how to dress about.
>> Love and marriage and family.
>> Can't you honestly tellwhat I'm driving at.
>> I haven't the vaguest idea.And forget it.
I'm not going to buya television set.
>> And the resultof this confluence
(09:55):
of product and programming
was somethingfor every taste and demographic.
The shows were complete,self enclosed worlds,
and while they wereoften defined by genre,
the really successful onescombined formula with something
that moved outside the box.
>> That concept wouldbe untied by Murphy and Levy.
(10:15):
>> All the ethnic comediesmentioned by Douglas
included Abe's Irish Rose.
Ann Nichols adapted hersuccessful stage play
about the marriage between a Jewand a Catholic,
and the family tensionsthat followed.
What do you.>> Mean by that great.
>> Sense, I hope,without checking.
I didn't mean anything,but I do miss them.
(10:36):
>> My favorite craving adventuretune in The Lone Ranger.
The stock market crash drovecreator George W trundle
into radio, and he turned to oneof America's enduring myths,
the Wild West,to create the Ranger.
John Reid is faithfulIndian companion Tonto
and his fiery steedover this heroic trio
(11:02):
foiled bad guysin the canyons of Texas
to the tuneof the William Tell Overture.
A bit over the top, yes,
but it was a great example of
how radio invited mash upsof story and sound,
and how their creators managedto hook audiences week
after week,
(11:22):
and radio went to the dogsfor stories
that combine courage andsentiment.
Lassie, based on a popular movieabout a collie,
Lassie Come Home,and Rin Tin Tin,
based on an actual dog rescuedby a World War one soldier,
represented gallant canines.
>> The Lassie show.
(11:44):
>> By far the leading genre wasthe situation comedy,
many of them situatedin the home lives,
marriages and familiesof their characters.
>> The Columbia BroadcastingSystem presents a new.
>> Comedy, My.
>> Friend.>> Irma.
>> Each sitcom was packagedalmost identically
a lush orchestral introduction,a sponsor message,
(12:07):
and a hand off to the show.
And that week'ssituation will be hot.
>> My friend Irma.
>> In every sort of professionwas celebrated lawyers,
doctors, newspapermen,handymen, even photographers,
to name just a few.
And teachers around the countrybecame devoted fans
(12:28):
of our Miss Brooks,starring Eve Arden,
who played a teacherwho was actually nice.
>> Although one dayin the life of a.
>> Schoolteacher is prettymuch the same as the next.
At night you wish you were dead?
Not that I'm bored.
>> People were findingthemselves in this programming,
but they were also escapingtheir
(12:50):
sometimes dreary day to daylives.
In radio,Americans could hear themselves,
and it allowed them to laugh attheir own circumstances,
weep when a belovedcharacter was in trouble,
and rejoicein hard earned happy endings.
Most of these shows were weekly,employing dozens of writers,
so of coursethere were formulas,
(13:12):
but the best works morphedinto independent creations
that seemed almost alive.
Not to mention the factthat they were actually live,
which contributedto their appealing spontaneity.
>> Why did Davis andWilliam Powell
have just entered the stagefrom All right?
The audience burstinto applause.
They acknowledged the greeting.
Take their placesat the microphones,
(13:32):
and the play begins.
>> Audiences like to eavesdropon the people next door,
but were also fascinatedby the remote
and glamorous popular literature
inspired shows featuring spiesand sleuths like Sherlock Holmes
and the Saint
and the investigative lawyerPerry Mason,
one of the Golden Age characters
(13:52):
who enduredinto broadcast television a.
>> Restriction to the weight
that should be givenMr. Carlos testimony.
Oh, come now,Mason, she has laryngitis.
I'm not talking abouther health, mister.
I'm certain she's as healthyas a horse.
What? Yes.
What are you getting at,then, Mr. Mason?
Well, I think the juryshould be informed
that Mr. Calo is alsoa murder suspect.
(14:13):
That was that.I'm sure you heard me, Mr. Rat.
I said a murder suspect.
>> Indeed.There was crime galore.
Some shows were drawnfrom the lurid pulp magazines
that had delivered ridersto radio studios.
Heroic policemen and hardboileddetectives solved crimes
and roughed up miscreantswith plenty of sound effects.
(14:33):
Hold it right.
>> There.What are you doing here?
Police officers,you're under arrest.
>> I'm not going to tell youhow it's done,
because Himan Brownis going to share all the tricks
of the trade in episode six.>> It won't be.
>> No tough guys,thugs or malls for you.
(14:53):
Want something classier?
>> Born of a well-to-do familyand a college man,
he tried from childhoodto live up to the name he bore.
Chameleon.
>> There were also showsthat mingle the upper crust
on the lower orders,like Mr. Chameleon.
>> Appearing in endless guises.
>> They were influencedby detective novels featuring
aristocratic sleuthslike Dorothy Sayers,
(15:14):
Lord Peter Wimsey and SSVan Dynes.
Philo Vance,who earned his own show.
>> Abbey Lane.>> On a Night Like This.
Vance.No Washington assignment for me.
No ridiculous detecting for you,I love it.
(15:35):
>> And of course, The Shadow,the show my mother starred in.
It was adapted from a seriesof pulp novels written
by Walter Gibson.
In the storyline,
wealthy Playboy Lamont Cranstonhas traveled
to the mysterious East.
Old time radio was filled withcringe making tropes like this.
There, he encounters a mysticwho teaches him.
(15:56):
>> The hypnotic power to cloud.
>> Men's minds.
>> So they cannot see him.
>> This is useful if you decideto set up as a crime fighter.
The shadow reveals himself tolowlifes with a menacing laugh.
>> Who know.
>> What evil lurksin the hearts of men.
The shadow knows.
(16:20):
>> The show had a numberof false starts
with different actors,
but established itselfwith the casting of Orson Welles
as the main character, Cranston,
and his mindpenetrating alter ego.
My mother's role.
Have I made mention of thisbefore
was the lovely Margo Lane,
the attractive confidanteof the Playboy.
Those are the.>> Three men you tell me.
(16:40):
>> About. Yes, Margo.
They look like gangsters,all right.
They aren't usuallymortal enemies.
But tonight it looks very muchas if they're banding together.
I wonder why.Because they're afraid of me.
>> Of you?
Then why do you come hereand expose?
>> They're only afraid of meas the shadow.
I do not know Lamont Cranston.>> Who are they?
>> Ma'am knew Welles already.
They both toured withthe successful production
of The Barrettsof Wimpole Street.
(17:02):
They were buddies.They were friends.
She thought highly of him
and also sort of giggled at hima lot
because she thoughthe was very full of himself.
But mom wasn'tthe first Margo Lane,
although the characterwas named for her.
In an unusual exampleof reverse nepotism,
her boyfriend at the timewas one of the producers.
So rather than appearing biased,he cast Agnes Moorehead.
(17:24):
How do you.
>> Know his customers arebootlegs?
>> And we saw coming out ofSantini shop
as we came in oneSantino denied scene.
>> He's an absolutely darling.What a memory.
>> Veritable storehouseof vital statistics.
>> Craft Music Hall,
starring Bing Crosby withJimmy Dorsey and his orchestra,
the Paul Taylor Choristers.
(17:44):
And tonight, back from his twoweeks fishing trip, Bob Byrne.
And here's Bing Crosby.
Just when romance got a start,you decided it was time to pass.
How could you?
How could you?
(18:05):
>> In addition to plotor situation based
shows with characters created byand for radio,
there were also variety showsdrawn from the real world
of entertainment.
Leading stars,usually crooners or comics,
would strut their stuffand banter
with guests who would in turnstrut their stuff.
Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatrahad shows,
(18:27):
but the most successful wasJack Benny,
a comic who completelyembraced the form.
>> Hey, close that door!
>> Don't worry. We will.Uh, what are you doing?
Jack?>> What am I doing?
What's this I got under my chin?
>> Another chin?>> I mean, under both of them.
(18:48):
I'm practicing the b.
Say, I thought you saidyou could play the B
when you were a kid.
Well, I could,
but a lot of honey hasgone over the dam since then.
>> There were also dramas
that promised an entree into theglamorous world of the theater,
like the First Nighter Program.
This was in the midstof the depression,
a time when few listeners couldafford real Broadway shows.
(19:09):
So The First Nighter createdFaux Productions and listeners
got a front row seat.
>> Good evening, Mr. Snyder.
The ushers will show youto your seats.
Thank you. We'll go right.>> Here.
And, of course,
the theater was alsoa great setting
for an engrossing afternoonserial.
>> All right,ladies and gentlemen,
they're all comfortably seated,and we just have time
to look at the theater program.
>> Laura Noble wasthe backstage wife,
(19:32):
an ordinary girl from Iowa,
meaning the stickswho marries a matinee idol.
For 23 years,she coped with dilemmas,
from her handsome husband'sroving eye
to temperamental starsto unreliable investors.
>> Hello, Mary. Busy?
>> Never too busyto talk to you, Peter.
>> The show was oneof the earliest developed
by Himan Brown's longtimeclients and collaborators,
(19:55):
Frank and Anne Humbert.
>> Oh,what's your trouble today?
You certainly look as ifyou had the weight of the world
on your shoulders.
>> I might returnthe compliment, Mary.
>> In spite of your sunny smileand cheerful manner,
I'm afraid you're doing a bitof an Atlas stunt yourself.
Why do I sit on the desk?
>> Of course not.That's what desks are made for.
Oh, excuse me a minute.
>> Oh, go right ahead.My lovely.
(20:15):
>> Hello? Yes, speaking.
Oh, no, Mr. Wentworth,I'm sorry.
I've nothing to say.
No, I don't careto make a statement
for your Broadway gossip columnor anyone else's.
>> Brown was justly proudof early projects
like the romantic serialMary the Little French Princess,
(20:36):
and of strip cartoonsbrought to life like Dick Tracy,
as well as later adaptationsof crime series
like Bulldog Drummondand The Thin Man.
But he also contributed oneof the first soaps
about a professional woman,Joyce Jordan.
>> And now we're pleasedto present a new series,
Joyce Jordan Girl.In turn,
(20:56):
the stirring modern storyof a beautiful girl on her own
in a man's world,
a story that takes youbehind grim hospital walls.
>> We'll hear more about Jordanin our next episode.
As we've heard, radio shows werecreated from multiple sources,
including vaudeville,
(21:16):
a form of theatrical varietyshow that originated in France
in the 19th century.
Many successfulAmerican entertainers got
their start in vaudeville.
Among them the stars of one ofthe most problematic successes
of the Golden Age.Amos and Andy.
>> Show a full half hourof entertainment
with all the Amos and Andycharacters.
>> This popular comedy wasradio in blackface.
(21:40):
It was the creationof Charles J.
Carroll and Freeman F Gosden,
white working class men who,like many others,
made the leap into show businessas a vaudeville act,
which they then translatedto radio.
Amos and Andy
with a goofy, feckless owners ofa down on its luck cab company.
But early shows also offeredthinly disguised
(22:01):
political satire,
with an irreverent wit
that surely contributedto the show's wide following.
It's hard to wrap our mindsaround this racist concept
and its many embeddedassumptions,
but it was, regrettably,
among the most popular showsin broadcast at a time
when few people of color
had a significant presencein the industry.
(22:22):
Today, we find racial and ethnicstereotyping abhorrent.
It was, of course, the productof the society at large,
not the medium itself.
>> Does Dominique intrigue you,Monsieur Cobb?
Oh, it's it's magnificent.
>> I can hardly waitto paint it.
>> Ah, I did not knowyou were an artist.
>> I haven't had a chanceto tell you.
(22:44):
I've covered mostof the Caribbean, but where.
>> Radio took amore forgivable shortcut was
in the characters heardin genre programs.
>> The first man they look forin the last they want to meet.
>> There was a kind of sonicshorthand for many of them.
>> It's a chancy job,and I make some man watchful.
>> Seductress society dames,policemen,
(23:04):
hapless victims of deception
populated manyGolden Age staples,
and many of themwere voiced by the same actors.
Your career in radiowas guaranteed
if you could pivotfrom a deep dyed villain
to a concerned husband,from a housewife to a harridan.
So hundreds of programs,
thousands of plotsdelivering comedy, drama,
(23:27):
suspense and merchandiseentertaining, engaging,
imaginative and seaworthy.
We'd still be calling itthe Golden Age,
even if that's all they wrote.
But as muchas the extended radio family,
from advertisers to writersto performers,
came to appreciate radioas a tool for selling
(23:47):
as a dependable livelihood,
perhaps no one anticipatedthe inviting fluidity,
the artistic nuanceof the form itself
from a vehiclefor commerce radio was becoming,
in this prolific period,a true artistic medium.
So eventually it beganto produce true artists,
(24:09):
shaping both a more nuanced
and bolder sideof the Golden Age legacy.
Arch, Nobler and LucilleFletcher created
and wrote for thegrowing suspense genre.
Norman Corwin wasa gifted fantasy writer
who made CBS into hisown personal fairytale kingdom,
and Archibald MacLeishand Orson Welles
(24:31):
created masterpieceswith narratives
that reflected on human destinyjust
as it was being reshapedin the real world.
>> And now,if you haven't already done so,
turn off your lights now.
>> Arch oblique wasalmost a man out of his time,
an experimental playwrightin an era of formulaic work.
(24:53):
As a network producer,
he inherited an alreadyestablished thriller series
called Lights Out.
It was a horror show thatinvited the listener to submit
to its brand of creepiness.
>> It is later than you think.
(25:15):
>> Blair made the show his own,
and when his cautionarybillboard is.
>> Heard, Lights.
>> Out brings you storiesof the.
>> Supernaturaland the supernormal.
>> It sets the stage for plays
that posed questionsof morality.
Here's a scene from revoltof the worms,
in which a self-centeredscientist has retreated
from the war effortto grow the perfect rose.
(25:38):
>> All I can do is sit.
>> And think and wait.
Wait for the floors to liftand the walls to crash.
Facts, I think, are facts.Yes, a journal of facts.
Think how it began.
Why it's happening.Journal of facts.
Until a walls crashin the mythic flesh.
(26:00):
>> Notice anything thatqueasy making slithery sound.
That head voice filledwith too late regrets.
You're doubtless listening tothis program in stereo,
in your earbuds,on your computer,
but most early radio dramawas produced in mono,
so these seemingly sound rich.
Shows were adroit manipulations,
(26:21):
not of technologybut of our own psyches.
Obama's genius waseventually rewarded.
He got his own radiodrama series,
Arch Obama's radio Plays at CBS,
the most creatively venturesomeof the networks.
His output there included thefirst airing of Dalton Trumbo,
(26:41):
celebrated Johnny, Get Your Gun.
>> We tell You of Joe Bonham22 years ago.
He went to war.
They carried him backfrom that war.
They carried him backbecause he had no arms, no legs,
no ears with which to hear,no eyes with which to see,
(27:02):
no mouth with which to speak.
>> Some of the most famousmoments of early broadcast radio
came from the typewriterof Lucille Fletcher,
a Vassar graduatewho got in on the ground floor
at CBS as a publicity writer.
clerk, and music librarian.
This latter role mayhave put her in the way
of composer Bernard Herrmann,whom she later married.
(27:23):
Herrmann was creating scoresfor CBS ambitious array
of dramas showcasedas the Columbia Workshop.
He went on to score severalof Fletcher's works,
including The Hitchhiker,starring Orson Welles,
which aired in 1941.
>> Sometimes you wantyour heart to be warmed,
and sometimes you wantyour spine to tingle.
(27:45):
The tingling is to be hoped,
will be quite audibleas you listen tonight.
The hitchhiker.That's the name of our story.
The hitchhiker.
>> Fletcher'sbrilliant audio play,
which she later adapted asan episode of The Twilight Zone,
is both a road tripand an existential tone poem.
(28:08):
>> I'm in an auto campon route 66,
just west of Gallup, New Mexico.>> Herrmann would go on to fame
for his scorefor Hitchcock's Psycho.
>> Keep me from going.>> Going crazy.
>> Fletcher had hergreatest success with an actor.
Himan Brown was proud tohave discovered Agnes Moorehead.
He cast her as Min Gump
(28:29):
when he acquired thesuccessful sitcom The Gump's.
But Fletcher'sriveting drama sorry,
Wrong Number showed her range.Moorhead's character,
the fretful invalidMrs. Albert Stevenson,
is trying to reachher husband's office,
but a crossed phone line allowsher to overhear
plans for a murder.
>> Your call please.
(28:50):
Operator I've been dialingMurray Hill 70939.
>> When she attemptsto report it to the police,
she's written off as a crackpot.
But it's soon revealedthat not only is the plot real,
but she herselfis the intended victim.
>> It makes a noise in casea window is open
and she should scream.
Oh, hello, what.
>> Number is this, please?
>> She's trappedand time is running out.
(29:12):
It's one of the things thatradio artists were discovering
that time and spacecould be manipulated
and pull us into the.
>> Story as.
>> Little blood as possible,
because our client doesnot wish to make us suffer long.
>> That's right.You'll use a knife.
>> Mrs. Stevenson is a petulant,high handed narcissist.
(29:33):
Fletcher says she was basedon a haughty woman
in a supermarket checkout line.
And yet our whole beingis pulled towards her
in this brilliant miniature.
Don't worry.Everything's okay. Radio.
That medium of vibrationshas us vibrating in our seats.
And Fletcher wasa brilliant conductor.
>> 70093 he is busy.I will call you an operator.
(29:57):
Operator. Operator.
>> Another great radioconductor was Norman Corwin.
Like Himan Brown,he got his start in radio,
reading poetry, in his caseon the Long Island station WQXR.
He went on to become themost celebrated audio dramatist
of the Golden Age, often calledthe form's Poet Laureate.
(30:19):
He created dozens of joyfuland inventive works.
>> Is this the Departmentof Lost Dogs?
Yeah, I'm looking for my.
>> In the Odysseyof Runyon Jones,
a favorite of Corwin'slegion of fans.
A boy loses his dog,puts in a traffic accident,
and insists that he deservesanother chance at life.
He makes his caseto afterlife bureaucrats,
(30:41):
various cranky gods,and even Father Time.
>> When did you lose him?Yesterday morning.
Where? Right outside my.>> House.
Runyon Jones is a deliciouscombination of satire and fable.
What happened?
>> The car ran over him,and then he was killed, sir.
And you're on the wrong floor.
>> This is the Departmentof Lost Dogs.
>> What you.
(31:02):
>> Want is the.>> Department of deceased dogs.
Where is that, sir?Two flights up here.
>> Take the slip.
>> And hand it to the manat the desk.
>> Corwin's plays are stillproduced all over the country.
His admirers included classicfantasy writer Ray Bradbury,
oral historian Studs Terkel,screenwriter and producer
Norman Lear,and newscaster Charles Kuralt.
(31:22):
It was Kuralt who introducedNational Public Radio's
repeat broadcast of one ofCorwin's most celebrated works,
On a Note of Triumph.
>> His victory,A Sweet Dish or Isn't It?
>> At the closeof World War Two.
Corwin was commissionedby the white House
to create a radio celebrationof the Allied victory.
Instead, he crafteda complex work
(31:45):
that anticipatedmodern narrative techniques,
shifting back and forthin time and space,
traveling from the depths ofthe ocean to the stratosphere,
and using many voices from manyimagined parts of the world.
>> If you don't mind,there's some things
we guys would like to ask.
>> Far from beinga jingoistic celebration,
on a note of triumph questionsthe whole nature of war.
(32:09):
>> First of all,who did we beat?
>> How much did it cost.
>> To beat him?What have we learned?
What do we know nowthat we didn't know before?
What do we do now?
>> Is it all gonna happen again?>> On a note of triumph.
(32:34):
Responds ambivalentto the end of the war.
Before the war had even begun,
two other geniusesof the Golden Age,
Archibald MacLeish andOrson Welles,
crafted unforgettable worksexplosive prophetic pieces
featuring worlds transformedby conquest and violence.
(32:55):
One was meticulously planned.
One happened almost by accident.
Both were profound examplesof radios
dramatic power and persuasion.
Archibald MacLeish was a poet,lawyer and humanist,
educated at Ivy League schools,
but he was shapedby an interlude in Paris
that allowed him to perceivethe friction between what he saw
(33:18):
as the close of the Old Worldand the start of the new.
In 1937,
CBS aired his powerful anddisturbing The Fall of the city.
Mcleish's radio playwas inspired by Hernan Cortez's
conquest of the Aztec cityTenochtitlan,
but The Fall of the cityis also an allegory
about the rise of fascism.
(33:39):
Adolf Hitler had recentlyannexed Austria unchallenged,
and McLeish fearedthat further passivity in Europe
would result in a victoryfor the Nazis.
The fall of the city comes to usin the form of a news report.
>> Small wonder they feel fear.
Before the murdersof the famous kings,
(33:59):
before imperial cities burnedand fell.
The dead were said.
>> To show themselves and speak.
That's Orson Welles,my mom's former co-star,
as the unnamed reporter
in order to reinforcethe play's central metaphor.
Director Irwin Reese madethe unusual decision to record
on locationat the Armory in New York City.
(34:21):
At this time, almost all radioplays were recorded in a studio.
>> And gave them voicesMasterless men,
when shall it be Masterless menwill take a master.
What has she said to us?
>> When shall it be, master?At the end.
>> Of Mcleish's bleak drama,
the city of Masterless menhas found a master.
Its citizens willingsubmission spells the end
(34:44):
of their civilization.
But whatif the trouble finds you?
Welles, merely a player in fall,
had his own chanceto end the world.
A year later,on October 30th, 1938.
If you were home at 755.You might have heard.
(35:06):
>> This.
>> With Annie and Zekeand Robert Armbruster
and the Jason Sanborn Orchestra.
Heard on this program weretwo sleepy people from thanks
for the memoryand The Big Show by Jerome Kern.
This is Wendell.
>> That was the endof ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's
popular show featuringhis dummy, Charlie McCarthy.
I know a dummy on the radio.
The show had a big following.
(35:27):
Or if you tuned in to CBS at thetop of the hour, you heard this.
>> Columbia Broadcasting System
and its affiliates stationspresent Orson Welles and
the Mercury Theater on the airin The War of the worlds by H.G.
Wells.>> But if you tuned into CBS
after turning the dialfrom Bergen, you heard this.
(35:47):
>> We know now that in theearly years of the 20th century,
this world was being watchedclosely by intelligences greater
than man's,and yet as mortal as his own.
We know now that ashuman beings visit themselves
about their various concerns.
They were scrutinizedand studied,
(36:09):
perhaps almost as narrowlyas a man with a microscope
might scrutinize thetransient creatures that swarm
and multiply in a drop of water,and with infinite complacency.
People went toand fro of the earth
about their little affairs,serene,
and the assuranceof their dominion
over this small spinningfragment of solar driftwood,
(36:32):
which, by chance or design man,
has inherited out of thedark mystery of time and space.
Yet across an immenseethereal gulf,
minds that are to our minds
as ours are to the beastsin the jungle.
Intellects vast,
cool and unsympathetic regardedthis earth with envious eyes,
(36:58):
and slowly and surelydrew their plans against us.
>> And if this is whatyou heard,
you might have been oneof the millions of people
who imagined fleeing your home.
And some actually did, after
a gripping hour of news hadreported the landing of Martians
in Grover's Mills, new Jersey.
There's a plaque.>> Ladies and gentlemen,
(37:21):
we interrupt our programof dance music
to bring you a special bulletin
from the IntercontinentalRadio News
at 20 minutes beforeeight central time.
Professor Farrell of the MountJennings Observatory to Illinois
reports observing severalexplosions of incandescent gas
occurring at regular intervalson the planet Mars.
The spectroscope indicatesthe gas to be hydrogen
and moving toward the Earthwith enormous velocity.
(37:43):
>> The next day,newspapers had a field day
with headlines likeMars Invasion and
Radio Set Terrifies Us.
H.G. Wells book and Orson Wellesacting bring prayers,
tears, flight and the.
>> Police.>> Radio Fake Scares Nation.
And here's the storythat scared us.
(38:05):
Welles and the War of the worldswere news, all right,
but newspapers were also happyto seize an opportunity
to dirty the reputation ofbroadcasting a perceived rival
for audience and advertisers.
The War of the worldshas been cited as one
of the first examplesof fake news,
and as a deliberate prankby a notoriously Frankish wells,
(38:27):
but most of all, it'sa masterpiece of audio drama.
H.G.
Wells dystopian novel wasa last minute choice
for Orson Welles and co-writerHoward Koch,
but it tapped into the growingapprehension about the state of
Europe and memories of therecent crash of the Hindenburg
in Lakehurst, new Jersey.
>> Oh, my.Get out of the way, please.
(38:48):
It's burningand bursting into flames.
And it's fallingon the morning pass.
And all the folks for three.
This is terrible.
This is the worst of theworst catastrophes in the world.
Oh, is this the space.
>> Is 2004 500ft.>> Into the sky.
It's a terrific race,ladies and gentlemen.
The smoke and flames now.
And the frame is risingto the ground.
(39:09):
Not quite to the mooring mast.
>> All the easy enoughto persuade people
of imminent disasterwhen programming
was frequently interruptedby bulletins like this.
>> German aircraft carried outa number of attacks
on Great Britain last night.
The raids,which lasted for several hours,
were scattered overmany parts of the country,
and enemy aircraft havebeen reported over tons
(39:30):
on the south coast,the West of England,
the North Midlandsand the North West,
as well as over the London area.
>> The War of the worldswas very much of its time,
but is also timeless,
with myriad productionsfor stage and film.
Some were homagesto the Golden Age,
but others picked up
on its transgressivedystopian narrative.
(39:54):
So two of the greatest worksof both Golden Age radio
and of the form itself, bring usto the edge of catastrophe.
And almost on cue,the actual world explodes.
>> You're just turning onyour radios.
Great Britain is nowat war with Germany.
>> And Himan Brown has to carryhis conscience
and his programs into war.
(40:17):
Join us and himfor episode five,
where we follow Brown duringthe next stage of his career,
share in new successes,
and learn how he shaped hisprograms in response to the war.
I'm Margot Avery.
Audio Maverick is producedand directed by Sarah Montague,
(40:39):
who also writes the scripts.
Our executive producers areMelina Brown and Sarah Montague.
CUNY TV's executive director isChiqui Cartagena.
The director of productionis Susan Iger,
and Deborah Labadie is CUNYTV's chief operating
opperating officer.
The associate producer for AudioMaverick is Corinne Wallace,
(41:00):
and our audio productionintern is Lucia Funaro.
Audio Maverick is narratedby Margot Avery.
Our technical team at CUNY
includes senioraudio engineer Richard Kim
and audio engineer and programmix engineer Lisa Gosselin.
Our staff photographer isLaura Fuchs.
Our archivists are David Riceand Catriona Schlosser.
(41:21):
Our closed captioncoordinator is Amy Monte.
And the script editor isAllison Behringer.
Our theme was composedby Allison Layton-Brown.
Sound design and final mixing
are by John deLore andBart Warshaw.
Multitude productions handlesour publicity and marketing.
Audio Maverick is a productionof CUNY TV.
>> You must be.
>> Tough wheat and puffed rice.
>> The adventures of Nero Wolfe.
Fred Allen. A Life of Writing.
>> You're hearing the soundof the Golden Age of Radio,
a sampler of some of the 12,000programs created for broadcast
between 1925 and 1976.
>> Thank you.>> This is Audio Maverick,
(00:24):
a celebration of the life andwork of radio great Himan Brown.
In our last episode,we followed Himan Brown.
From the start of his careerin entertainment radio.
>> I presented myselfas an actor.
Wouldn't they liketo have me read some poetry.
>> To his early successesas a producer and director?
>> I engage you,
(00:45):
I identify you, your imaginationwith all that's going on.
Otherwise, what isthe spoken word?
What is radio?You have to do that.
>> In this episode,
we learn about the largercreative world Brown
helped to shapeand that helped shape him.
In fact, this remarkableera came to a close just
as Brown launched his secondcareer with CBS Mystery Theater.
(01:09):
So the end of one era seguedinto the beginning of another.
I'm Margot Avery. Stay tuned.>> Oh, I won't stop coming.
>> In this episode,
we're going to zoom out our lens
so we can see the full landscapeof Brown's early career,
(01:31):
and so that you can feeland imagine and hear the world
of entertainment radioat its height.
It teamedwith creative geniuses,
prolific producers and genredefining programs.
This would soon catapultthe industry
to new creative heightsand Brown along with it.
(01:52):
We get the idea ofthe Golden age from the Greeks.
Apparently it referred tosome mythic time
when everyone lived happilywithout ever having to work.
Our broadcast Golden Age wasa very different story.
What made it goldenwas hard work and imagination
and an audience hungryfor content.
>> Again, the strainsof Manhattan Serenade
(02:13):
introduced the story of Mr. Aceand his wife, Jane.
>> So who wasHiman Brown sharing the airwaves
with dozens ofprolific producers like himself
and a few geniuses.
These contemporaries helpeddefine a new sonic culture,
and they explored some of thegenres in which he flourished.
(02:35):
During its first 20 years,
broadcast was a kind ofstone soup,
to which was added colorfulcharacters, absurd plots,
thrilling adventures, and weeklyservings of love and marriage,
among other ingredients.Who were the cooks?
As Brown'searly career demonstrates,
there was no art for art's sakein this period.
(02:56):
Advertising agencies werethe primary content producers,
and they assembled teamsof creatives
charged with linking contentto products.
People in advertising had been.
>> Quote, dramatizing a barof soap for decades,
which is when they wroteprint advertising,
they were often usingall sorts of strategies
of emotional appeal and drama.>> That's Cynthia myers,
(03:18):
who chronicles the link betweenadvertising companies and
programming in her book A WordFrom Our Sponsor,
she tells usthat the bigger agencies created
whole production teams.
>> They hired peopleto join their radio department
from all sorts ofdifferent backgrounds.
Some of themwere novelists or journalists,
some of themwere theatrical producers,
(03:39):
some of themwere musicians and composers.
And all those peoplethen were brought
in to kind of collaborateon these programs.
>> Take, for example,
Irwin Shaw,later a best selling novelist.
But at this period a classmateof Brown's
who had a turnfor comic vignettes,
so Brown hired him to write forthe serial comedy The Gump's.
(04:01):
Myers points out that the talentwas mostly uncredited because
the agencies wanted the public'sattention on the product.
>> So to give specificattribution to a specific author
was kind of beside the point
it was to take awayfrom the purpose of the program,
which was to sell soapor to sell cheese.
(04:22):
>> Nevertheless, even if theywere selling soap or cheese,
this group of journalists,novelists and playwrights
were still able to bringtheir inventiveness and charm
to the table and to the ear.
>> There was this thingin your house
and you heard people singing.You heard people talking.
People just couldn't wraptheir heads around
(04:43):
how and why that could be.
And so the word miraclewas used over and over.
>> That's Susan Douglas,
she's the author of Listeningin Radio
and the American imagination.
>> There were peoplewho wanted to know
where the littletiny people were inside the box,
who were making the musicand the voices.
(05:05):
>> Who were they?
They were the writersand directors and actors
and sound effects techniciansand engineers.
They weren't, of course,inside the box,
but they were stillexperimenting with the form.
>> During the heyday of radio.
Every genre came to relyon certain formulas.
>> That's broadcast historianLeonard Maltin.
(05:25):
>> And the, uh, the clevererwriters or writer producers
who fought thatand tried to find ways
to freshen the routine.
Others foundthat their their audience,
whether it would be housewiveson the soap operas or kids
listening to daily adventureshows like Jack Armstrong,
(05:45):
the All-American boy or a LittleOrphan Annie or a Superman,
The Adventures of Superman,you know,
found that people werecomfortable with formula.
>> One of the other signsof radio's development,
aside from more programmingand more money,
was the awarenessof the audience.
While there wasimplicit acknowledgement
(06:06):
that people were listening,
the audience became importantto agencies as soon
as they were also identifiedas consumers.
>> You know, there wasenormous interest in the 1930s
in what America was,who was in it.
>> That's Susan Douglas again.
In Listening In,she also explores the synergy
(06:26):
between audiences andprogrammers.
Understandingwho was listening shaped choices
about what they heard.
>> And, you know, some of thisis the result of there had been,
you know,serial waves of immigration.
And then there wasthe Great Depression,
which was catastrophic
(06:47):
and trying to figureout Who was still rich?
Who was still comfortable?Who was starving?
Where were people?
>> So the industry was gropingto define a society
that couldn't really defineitself.
>> And so radio performedkind of a dual
and seemingly contradictoryfunction.
On the one hand,
(07:07):
it did help cultivatea sense of a national culture.
When you had a hit show,
what these conveyed, suggested,
enforcedis that despite everything,
because 40 million peoplewould be listening
at the exact same timeto the exact same show,
(07:28):
and sharing in that culture thatthere was a national culture.
At the same time,
there were also local showsthat could convey local culture.
>> In 1970, four years after theGolden Age had come and gone,
Garrison Keillor launcheda long running radio show
(07:49):
called Prairie Home Companion.
It was an homage tovariety shows of the Golden Age,
and it reached a nationalaudience with folksy humor,
fake commercials,and musical entertainment.
>> Well, look who'scoming through that door.
(08:11):
I think we met somewhere before.
Hello, love. Are you.Hello, love.
>> But at either the localor the national level,
radio audiences were alsoindividuals,
and their hopes and dreamsand expectations
of what came out of the Magicbox varied accordingly.
(08:31):
If they were out of jobs,they needed to escape.
If they were homemakers,they needed to be diverted,
if they were partof the daily grind.
They wanted to identifywith others
like themselves and radio'screators,
even though they werein the service of commerce.
Invented characters andstorylines
that reflected very realconcerns about becoming American
(08:53):
without losing your past.
>> There was a lotof ethnic humor on radio
which drew from vaudeville.
Vaudeville was repletewith ethnic humor,
Irish humor, Jewish and Yiddishhumor, humor about Italians,
um, humor about Greeks,you know,
humor that drewfrom the immigrant experience.
(09:14):
>> I do ethnic Tanya,so very, very happy.
But of course,in my family you are so sweet.
You make me want to cry.
>> About the gaps betweenthe wealthy and the poor.
>> I asked you notto wear those earrings
and that cheap imitationnecklace.
You took them off your greed.
And after we got there, youcame out of the dressing room.
(09:34):
>> Oh, Steven,
I'm perfectly willingto let you tell me how to act,
but please don't give mepointers on how to dress about.
>> Love and marriage and family.
>> Can't you honestly tellwhat I'm driving at.
>> I haven't the vaguest idea.And forget it.
I'm not going to buya television set.
>> And the resultof this confluence
(09:55):
of product and programming
was somethingfor every taste and demographic.
The shows were complete,self enclosed worlds,
and while they wereoften defined by genre,
the really successful onescombined formula with something
that moved outside the box.
>> That concept wouldbe untied by Murphy and Levy.
(10:15):
>> All the ethnic comediesmentioned by Douglas
included Abe's Irish Rose.
Ann Nichols adapted hersuccessful stage play
about the marriage between a Jewand a Catholic,
and the family tensionsthat followed.
What do you.>> Mean by that great.
>> Sense, I hope,without checking.
I didn't mean anything,but I do miss them.
(10:36):
>> My favorite craving adventuretune in The Lone Ranger.
The stock market crash drovecreator George W trundle
into radio, and he turned to oneof America's enduring myths,
the Wild West,to create the Ranger.
John Reid is faithfulIndian companion Tonto
and his fiery steedover this heroic trio
(11:02):
foiled bad guysin the canyons of Texas
to the tuneof the William Tell Overture.
A bit over the top, yes,
but it was a great example of
how radio invited mash upsof story and sound,
and how their creators managedto hook audiences week
after week,
(11:22):
and radio went to the dogsfor stories
that combine courage andsentiment.
Lassie, based on a popular movieabout a collie,
Lassie Come Home,and Rin Tin Tin,
based on an actual dog rescuedby a World War one soldier,
represented gallant canines.
>> The Lassie show.
(11:44):
>> By far the leading genre wasthe situation comedy,
many of them situatedin the home lives,
marriages and familiesof their characters.
>> The Columbia BroadcastingSystem presents a new.
>> Comedy, My.
>> Friend.>> Irma.
>> Each sitcom was packagedalmost identically
a lush orchestral introduction,a sponsor message,
(12:07):
and a hand off to the show.
And that week'ssituation will be hot.
>> My friend Irma.
>> In every sort of professionwas celebrated lawyers,
doctors, newspapermen,handymen, even photographers,
to name just a few.
And teachers around the countrybecame devoted fans
(12:28):
of our Miss Brooks,starring Eve Arden,
who played a teacherwho was actually nice.
>> Although one dayin the life of a.
>> Schoolteacher is prettymuch the same as the next.
At night you wish you were dead?
Not that I'm bored.
>> People were findingthemselves in this programming,
but they were also escapingtheir
(12:50):
sometimes dreary day to daylives.
In radio,Americans could hear themselves,
and it allowed them to laugh attheir own circumstances,
weep when a belovedcharacter was in trouble,
and rejoicein hard earned happy endings.
Most of these shows were weekly,employing dozens of writers,
so of coursethere were formulas,
(13:12):
but the best works morphedinto independent creations
that seemed almost alive.
Not to mention the factthat they were actually live,
which contributedto their appealing spontaneity.
>> Why did Davis andWilliam Powell
have just entered the stagefrom All right?
The audience burstinto applause.
They acknowledged the greeting.
Take their placesat the microphones,
(13:32):
and the play begins.
>> Audiences like to eavesdropon the people next door,
but were also fascinatedby the remote
and glamorous popular literature
inspired shows featuring spiesand sleuths like Sherlock Holmes
and the Saint
and the investigative lawyerPerry Mason,
one of the Golden Age characters
(13:52):
who enduredinto broadcast television a.
>> Restriction to the weight
that should be givenMr. Carlos testimony.
Oh, come now,Mason, she has laryngitis.
I'm not talking abouther health, mister.
I'm certain she's as healthyas a horse.
What? Yes.
What are you getting at,then, Mr. Mason?
Well, I think the juryshould be informed
that Mr. Calo is alsoa murder suspect.
(14:13):
That was that.I'm sure you heard me, Mr. Rat.
I said a murder suspect.
>> Indeed.There was crime galore.
Some shows were drawnfrom the lurid pulp magazines
that had delivered ridersto radio studios.
Heroic policemen and hardboileddetectives solved crimes
and roughed up miscreantswith plenty of sound effects.
(14:33):
Hold it right.
>> There.What are you doing here?
Police officers,you're under arrest.
>> I'm not going to tell youhow it's done,
because Himan Brownis going to share all the tricks
of the trade in episode six.>> It won't be.
>> No tough guys,thugs or malls for you.
(14:53):
Want something classier?
>> Born of a well-to-do familyand a college man,
he tried from childhoodto live up to the name he bore.
Chameleon.
>> There were also showsthat mingle the upper crust
on the lower orders,like Mr. Chameleon.
>> Appearing in endless guises.
>> They were influencedby detective novels featuring
aristocratic sleuthslike Dorothy Sayers,
(15:14):
Lord Peter Wimsey and SSVan Dynes.
Philo Vance,who earned his own show.
>> Abbey Lane.>> On a Night Like This.
Vance.No Washington assignment for me.
No ridiculous detecting for you,I love it.
(15:35):
>> And of course, The Shadow,the show my mother starred in.
It was adapted from a seriesof pulp novels written
by Walter Gibson.
In the storyline,
wealthy Playboy Lamont Cranstonhas traveled
to the mysterious East.
Old time radio was filled withcringe making tropes like this.
There, he encounters a mysticwho teaches him.
(15:56):
>> The hypnotic power to cloud.
>> Men's minds.
>> So they cannot see him.
>> This is useful if you decideto set up as a crime fighter.
The shadow reveals himself tolowlifes with a menacing laugh.
>> Who know.
>> What evil lurksin the hearts of men.
The shadow knows.
(16:20):
>> The show had a numberof false starts
with different actors,
but established itselfwith the casting of Orson Welles
as the main character, Cranston,
and his mindpenetrating alter ego.
My mother's role.
Have I made mention of thisbefore
was the lovely Margo Lane,
the attractive confidanteof the Playboy.
Those are the.>> Three men you tell me.
(16:40):
>> About. Yes, Margo.
They look like gangsters,all right.
They aren't usuallymortal enemies.
But tonight it looks very muchas if they're banding together.
I wonder why.Because they're afraid of me.
>> Of you?
Then why do you come hereand expose?
>> They're only afraid of meas the shadow.
I do not know Lamont Cranston.>> Who are they?
>> Ma'am knew Welles already.
They both toured withthe successful production
of The Barrettsof Wimpole Street.
(17:02):
They were buddies.They were friends.
She thought highly of him
and also sort of giggled at hima lot
because she thoughthe was very full of himself.
But mom wasn'tthe first Margo Lane,
although the characterwas named for her.
In an unusual exampleof reverse nepotism,
her boyfriend at the timewas one of the producers.
So rather than appearing biased,he cast Agnes Moorehead.
(17:24):
How do you.
>> Know his customers arebootlegs?
>> And we saw coming out ofSantini shop
as we came in oneSantino denied scene.
>> He's an absolutely darling.What a memory.
>> Veritable storehouseof vital statistics.
>> Craft Music Hall,
starring Bing Crosby withJimmy Dorsey and his orchestra,
the Paul Taylor Choristers.
(17:44):
And tonight, back from his twoweeks fishing trip, Bob Byrne.
And here's Bing Crosby.
Just when romance got a start,you decided it was time to pass.
How could you?
How could you?
(18:05):
>> In addition to plotor situation based
shows with characters created byand for radio,
there were also variety showsdrawn from the real world
of entertainment.
Leading stars,usually crooners or comics,
would strut their stuffand banter
with guests who would in turnstrut their stuff.
Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatrahad shows,
(18:27):
but the most successful wasJack Benny,
a comic who completelyembraced the form.
>> Hey, close that door!
>> Don't worry. We will.Uh, what are you doing?
Jack?>> What am I doing?
What's this I got under my chin?
>> Another chin?>> I mean, under both of them.
(18:48):
I'm practicing the b.
Say, I thought you saidyou could play the B
when you were a kid.
Well, I could,
but a lot of honey hasgone over the dam since then.
>> There were also dramas
that promised an entree into theglamorous world of the theater,
like the First Nighter Program.
This was in the midstof the depression,
a time when few listeners couldafford real Broadway shows.
(19:09):
So The First Nighter createdFaux Productions and listeners
got a front row seat.
>> Good evening, Mr. Snyder.
The ushers will show youto your seats.
Thank you. We'll go right.>> Here.
And, of course,
the theater was alsoa great setting
for an engrossing afternoonserial.
>> All right,ladies and gentlemen,
they're all comfortably seated,and we just have time
to look at the theater program.
>> Laura Noble wasthe backstage wife,
(19:32):
an ordinary girl from Iowa,
meaning the stickswho marries a matinee idol.
For 23 years,she coped with dilemmas,
from her handsome husband'sroving eye
to temperamental starsto unreliable investors.
>> Hello, Mary. Busy?
>> Never too busyto talk to you, Peter.
>> The show was oneof the earliest developed
by Himan Brown's longtimeclients and collaborators,
(19:55):
Frank and Anne Humbert.
>> Oh,what's your trouble today?
You certainly look as ifyou had the weight of the world
on your shoulders.
>> I might returnthe compliment, Mary.
>> In spite of your sunny smileand cheerful manner,
I'm afraid you're doing a bitof an Atlas stunt yourself.
Why do I sit on the desk?
>> Of course not.That's what desks are made for.
Oh, excuse me a minute.
>> Oh, go right ahead.My lovely.
(20:15):
>> Hello? Yes, speaking.
Oh, no, Mr. Wentworth,I'm sorry.
I've nothing to say.
No, I don't careto make a statement
for your Broadway gossip columnor anyone else's.
>> Brown was justly proudof early projects
like the romantic serialMary the Little French Princess,
(20:36):
and of strip cartoonsbrought to life like Dick Tracy,
as well as later adaptationsof crime series
like Bulldog Drummondand The Thin Man.
But he also contributed oneof the first soaps
about a professional woman,Joyce Jordan.
>> And now we're pleasedto present a new series,
Joyce Jordan Girl.In turn,
(20:56):
the stirring modern storyof a beautiful girl on her own
in a man's world,
a story that takes youbehind grim hospital walls.
>> We'll hear more about Jordanin our next episode.
As we've heard, radio shows werecreated from multiple sources,
including vaudeville,
(21:16):
a form of theatrical varietyshow that originated in France
in the 19th century.
Many successfulAmerican entertainers got
their start in vaudeville.
Among them the stars of one ofthe most problematic successes
of the Golden Age.Amos and Andy.
>> Show a full half hourof entertainment
with all the Amos and Andycharacters.
>> This popular comedy wasradio in blackface.
(21:40):
It was the creationof Charles J.
Carroll and Freeman F Gosden,
white working class men who,like many others,
made the leap into show businessas a vaudeville act,
which they then translatedto radio.
Amos and Andy
with a goofy, feckless owners ofa down on its luck cab company.
But early shows also offeredthinly disguised
(22:01):
political satire,
with an irreverent wit
that surely contributedto the show's wide following.
It's hard to wrap our mindsaround this racist concept
and its many embeddedassumptions,
but it was, regrettably,
among the most popular showsin broadcast at a time
when few people of color
had a significant presencein the industry.
(22:22):
Today, we find racial and ethnicstereotyping abhorrent.
It was, of course, the productof the society at large,
not the medium itself.
>> Does Dominique intrigue you,Monsieur Cobb?
Oh, it's it's magnificent.
>> I can hardly waitto paint it.
>> Ah, I did not knowyou were an artist.
>> I haven't had a chanceto tell you.
(22:44):
I've covered mostof the Caribbean, but where.
>> Radio took amore forgivable shortcut was
in the characters heardin genre programs.
>> The first man they look forin the last they want to meet.
>> There was a kind of sonicshorthand for many of them.
>> It's a chancy job,and I make some man watchful.
>> Seductress society dames,policemen,
(23:04):
hapless victims of deception
populated manyGolden Age staples,
and many of themwere voiced by the same actors.
Your career in radiowas guaranteed
if you could pivotfrom a deep dyed villain
to a concerned husband,from a housewife to a harridan.
So hundreds of programs,
thousands of plotsdelivering comedy, drama,
(23:27):
suspense and merchandiseentertaining, engaging,
imaginative and seaworthy.
We'd still be calling itthe Golden Age,
even if that's all they wrote.
But as muchas the extended radio family,
from advertisers to writersto performers,
came to appreciate radioas a tool for selling
(23:47):
as a dependable livelihood,
perhaps no one anticipatedthe inviting fluidity,
the artistic nuanceof the form itself
from a vehiclefor commerce radio was becoming,
in this prolific period,a true artistic medium.
So eventually it beganto produce true artists,
(24:09):
shaping both a more nuanced
and bolder sideof the Golden Age legacy.
Arch, Nobler and LucilleFletcher created
and wrote for thegrowing suspense genre.
Norman Corwin wasa gifted fantasy writer
who made CBS into hisown personal fairytale kingdom,
and Archibald MacLeishand Orson Welles
(24:31):
created masterpieceswith narratives
that reflected on human destinyjust
as it was being reshapedin the real world.
>> And now,if you haven't already done so,
turn off your lights now.
>> Arch oblique wasalmost a man out of his time,
an experimental playwrightin an era of formulaic work.
(24:53):
As a network producer,
he inherited an alreadyestablished thriller series
called Lights Out.
It was a horror show thatinvited the listener to submit
to its brand of creepiness.
>> It is later than you think.
(25:15):
>> Blair made the show his own,
and when his cautionarybillboard is.
>> Heard, Lights.
>> Out brings you storiesof the.
>> Supernaturaland the supernormal.
>> It sets the stage for plays
that posed questionsof morality.
Here's a scene from revoltof the worms,
in which a self-centeredscientist has retreated
from the war effortto grow the perfect rose.
(25:38):
>> All I can do is sit.
>> And think and wait.
Wait for the floors to liftand the walls to crash.
Facts, I think, are facts.Yes, a journal of facts.
Think how it began.
Why it's happening.Journal of facts.
Until a walls crashin the mythic flesh.
(26:00):
>> Notice anything thatqueasy making slithery sound.
That head voice filledwith too late regrets.
You're doubtless listening tothis program in stereo,
in your earbuds,on your computer,
but most early radio dramawas produced in mono,
so these seemingly sound rich.
Shows were adroit manipulations,
(26:21):
not of technologybut of our own psyches.
Obama's genius waseventually rewarded.
He got his own radiodrama series,
Arch Obama's radio Plays at CBS,
the most creatively venturesomeof the networks.
His output there included thefirst airing of Dalton Trumbo,
(26:41):
celebrated Johnny, Get Your Gun.
>> We tell You of Joe Bonham22 years ago.
He went to war.
They carried him backfrom that war.
They carried him backbecause he had no arms, no legs,
no ears with which to hear,no eyes with which to see,
(27:02):
no mouth with which to speak.
>> Some of the most famousmoments of early broadcast radio
came from the typewriterof Lucille Fletcher,
a Vassar graduatewho got in on the ground floor
at CBS as a publicity writer.
clerk, and music librarian.
This latter role mayhave put her in the way
of composer Bernard Herrmann,whom she later married.
(27:23):
Herrmann was creating scoresfor CBS ambitious array
of dramas showcasedas the Columbia Workshop.
He went on to score severalof Fletcher's works,
including The Hitchhiker,starring Orson Welles,
which aired in 1941.
>> Sometimes you wantyour heart to be warmed,
and sometimes you wantyour spine to tingle.
(27:45):
The tingling is to be hoped,
will be quite audibleas you listen tonight.
The hitchhiker.That's the name of our story.
The hitchhiker.
>> Fletcher'sbrilliant audio play,
which she later adapted asan episode of The Twilight Zone,
is both a road tripand an existential tone poem.
(28:08):
>> I'm in an auto campon route 66,
just west of Gallup, New Mexico.>> Herrmann would go on to fame
for his scorefor Hitchcock's Psycho.
>> Keep me from going.>> Going crazy.
>> Fletcher had hergreatest success with an actor.
Himan Brown was proud tohave discovered Agnes Moorehead.
He cast her as Min Gump
(28:29):
when he acquired thesuccessful sitcom The Gump's.
But Fletcher'sriveting drama sorry,
Wrong Number showed her range.Moorhead's character,
the fretful invalidMrs. Albert Stevenson,
is trying to reachher husband's office,
but a crossed phone line allowsher to overhear
plans for a murder.
>> Your call please.
(28:50):
Operator I've been dialingMurray Hill 70939.
>> When she attemptsto report it to the police,
she's written off as a crackpot.
But it's soon revealedthat not only is the plot real,
but she herselfis the intended victim.
>> It makes a noise in casea window is open
and she should scream.
Oh, hello, what.
>> Number is this, please?
>> She's trappedand time is running out.
(29:12):
It's one of the things thatradio artists were discovering
that time and spacecould be manipulated
and pull us into the.
>> Story as.
>> Little blood as possible,
because our client doesnot wish to make us suffer long.
>> That's right.You'll use a knife.
>> Mrs. Stevenson is a petulant,high handed narcissist.
(29:33):
Fletcher says she was basedon a haughty woman
in a supermarket checkout line.
And yet our whole beingis pulled towards her
in this brilliant miniature.
Don't worry.Everything's okay. Radio.
That medium of vibrationshas us vibrating in our seats.
And Fletcher wasa brilliant conductor.
>> 70093 he is busy.I will call you an operator.
(29:57):
Operator. Operator.
>> Another great radioconductor was Norman Corwin.
Like Himan Brown,he got his start in radio,
reading poetry, in his caseon the Long Island station WQXR.
He went on to become themost celebrated audio dramatist
of the Golden Age, often calledthe form's Poet Laureate.
(30:19):
He created dozens of joyfuland inventive works.
>> Is this the Departmentof Lost Dogs?
Yeah, I'm looking for my.
>> In the Odysseyof Runyon Jones,
a favorite of Corwin'slegion of fans.
A boy loses his dog,puts in a traffic accident,
and insists that he deservesanother chance at life.
He makes his caseto afterlife bureaucrats,
(30:41):
various cranky gods,and even Father Time.
>> When did you lose him?Yesterday morning.
Where? Right outside my.>> House.
Runyon Jones is a deliciouscombination of satire and fable.
What happened?
>> The car ran over him,and then he was killed, sir.
And you're on the wrong floor.
>> This is the Departmentof Lost Dogs.
>> What you.
(31:02):
>> Want is the.>> Department of deceased dogs.
Where is that, sir?Two flights up here.
>> Take the slip.
>> And hand it to the manat the desk.
>> Corwin's plays are stillproduced all over the country.
His admirers included classicfantasy writer Ray Bradbury,
oral historian Studs Terkel,screenwriter and producer
Norman Lear,and newscaster Charles Kuralt.
(31:22):
It was Kuralt who introducedNational Public Radio's
repeat broadcast of one ofCorwin's most celebrated works,
On a Note of Triumph.
>> His victory,A Sweet Dish or Isn't It?
>> At the closeof World War Two.
Corwin was commissionedby the white House
to create a radio celebrationof the Allied victory.
Instead, he crafteda complex work
(31:45):
that anticipatedmodern narrative techniques,
shifting back and forthin time and space,
traveling from the depths ofthe ocean to the stratosphere,
and using many voices from manyimagined parts of the world.
>> If you don't mind,there's some things
we guys would like to ask.
>> Far from beinga jingoistic celebration,
on a note of triumph questionsthe whole nature of war.
(32:09):
>> First of all,who did we beat?
>> How much did it cost.
>> To beat him?What have we learned?
What do we know nowthat we didn't know before?
What do we do now?
>> Is it all gonna happen again?>> On a note of triumph.
(32:34):
Responds ambivalentto the end of the war.
Before the war had even begun,
two other geniusesof the Golden Age,
Archibald MacLeish andOrson Welles,
crafted unforgettable worksexplosive prophetic pieces
featuring worlds transformedby conquest and violence.
(32:55):
One was meticulously planned.
One happened almost by accident.
Both were profound examplesof radios
dramatic power and persuasion.
Archibald MacLeish was a poet,lawyer and humanist,
educated at Ivy League schools,
but he was shapedby an interlude in Paris
that allowed him to perceivethe friction between what he saw
(33:18):
as the close of the Old Worldand the start of the new.
In 1937,
CBS aired his powerful anddisturbing The Fall of the city.
Mcleish's radio playwas inspired by Hernan Cortez's
conquest of the Aztec cityTenochtitlan,
but The Fall of the cityis also an allegory
about the rise of fascism.
(33:39):
Adolf Hitler had recentlyannexed Austria unchallenged,
and McLeish fearedthat further passivity in Europe
would result in a victoryfor the Nazis.
The fall of the city comes to usin the form of a news report.
>> Small wonder they feel fear.
Before the murdersof the famous kings,
(33:59):
before imperial cities burnedand fell.
The dead were said.
>> To show themselves and speak.
That's Orson Welles,my mom's former co-star,
as the unnamed reporter
in order to reinforcethe play's central metaphor.
Director Irwin Reese madethe unusual decision to record
on locationat the Armory in New York City.
(34:21):
At this time, almost all radioplays were recorded in a studio.
>> And gave them voicesMasterless men,
when shall it be Masterless menwill take a master.
What has she said to us?
>> When shall it be, master?At the end.
>> Of Mcleish's bleak drama,
the city of Masterless menhas found a master.
Its citizens willingsubmission spells the end
(34:44):
of their civilization.
But whatif the trouble finds you?
Welles, merely a player in fall,
had his own chanceto end the world.
A year later,on October 30th, 1938.
If you were home at 755.You might have heard.
(35:06):
>> This.
>> With Annie and Zekeand Robert Armbruster
and the Jason Sanborn Orchestra.
Heard on this program weretwo sleepy people from thanks
for the memoryand The Big Show by Jerome Kern.
This is Wendell.
>> That was the endof ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's
popular show featuringhis dummy, Charlie McCarthy.
I know a dummy on the radio.
The show had a big following.
(35:27):
Or if you tuned in to CBS at thetop of the hour, you heard this.
>> Columbia Broadcasting System
and its affiliates stationspresent Orson Welles and
the Mercury Theater on the airin The War of the worlds by H.G.
Wells.>> But if you tuned into CBS
after turning the dialfrom Bergen, you heard this.
(35:47):
>> We know now that in theearly years of the 20th century,
this world was being watchedclosely by intelligences greater
than man's,and yet as mortal as his own.
We know now that ashuman beings visit themselves
about their various concerns.
They were scrutinizedand studied,
(36:09):
perhaps almost as narrowlyas a man with a microscope
might scrutinize thetransient creatures that swarm
and multiply in a drop of water,and with infinite complacency.
People went toand fro of the earth
about their little affairs,serene,
and the assuranceof their dominion
over this small spinningfragment of solar driftwood,
(36:32):
which, by chance or design man,
has inherited out of thedark mystery of time and space.
Yet across an immenseethereal gulf,
minds that are to our minds
as ours are to the beastsin the jungle.
Intellects vast,
cool and unsympathetic regardedthis earth with envious eyes,
(36:58):
and slowly and surelydrew their plans against us.
>> And if this is whatyou heard,
you might have been oneof the millions of people
who imagined fleeing your home.
And some actually did, after
a gripping hour of news hadreported the landing of Martians
in Grover's Mills, new Jersey.
There's a plaque.>> Ladies and gentlemen,
(37:21):
we interrupt our programof dance music
to bring you a special bulletin
from the IntercontinentalRadio News
at 20 minutes beforeeight central time.
Professor Farrell of the MountJennings Observatory to Illinois
reports observing severalexplosions of incandescent gas
occurring at regular intervalson the planet Mars.
The spectroscope indicatesthe gas to be hydrogen
and moving toward the Earthwith enormous velocity.
(37:43):
>> The next day,newspapers had a field day
with headlines likeMars Invasion and
Radio Set Terrifies Us.
H.G. Wells book and Orson Wellesacting bring prayers,
tears, flight and the.
>> Police.>> Radio Fake Scares Nation.
And here's the storythat scared us.
(38:05):
Welles and the War of the worldswere news, all right,
but newspapers were also happyto seize an opportunity
to dirty the reputation ofbroadcasting a perceived rival
for audience and advertisers.
The War of the worldshas been cited as one
of the first examplesof fake news,
and as a deliberate prankby a notoriously Frankish wells,
(38:27):
but most of all, it'sa masterpiece of audio drama.
H.G.
Wells dystopian novel wasa last minute choice
for Orson Welles and co-writerHoward Koch,
but it tapped into the growingapprehension about the state of
Europe and memories of therecent crash of the Hindenburg
in Lakehurst, new Jersey.
>> Oh, my.Get out of the way, please.
(38:48):
It's burningand bursting into flames.
And it's fallingon the morning pass.
And all the folks for three.
This is terrible.
This is the worst of theworst catastrophes in the world.
Oh, is this the space.
>> Is 2004 500ft.>> Into the sky.
It's a terrific race,ladies and gentlemen.
The smoke and flames now.
And the frame is risingto the ground.
(39:09):
Not quite to the mooring mast.
>> All the easy enoughto persuade people
of imminent disasterwhen programming
was frequently interruptedby bulletins like this.
>> German aircraft carried outa number of attacks
on Great Britain last night.
The raids,which lasted for several hours,
were scattered overmany parts of the country,
and enemy aircraft havebeen reported over tons
(39:30):
on the south coast,the West of England,
the North Midlandsand the North West,
as well as over the London area.
>> The War of the worldswas very much of its time,
but is also timeless,
with myriad productionsfor stage and film.
Some were homagesto the Golden Age,
but others picked up
on its transgressivedystopian narrative.
(39:54):
So two of the greatest worksof both Golden Age radio
and of the form itself, bring usto the edge of catastrophe.
And almost on cue,the actual world explodes.
>> You're just turning onyour radios.
Great Britain is nowat war with Germany.
>> And Himan Brown has to carryhis conscience
and his programs into war.
(40:17):
Join us and himfor episode five,
where we follow Brown duringthe next stage of his career,
share in new successes,
and learn how he shaped hisprograms in response to the war.
I'm Margot Avery.
Audio Maverick is producedand directed by Sarah Montague,
(40:39):
who also writes the scripts.
Our executive producers areMelina Brown and Sarah Montague.
CUNY TV's executive director isChiqui Cartagena.
The director of productionis Susan Iger,
and Deborah Labadie is CUNYTV's chief operating
opperating officer.
The associate producer for AudioMaverick is Corinne Wallace,
(41:00):
and our audio productionintern is Lucia Funaro.
Audio Maverick is narratedby Margot Avery.
Our technical team at CUNY
includes senioraudio engineer Richard Kim
and audio engineer and programmix engineer Lisa Gosselin.
Our staff photographer isLaura Fuchs.
Our archivists are David Riceand Catriona Schlosser.
(41:21):
Our closed captioncoordinator is Amy Monte.
And the script editor isAllison Behringer.
Our theme was composedby Allison Layton-Brown.
Sound design and final mixing
are by John deLore andBart Warshaw.
Multitude productions handlesour publicity and marketing.
Audio Maverick is a productionof CUNY TV.
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