Subject: [removed] Digest V2002 #430
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 11/7/2002 1:03 AM
To: <[removed]@[removed];

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                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2002 : Issue 430
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Struts and Frets; On Directors        [ Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed] ]

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Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 22:27:48 -0500
From: Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Struts and Frets; On Directors

STRUTS AND FRETS

by Harry Bartell

 ++++

On Directors

Radio directors came in an assortment of flavors. Some were exciting to work
with; some were mere mechanics. Some gave the actor a feeling of confidence;
some seemed to take the attitude that they were paid to work with actors and
would accept that burden only under the influence of money. I have always
felt that there was an element of frustrated actor in many of them although
that would be ridiculous in the case of someone like Elliott Lewis who was a
fine director and a pleasure to work with. On the other hand it might well
apply to Dee Engelbach. Dee was a small man with a strong sense of command.
Directing a show from the control booth he had special lighting effects on
his position in the center. I can't attest to this but I have a hunch that he
stood on what the film crews refer to as an "apple box", a low, two- foot
square platform. Dee performed cues with gusto, especially if the show was
playing in an audience studio. One night he gave an opening cue that was
thrown like a "Hail, Mary" pass into the end zone. It was very effective
except that he hit the glass of the booth window and broke his cue finger.

Bill (William N.) Robson was in love with radio and a great contributor. He
never seemed to attain the stature of Norman Corwin but he was responsible
for many program innovations. Even after radio drama was gone Bill was active
in the medium running the Voice of America programs from a closet in the
basement of some government building in Washington. Bill was a master of the
mechanics of radio. The first time I worked with him was on an episode of
Escape in 1947, Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. He took the script apart
almost letter by letter and put it back together with the greatest precision,
paying special attention to the complicated sound. Although he was the
starting director of The Man Called X which was obviously a commercial
venture, more importantly he introduced high quality sustaining programs
which added to the luster of CBS. In all fairness I have to note that working
with Mr. Robson sometimes involved a certain ingenuity from the actor. He
might spend so much time working with the first act of a show that the only
work on the balance of the script came in the form of a dress rehearsal.
Somehow, it always seemed to be all right on the night.

I wish I had had more contact with Norman Corwin. The only radio script I
kept besides the one in which my entire role consisted of a wolf whistle on
an Irene Rich commercial was On a Note of Triumph. That was quite an
experience. It had a big cast and a big orchestra and it played twice on VE
Day and it was all very exciting. Although my experience with Norm was
limited he displayed a technique which I have never forgotten. We were on the
air after what must have been a troubled dress rehearsal and although I
didn't know it we were running very long. Out of the corner of my eye while I
was at the microphone I saw Norman come out of the booth, walk quietly to
where I was standing. He reached over and thumbed through the script I was
using, pulled out a page, did the same thing with the other actor I was
working with and walked back to the booth. Now that was a way to make cuts!

Jack Johnstone was a personal friend and that makes judgment of his abilities
very difficult, especially since he called me for 85 appearances on The Man
Called X and I don't know how many on the various versions of Hollywood Star
Playhouse. Jack directed in the studio wearing a large set of headphones with
his script on a music stand right in the middle of the action. From this
vantage point he had a clear field for cuing the actors, sound, and music.
This had more advantages for Jack than it had for the actors. First of all,
he acted out every syllable of the script, not loud enough to be picked up by
the microphone but disconcerting to the actors who heard muffled noises along
with the dialogue. His proximity also presented a physical hazard. He once
threw a wild cue and hit the actor right in the nose. Jack, in all the years
I knew him, never displayed any particular knowledge of music but on his
master script he would write five or six musical notes to indicate when he
would cue actors or fade music. That he could locate those notes in the midst
of a long music cue with full orchestra was a miracle to me and I never knew
another director to do it

Jack was the only director for whom I acted inside a piano. He did a show
called Somebody Knows! a sort of forerunner of TV's Unsolved Mysteries. The
show opened with a very mysterioso reading of the show title and the effect
was amplified by the sound of the vibrating strings. So was my head but it
was a good effect. It is unfortunate that another Johnstone project which was
really excellent never hit the air. There was a convention of airline pilots
in Los Angeles and the guest of honor was Brigadier General James Stewart.
Jimmy had obtained a tape of conversation between the LA tower and the pilot
of a United Airlines flight that was in big mechanical trouble. They couldn't
get their landing gear down. While the airplane was in the air they tried all
sorts of things to no effect and the pilot finally brought the airplane in on
a belly landing. It was the first time foam was used on a runway to prevent
fire. Stewart played the pilot and I did the dispatcher. Jack converted the
tape into a radio script and it was a beauty. Unfortunately it was played
only in the hotel ballroom for the pilots. However, not all was lost. Years
later I was called to do a Johnny Dollar. I played an airline dispatcher in
Alaska and Johnny had to take over the flight of an airplane when the pilot
was disabled. But there was trouble with the plane. Jack had stolen his own
dialogue and plot.

Norman MacDonnell was a joy to work with. When I first met him he was a page
at CBS. He later became an assistant director and then a director-producer.
He was very quiet but he had a kind of innate courtesy and dignity. Other
directors threw cues. Norm seemed to just let them roll off the ends of his
fingers. He had great taste and a wonderful way of dealing with actors and
writers. I have a hunch that it came in handy in working with John Meston who
wrote almost all of the earlier Gunsmoke episodes. John was capable of some
bizarre and occasionally very gritty subject matter. Norm guided actors and
sound effects into a whole new channel of reality while maintaining dramatic
tension. Characters on Gunsmoke sounded like people, not actors, because he
took the time for them to do it. A character could not cross the street in
two seconds. As a result of this treatment, a Gunsmoke script was about half
the length of a Dragnet script which forced tempo in the other direction.
Rehearsals were always easy and fun. There was a feeling of mutual trust
among the personnel on MacDonnell shows and I think it contributed strongly
to a sense of unity in the finished product. That feeling held true on Escape
and Fort Laramie as well as Gunsmoke.

It seems that I have spent a large part of my life defending Jack Webb. I
guess my defense wasn't really necessary. He did all right without it. The
main bone of contention had to do with the accusation that everyone on
Dragnet spoke in the same monotone and that is patently not true. Jack's
Sergeant Friday spoke very rapidly and his voice range is quite limited. The
tempo of Dragnet as a whole was very rapid which means that the actors didn't
have the flexibility of choice they might have had with the same dialogue in
another show. The only restriction Jack placed on his actors was that he
didn't want them to project. He felt that brought a false note to what was
almost always an intimate setting. If one listens closely, he will find a
great deal of color and variety in the delivery of supporting actors and, in
cases where it is called for, a lot of shouting. It was more of a problem in
TV than in radio, but Jack's personal movement and speech was sometimes very
mannered. What was for him quite natural didn't always fit other people at
all. We sometimes differed on the reading of a line, a fact which he was
quick to point out. Sometimes I won. Mostly I couldn't argue with his
statement: I'm not saying this is the only way to read the line or even that
it is the right way. What I'm saying is that it is the only way to read the
line on this show! End of discussion.

I must include a director named George Allen. Over the period of a year or
more he directed two long-forgotten fifteen minute shows at CBS. One was
called It Couldn't Happen and the other was That's A Good Idea. Each
contained several short episodes involving a wide variety of people and I
liked working on it which I did almost every Saturday. It was a great place
to discover and experiment with voice doubles and I played all sorts of
characters. The general ambience of the show was a gentle shambles. Despite
his own opinion, George was not a great director. One of the regulars on the
show was Lew Merrill. Lew was basically a nice, kindly man but he could get
very prickly at times. One day, after he had stopped after every sentence to
give "directions" George made a strategic error. He tried to give Lew a line
reading. Lew flatly refused to read it that way and the atmosphere heated up
considerably. In an attempt to smooth things out George said, "Well directors
have to make a living, too". To which Lew replied, "Yes, but they don't have
to do it all at one time and in one place". At any rate, after some time
George was promoted to directing The Whistler and I suddenly noticed that I
wasn't getting any casting calls. I went up to his office to inquire about
this strange condition and was greeted with one of the stupidest statements I
ever heard. With all seriousness he said, "Well, you're just not the right
type for The Whistler". You can't win 'em all!

- ------------------
Harry Bartell maintains that his major accomplishment as a professional actor
for forty years was to survive with his mind, morale and marriage intact.

Born in 1913 in New Orleans, he grew up in Houston and graduated Phi Beta
Kappa from Rice University in 1933. After a stint at Harvard Business School
and a couple of years forced labor in a department store he moved to
Hollywood and stayed there for the next fifty-one years. Three seasons at the
Pasadena Playhouse led to work in 185 radio series and 77 TV series plus a
dozen or so properly forgettable motion pictures.

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