Subject: [removed] Digest V2008 #64
From: [removed]@[removed]
Date: 3/10/2008 10:18 PM
To: [removed]@[removed]
Reply-to:
[removed]@[removed]

------------------------------


                            The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                              Volume 2008 : Issue 64
                         A Part of the [removed]!
                             [removed]
                                 ISSN: 1533-9289


                                 Today's Topics:

  Amos 'n' Andy                         [ "Sammy Jones" <sjones69@[removed] ]
  Apropos of Mr. Keen, a new thread     [ "Jan Bach" <janbach@[removed]; ]
  OTR Conventions                       [ Chargous@[removed] ]
  An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge     [ "Belpedio, Dr. James" <[removed] ]
  Keen on Keen                          [ skallisjr@[removed] ]
  Frank and Ann Hummert                 [ Mary Anne MOREL <mamorel@[removed]; ]
  Marr and mermaids                     [ "R. R. King" <kingrr@[removed]; ]
  More possible pre-Gillette radio She  [ "R. R. King" <kingrr@[removed]; ]
  3-11 births/deaths                    [ Ronald Sayles <bogusotr@[removed] ]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:50:28 -0400
From: "Sammy Jones" <sjones69@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Amos 'n' Andy

Friends,

Can point me in the right direction to a dealer or collector who has many of
the '20s and '30s Amos 'n' Andy episodes from the serial era?  There are
about 70 episodes that are listed in the RadioGoldinex, which means somebody
has a copy somewhere.

I have several that are in wide circulation:  the fur coat robbery storyline
from 1929, and the few serial episodes that were released on Radio
Yesteryear LP many years ago.  The others remains elusive to me.

The dealers and collectors I normally acquire shows from don't seem to have
them, and since Dave Goldin doesn't sell or actively trade anymore, I would
like to find someone who has good quality (low gen reels or CDs) of these
shows.

Thanks for any help and leads.

Sammy Jones

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:51:04 -0400
From: "Jan Bach" <janbach@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  Apropos of Mr. Keen, a new thread

Hello again --

I've been following with great interest the thread on Mr. Keen, tracer of
lost persons, because I too get a kick out of listening to its simplistic
dialogue and its formula programs (the murder is always done in the first
two minutes of the show with the murder victim describing exactly how he/she
will die, then someone drops by Mr. Keen's office to ask his help -- and
everyone he meets throughout the rest of the show always says, "You mean you
are Mr. Keen, the famous investigator?"). And the announcer says with such
conviction that this is "One of the most famous characters of American
fiction in one of radio's most thrilling dramas." Give me a break.

But lately I've been hooked on The Whistler, and through the magic of mp3 on
disk I am listening to the entire series from its first episode and after
forty episodes have yet to feel I'm in a rut. The show also was on for many
years, and its gimmick was borrowed from O. Henry: there was always a twist
in the plot in the last two minutes of the show which was entirely
unsuspected (at least by me). I also would venture to say that it has some
of the most believable dialogue of any radio mystery, with of course the
exception of the Whistler himself, who addresses the audience each week in a
wry, satirical, you'll-get-what's-coming-to-you manner.

And one of the pluses in this series is that so many episodes featured that
great actor Elliott Lewis in the leading role, and occasionally his wife
Cathy made appearances as well.

Jan Bach

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:00:16 -0400
From: Chargous@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  OTR Conventions

As I member of SPERDVAC, I find it disappointing that a convention might
not be out there.  However, I'm a pretty new member and don't really get
into the politics, I just enjoy their libraries.

I'm pretty lucky that I live in the town with the Cinci convention - it's
affordable, it's pretty intimate (more interactions with the OTR stars,
etc.)  I always look forward to the convention, and it's the highlight of
my OTR year.

If I could only go to one other convention, it'd probably be Newark,
because I've always wanted to see what that one was [removed]

I don't think the Mid-Atlantic is strictly OTR, but Martin Grams certainly
gets it on  promoting and spreading enthusiasm about a convention.  It
sounds like one of the most fun conventions, and seems to be the
up-and-coming one.

All the conventions are great and each has their advantages.  I would love
to go to all, East and West Coast!  I want them all to prosper.

That reminds me, I need to buy Martin's Sam Spade book at this convention.

Travis

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 09:47:15 -0400
From: "Belpedio, Dr. James" <[removed]@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

I do not have a radio script of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,
however I have a copy of the Ambrose Bierce short story and a video
(VHS)of the movie short. On what radio series was the story broad cast?
I am interested because I once gave a presentation in which I tried
(probably not successfully) to explain the many inconsistencies in the
plot of Hitchcock's Vertigo in terms of the Owl Creek Bridge story.

I would like to know when the story was broadcast and on which series. I
am guessing it was Suspense.

JBelpedio
Worcester, MA

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:03:23 -0400
From: skallisjr@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Keen on Keen

Larry Albert, anent Mr. Keen, asks,

Why then did a show like Mr. Keen thrive? Hard to say
from a 2008 perspective, if you heard a Keen show
from 1945 and then one from 1952 virtually
nothing has changed in the script structure and execution.

I find Mr. Keen as one of my guilty pleasures.  When I was growing up, I
used to listen to it as a serious crime drama, and my paternal
grandmother loved it.  Today, I enjoy it thoroughly because of its
unusual dialogue.  Every character always addresses each other character
by name every time he or she speaks to then, save at the very beginning,
when the victim addresses the killer.  Characters overdescribe
everything.  If I'm feeling irritated or grumpy, nothing can make me feel
in a better mood than listening to a Mr. Keen show.

Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:39:51 -0400
From: Mary Anne MOREL <mamorel@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Frank and Ann Hummert

"As any OTR collectors knows or soon learns Mr. Keen, Hearthstone of the
Death
Squad,Mr. Chameleon and dozens of sop operas were all the products of the
Frank and Ann Hummert radio factory Arrow Productions. All of their shows
that I have or have heard bear the same type of simplistic dialog and
character range.

 Greetings to OTR fans,

I'm a silent (but appreciative) reader of this list, who was interested to
read Larry Albert's comments about the Hummerts and their Arrow Productions
(of whom I was shamefully unaware until reading this letter). Was this couple
and their radio-for-the-masses "philosophy" used as the prototype for the
vacuous radio writing-and-producing team of the Manleighs in the 1949 film
Letter to Three Wives? The description is spot-on, anyway. If so, how did the
movie (and possibly the book, which I have not read) get away with such an
unflattering personal and professional characterization?  Was there any
Hummert response to this book or movie?

Thanks for some words of wisdom from those who know.

Mary Anne Morel

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:40:24 -0400
From: "R. R. King" <kingrr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  Marr and mermaids

1. The Spring 2008 issue of Perspectives, the alumni magazine of the
University of Missouri-Kansas City, has a very brief article that
mentions the J. David Goldin collection in the Marr Sound Archives,
the university's 290,000-item collection of sound recordings. A
downloadable pdf file of the entire issue is available at this site:

[removed]

The article reports that a half million dollar grant from the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation will, among other things, make it possible to
eventually search the ten thousand 16-inch, instantaneous-cut acetate
discs in the Goldin collection online. I wonder if they know about
[removed] ...

A Digester was just asking about places to donate some classical music
recordings on 16-inch discs. The article touts the twenty-year-old
Marr archive as being "known for its focus on American popular culture
and its jazz, operatic and classical recordings."

2. Speaking of RadioGOLDINdex, I went mermaid hunting over there and
came up with the following:

An adaptation of Oscar Wilde's "The Fisherman and His Soul" from "The
Columbia Workshop"

A version of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" from
"Let's Pretend"

A couple of mid-1950s episodes of "Romance": "A Big Fish Story" and
"Bill Gunn's Mermaid."

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:41:13 -0400
From: "R. R. King" <kingrr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject:  More possible pre-Gillette radio Sherlocks

When we last left our hero Sherlock Holmes, he was scheduled to
apppear on the WGY Players in November 1922, NBC's "Retold Tales" in
May-June-July 1929 and CBS' "Hank Simmons' Show Boat" in May 1930 (not
to mention his famous series debut with William Gillette in October
1930). Since then, he's been sighted five more times in the usual
computerized newspaper databases:

1. In 1929 and early 1930, Cincinatti station WLW aired a weekly
half-hour series called "Great Moments with Great Adventurers" which
apparently included sketches or scenes enacted by the station's
dramatic troupe, the Crosley Players, along with some sort of
discussion about the story.

The adventurers chosen for dramatization and discussion seem to be a
pretty broad assortment of figures from literature, myth and history.
Some of the scheduled shows in 1929 were: "William Walker, the
Filibuster," "Hercules, and the Rescue of Alcestis," "Sohrab and
Rustum," "Aladdin and His Lamp," "Helen of Troy," "The Story of
William Tell," "Ulysses and Circe," "Jimmy Valentine," "The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow," "Pasteur's Conquest of Hydrophobia," "The Shooting of
Dan McGrew," "Thor and His Magic Hammer," "Samson," "Theseus and the
Minotaur," "The Highwayman," "The Courtship of Miles Standish," George
Fitch's "At Good Old Siwash," and "Dr. Fu Manchu" (scheduled for 30
August -- I wonder if Sax Rohmer approved).

The adventurer scheduled for the 3 May 1929 program was Sherlock
Holmes, according to the 2 May 1929 Hamilton (OH) Daily News:

***
9:30--Great Moments with Great Adventurers; topic, "Sherlock Holmes
Solving the Mystery of 'The Speckled Band'."
***

The Hamilton (OH) Evening Journal confirms that Holmes is the
scheduled adventurer but without mentioning "The Speckled Band."

2. In the fall of 1929, Paramount released a film called "The Return
of Sherlock Holmes," starring Clive Brook. At that time, the studio
had its own CBS radio show, "The Paramount-Publix Radio Hour" and "a
dramatic presentation of a scene" (or scenes, depending on the
newspaper) from the movie was scheduled for the 19 October 1929
episode.

Speculation: If Brook himself recreated his movie Sherlock on that
date, he might qualify as the earliest actor to play the role on both
film and radio, beating out William Gillette by a year and a day.

3. An apparently humorous Holmes sketch was scheduled for an NBC
comedy-music series on 18 October 1929, according to that day's Kokomo
(IN) Tribune:

***
Four out of five is the quota of the redoubtable Sherlock Holmes and
likewise the plot of the "triadrama" which will be heard when Joe
Rines and his Triadors broadcast tonight at 7 o'clock.

Raymond Knight, author of the "triadrama" sketches, takes Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's favorite character from the library shelves and for the
amusement of the radio audience, provides a new mystery for the master
mind of fiction. Chester Gaylord, whispering serenader, and Joe Rines,
vocalist, are featured in the program.
***

According to an online finding aid, the Library of Congress has a
printed copy of the "October 18, 1929 program of the Triadrama show"
in its NBC history files.

4. CBS' "The Nit Wit Hour" had a Holmes comedy scheduled for 14
December 1929, according to that day's Fitchburg (MA) Sentinel:

***
The Nit Wit Dramatic Society will wax mysterious when on Saturday
night at 6:30, they will burlesque and broadcast "The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes." The jolly little Nit Wits have been working very
hard most of the summer and fall to successfully burlesque Sherlock
Holmes. The greatest discovery has, after long research, been
revealed. It will not be necessary, they say, to have Mr. Holmes wear
any whiskers in the radio adaptation. Of course no pipes will be
permitted. ...
***

5. Finally, here's a blurb from the 10 November 1929 Oakland (CA)
Tribune:

***
... Today the N. B. C. [KGO] has two new programs to offer in addition
to the usual schedule. At ... 3 the first of a series of detective
stories based on the adventures of Sherlock Holmes will be presented
as the "Sir Conan Doyle Series." ...
***

The San Mateo (CA) Times lists the show as "Sir Conan Doyle" but, the
following week and thereafter, it's listed as "Retold Tales." This
leads me to suspect that these are probably KGO rebroadcasts of the
Holmes scripts (or versions of them) used in the east on WJZ's "Retold
Tales" series earlier that year. Bicoastal script recycling was a
standard NBC practice at that time.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:55:49 -0400
From: Ronald Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio Digest Digest <[removed]@[removed];
Subject:  3-11 births/deaths

March 11th births

03-11-1862 - Frank Burt - NYC - d. 4-3-1964
writer: "The Six Shooter"; "The Unexpected"; "Hollywood Star Playhouse"
03-11-1887 - Raoul Walsh - NYC - d. 12-31-1980
film director: "Jack Benny Program"
03-11-1897 - Florence Belshaw - d. 4-xx-1976
pianist: KFAB Lincoln, Nebraska
03-11-1898 - Dorothy Gish - Massillon, OH - d. 6-4-1968
actor: Texaco Star Playhouse"; "[removed] Steel Hour"; "Lux Radio Theatre"
03-11-1900 - Andy Sannella - Brooklyn, NY - d. 12-10-1962
bandleader: "Campbell Soup Orchestra"; "Gillette Community Sing"
03-11-1903 - Lawrence Welk - Strasburg, ND - d. 5-17-1992
bandleader: "Lawrence Welk Orchestra"
03-11-1907 - Jessie Matthews - London, England - d. 8-19-1981
actor: Mrs. Mary Dale "The Dale's"
03-11-1909 - Karl Tunberg - Spokane, WA - d. 4-4-1992
film writer: "Lux Radio Theatre"
03-11-1909 - Ramona - Lockland, OH - d. 12-14-1972
singer, pianist: "Kraft Music Hall"; "Paul Whiteman's Musical Varities"
03-11-1912 - Jerry Seelen - d. 9-12-1981
songwriter: "Drene Time"
03-11-1915 - Dan Donaldson - St. Louis, MO - d. 12-1-1991
announcer: "Kitty Keene, Inc."; "Ma Perkins"
03-11-1918 - Grace McTernan - d. 11-6-1995
soprano: "Your America"
03-11-1919 - Mercer Ellington - Washington, [removed] - d. 2-8-1996
bandleader: (Son of Duke Ellington) "Genius of Duke"
03-11-1921 - Eloise McElhone - d. 7-1-1974
panelist: "Leave It to the Girls"
03-11-1922 - Vinnette Carroll - NYC - d. 11-5-2002
actor: "CBS Radio Mystery Theatre"
03-11-1930 - Lana Morris - Ruislip, England - d. 5-27-1998
actor: "The Forces Show"
03-11-1934 - Sam Donaldson - El Paso, TX
talk show host: "Live in America"
03-11-1952 - Douglas Adams - Cambridge, England - d. 5-11-2001
writer: "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"

March 11th deaths

01-14-1882 - Hendrick Van Loon - Rotterdam, Holland - d. 3-11-1944
journalist: "Very Truly Yours"; "Information Please"
01-17-1916 - Ray Forrest - Germany - d. 3-11-1999
staff announcer for NBC
02-02-1912 - Stefan Schnabel - Berlin, Germany - d. 3-11-1999
actor: Herbert Yost "Joyce Jordan, [removed]"
02-26-1921 - Betty Hutton - Battle Creek, MI - d. 3-11-2007
singer: "Radio Almanac"; "Radio Hall of Fame"; "[removed] Steel Hour"
03-31-1945 - Myfanwy Talog - Caerwys, Clwyd, Wales - d. 3-11-1995
actor: "Dark Encounter"
05-22-1914 - Ken Powell - d. 3-11-1976
announcer: "Chick Carter, Boy Detective"; "Nick Carter, Master
Detective"
06-09-1910 - Joseph Julian - St. Marys, PA - d. 3-11-1982
actor: Sandy Matson "Lorenzo Jones"; Archie Goodwin "Advs. of Nero
Wolfe"
06-14-1893 - Joe Forte - England - d. 3-11-1967
actor: Osgood Conklin "Our Miss Brooks"; Horowitz "Life with Luigi"
07-06-1918 - Gaylord Avery - d. 3-11-1996
announcer: "Gangbusters"; "My Son Jeep"
07-17-1889 - Erle Stanley Gardner - Malden, MA - d. 3-11-1970
creator, writer: "Advs. of Christopher London"; "Perry Mason"; "Life
in Your Hands"
08-25-1912 - Zinn Arthur - d. 3-11-2003
orchestra leader: WFIL Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
10-13-1912 - Hugh Weisgall - Eibenschutz, Moravia - d. 3-11-1997
composer: "CBS Radio Workshop"
10-24-1911 - Sonny Terry - Greensboro, NC - d. 3-11-1986
blues singer, harmonica player: "Hootenanny"; "Roomful of Music"
10-25-1888 - Richard E. Byrd - Winchester, VA - d. 3-11-1957
explorer: "Admiral Byrd Broadcasts"
10-27-1898 - Richard Carroll - Cambridge, MA - d. 3-11-1959
writer: "Shorty Bell"
11-15-1890 - Samuel Ornitz - NYC - d. 3-11-1957
hollywood ten screen writer: "House Unamerican Activities Committee"

Ron Sayles
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2008 Issue #64
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