------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2005 : Issue 146
A Part of the [removed]!
[removed]
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
The Dwindling Public Domain [ John Mayer <mayer@[removed]; ]
5-10 births/deaths [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
Ted Kneebone said about 'Quiet Pleas [ Herb Harrison <herbop@[removed] ]
Tennessee Jed [ Dick Bertel <dbertel@[removed]; ]
Re: Allen Recordings [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
LEST WE FORGET [ "ME!" <voxpop@[removed]; ]
re: Triumph [ chris chandler <chrischandler84@yah ]
Quiet, please [ "Ted Kneebone" <tkneebone1@[removed] ]
Least-liked, Most Poorly-Written Rad [ OTRadiofan@[removed] (Stuart Lubin) ]
Re: One Man's Family [ "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed]; ]
One Man's Family signoff [ chris chandler <chrischandler84@yah ]
Re:Best shows I never heard as a kid [ "R. R. King" <kingrr@[removed]; ]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 07:52:25 -0400
From: John Mayer <mayer@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: The Dwindling Public Domain
"David Tower" <dtower@[removed]; claimed:
Of Disney's first features, only Snow White seems to have been in
the public domain. Bambi (1942) and Dumbo (1941) were clearly under
copyright, and likely Pinnochio (1940) as well. Collodi dying in
1890.
I think the argument that Disney's success was based on exploiting
public domain sources simply falls apart.
I don't know what you mean by "SEEMS to have been in the public
domain;" either they were or they weren't. Off the top of my head: in
addition to _Snow White_ there's his early Academy Award Winner _The
Three Little Pigs_, _The Tortoise and the Hare_, the classical tunes
around which Carl Stalling built the _Silly Symphony_ scores, _Who
Killed Cock Robin_ (from a nursery rhyme), most of the music in
_Fantasia_ (I imagine _Rite of Spring_ was still under copyright),
_Wind in the Willows_ and _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow_ (_The
Adventurers of Ichabod and Mr. Toad_), _Cinderella_ and _Alice in
Wonderland_. And don't forget _Treasure Island_ And there were an
awful lot of _Wonderful World of Disney_ features drawn from public
domain, such as _The Adventures of the Scarecrow_.
But why limit his use of Public Domain to his early years? The Disney
studios continued to draw freely upon the public domain in later
years with _Sleeping Beauty, _The Jungle Book_ (one year after it
went PD, I gather), _Robin Hood_, _Beauty and the Beast_, _The Little
Mermaid_, _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_, _The Adventures of Alladin_,
_Mulan_ and probably others that don't occur to me. Whether Disney
paid the heirs of a foreign author for the rights to _Pinocchio_, a
story first published about 60 years earlier, seems far less likely
to me than to Mr. Tower, but I don't know for sure. As to _Bambi_,
yes, I gather Disney did pay a license fee initially to the heirs of
the Austrian author, but you might be amused to learn that in later
years Disney fought to avoid paying royalties to the author's heirs
by [removed] Guess what? ThaT _Bambi_ was now in the public domain.
After many years the matter was finally settled in the heirs' favor.
_Dumbo_ I know nothing about.
You'll note I have omitted _Peter Pan_. Like the title character, the
copyright for that work will never grow old; it goes on and on
forever. But then, that's in England; perhaps that special status has
not always been observed in the US.
Those who object to the studio's stand on copyright might want to
consider this: There are no "lost" Disney titles. Because the
backlist remains commercially viable, there is the incentive to
protect it.
Well, I imagine you'll find a hard time finding _Song of the South_
at Blockbusters. But I don't really give a mouse's red shorts what
Disney chooses to do with their own properties; it's the effect these
Draconian restrictions have on all OTHER intellectual properties
that troubles me.
For example, few of the movies of the 20's have much commercial
value; at least not enough for preservationists/distributors to track
down the rightful copyright holders or to risk lawsuit by failing to
do so. So many crumbling old films that might have been saved will
not, due to this "protection."
Had it not been for audiophiles willing to, technically, violate
copyrights to preserve programs their corporate owners had lost
interest in, most of our beloved OTR would not exist today. And, if
the public had been so badly served by our legislators in the matter
of Public Domain in the 40's and 50's as now, some of the most
stirring classical background music in the history of audio drama
would have been replaced by organ doodling. And the Lone Ranger would
never have ridden his great horse Silver out of a cloud of dust to
the thundering strains of the _William Tell [removed]
~ John Mayer
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 07:52:43 -0400
From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: 5-10 births/deaths
May 10th births/deaths
05-10-1888 - Max Steiner - Vienna, Austria - d. 12-28-1971
composer: "Lux Radio Theatre"
05-10-1894 - Dimitri Tiomkin - St. Petersburg, Russia - d. 11-11-1979
composer, conductor: "Last Man Out"; "1947 March of Dimes Campaign"
05-10-1894 - Frank Knight - St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada - d. 10-18-1973
actor, announcer: Dr. Billbert "Arabesque"; "Literary Digest"
05-10-1899 - Fred Astaire - Omaha, NE - d. 6-22-1987
dancer, actor: "Fred Astaire Show"
05-10-1899 - Lois Holmes - Galion, OH - d. 3-12-1986
actress: Jane Waters "Second Mrs. Burton"
05-10-1902 - David O. Selznick - Pittsburgh, PA - d. 6-22-1965
film producer: "Lux Radio Theatre"; "Bud's Bandwagon"
05-10-1907 - Pee Wee Hunt - Mount Healthy, OH - d. 6-22-1979
composer: "The Hoagy Carmichael Show"
05-10-1909 - Maybelle Carter - Nickelsville, VA - d. 10-23-1978
singer: (Queen of Country Music) "Grand Ole Opry"
05-10-1911 - Lee Sullivan - NYC - d. 5-29-1981
singer: "Vest Pocket Varieties"; "Serenade to America"
05-10-1914 - Charles McGraw - NYC - d. 7-30-1980
actor: Ken Thurston "Man Called X", "Dragnet"; "Suspense"
05-10-1917 - Margo - Mexico City, Mexico - d. 7-17-1985
actress: (Wife of Eddie Albert) "Suspense"; "Free Company"; "Texaco Star
Theatre"
05-10-1921 - Nancy Walker - Philadelphia, PA - d. 3-25-1992
actress: "Mail Call"
05-10-1922 - Mary Small - Baltimore, MD
singer: (Little Miss Bab-O) "Little Miss Bab-O's Surprise Party"
05-10-1937 - Arthur Kopit - NYC
writer: "Earplay"
May 10th deaths
01-25-1920 - Roy Rowan - d. 5-10-1998
announcer: "Escape"; "Gunsmoke"; "Rogers of the Gazette"; "Young Love"
02-06-1913 - John Lund - Rochester, NY - d. 5-10-1992
actor: Johnny Dollar "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar"; Chaplain Jim "Chaplain Jim"
02-07-1895 - Irving Aaronson - NYC - d. 5-10-1963
orchestra leader: Big Band Remotes
02-13-1932 - Susan Oliver - NYC - d. 5-10-1990
actress: "Zero Hour"
03-23-1905 - Joan Crawford - San Antonio, TX - d. 5-10-1977
actress: "Arch Oboler's Plays"; "Everyman's Theatre"; "Screen Guild Theatre"
06-28-1914 - Lester Flatt - Overton County, TN - d. 5-10-1979
bluegrass guitarist: (Flatt and Scruggs) "Martha White Biscuit Time"; "Grand
Ole Opry"
07-08-1918 - Craig Stevens - Liberty, MO - d. 5-10-2000
actor: "Hollywood Radio Theatre"
10-04-1929 - Scotty Beckett - CA - d. 5-10-1968
actor: Chester A. Riley, Jr. "Life of Riley"
12-02-1917 - Sylvia Syms - NYC - d. 5-10-1992
actress: "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar"; "Broadway Is My Beat"; "Suspense"
12-31-1905 - Dick Chevillat - NYC - d. 5-10-1984
writer: "Phil Harris/Alice Faye Show"; "Rudy Vallee Show"
--
Ron Sayles
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 07:53:30 -0400
From: Herb Harrison <herbop@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Ted Kneebone said about 'Quiet Please':
Ted Kneebone said about 'Quiet Please':
And I never heard this show as a kid. Thank God for the gift of growing old
and electrical transcriptions (even the scratchy ones)! And for people who
saved them.
Absolutely right. Many (perhaps most) of us did not hear the OTR programs
when they originally aired, and there was nothing like today's "TV Land"
cable channel so we could catch re-re-re-re-runs of shows of the past. If
it wasn't for people who saved copies of the OTR shows that we're
discussing now, we would not be able to rate them as bad or good - because
they wouldn't exist anymore.
And as for the copyright problem: I would like to see more "sound
creations" liberated, so that the company that bought a company that bought
a company that bought a company's assets can't tie up a creation for a
hundred years that should be in the public domain.
How many of us could afford to offer an opinion here if we had to pay
$5-$20 to listen to each episode in a series we wanted to rate?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 07:54:05 -0400
From: Dick Bertel <dbertel@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Tennessee Jed
Does anyone recall a transcribed series called Tennessee Jed?
It was not a favorite of mine but I do recall that aometime in the 40's
WJZ, New York, which carried Jack Armstrong and the other Blue Network
kid shows starting running it at 5:45 in the afternoon. I remember it
sounded muffled to me and even then I knew I was listening to a recorded
show. I never became a fan and switched to WOR at 5:45 instead.
And what was the network show WJZ was blocking at 5:45?
Dick Bertel
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 09:50:20 -0400
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: Allen Recordings
On 5/10/05 8:08 AM [removed]@[removed] wrote:
The important question is who currently holds the copyright in those programs
and whether
the BPL could legally release them if it wanted to. Just because the BPL has
recordings
doesn't mean they own the intellectual property rights.
The Trustees of the BPL are the literary executors of the Allen estate,
which would seem to indicate that they do control at least the script
portions of the programs. The recordings themselves, however, are owned
by NBC, since the tapes made for Portland in 1963 are merely dubbed
copies of the original discs recorded by the NBC Radio Recording Division
and retained in the NBC Central Files until they were donated to the
Library of Congress.
It would seem likely that legal reissue of the Allen material would
therefore have to be cleared both by the Trustees and by NBC. The
intellectual property rights and the actual copyright on the recordings
themselves would be two different issues to resolve.
For what it's worth, there's an additional set of copies of the NBC Allen
programs at the Museum of Television and Radio, which were not derived
from the "Portland" tapes. The MTR recordings instead were taken from the
LOC discs and are better audio quality, although the discs themselves
have their share of defects. They may be heard by anyone who cares to go
to either MTR location.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 11:02:51 -0400
From: "ME!" <voxpop@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: LEST WE FORGET
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain
"Lorenzo was a character to the townspeople but not to his wife Belle
who loved him"
--
On my death bed, I intend to say,"I wish I had spent more time at the
office." I think it would be cool to be the first person to ever do that.
*** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
*** as the sender intended. ***
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 11:04:30 -0400
From: chris chandler <chrischandler84@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: re: Triumph
Paul Adomites and wife listened to 'On A Note of
Triumph', [removed]
we both thought it was utterly marvelous. Your
reactions?
Well, since you [removed] :) Personally, I find
'Triumph' to be to overly long,
pedantic, and even a little patronizing to the very
soldiers to whom it purports to pay tribute.
That's not to say there aren't rosier opinions,
naturally, or that the production isn't worthy of
remembrance. But I've yet to hear from a European war
veteran who spent VE night lying on a cot pondering
the nature of fascism, for example, as in Corwin's
imagining. Rather, at least to judge by the actual
soldiers quoted and interviewed on every network's
news coverage that day, they were pondering instead
whether and how soon they'd be shipped off to the
Pacific, and whether they'd get to visit home first.
Fact is, there was *so* much excellent work put on the
air that victory day, news AND drama; considered in
the more complete context, "Triumph" frankly doesn't
loom nearly as large. NBC's "Milestones on the Road
to Victory" was a lavish, flawlessly-produced
docudrama that managed to be thought-provoking without
telling you what to think. CBS's "Service to the
Front" staged a deeply moving,
stop-what-you're-doing-and-pay-attention ode to
homefront women who'd endured a "special kind of
waiting"--and now prepared to do so again, as the war
on Japan took center stage. Even low-rent Mutual
broadcast a goosebump-inspiring BBC pickup of hymns
from a small British church--with the choir lifting
its voice not only to the congregation, but also to
the ages. Literally unforgettable.
And of course NBC's easy-to-dismiss regular comedy
lineup, Fibber and Molly and Bob Hope, which enjoyed
audiences more than double those of Norman Corwin's,
yet somehow get far less than twice the contemporary
remembrance. It's another example of the results of
lazy, elitist modern broadcast 'historians' falling
right in line behind an elitist, pliantly
Columbia-centric 1940s press establishment, and thus
proving themselves oblivious to the broader, more
accurate portrayal of events.
I'm by no means dissing Corwin's contribution to
posterity, though I'd say an objective critic has to
rank "Triumph" somewhere well below "14 August" and
"We Hold These Truths" in the Corwin pantheon. Still,
presenting one more worshipful encore of this single
broadcast is missing still one more opportunity to
delve into the much richer story of radio on VE
day--not only those other programs I mentioned, but
the stories 'behind' the air product: how the very
*presence* of "Triumph" and the other CBS tributes was
likely the conscious result of the competitive
spanking the network had taken a year earlier on
D-Day; whether and why CBS, New York in particular
seemed obsessed with the war in Europe to the
exclusion of the conflict in the Pacific, and was
thusly out-of-step with the much of the country.
"Triumph" deserves to be remembered, but not all on
its own. Something to consider. :)
chris
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 11:53:30 -0400
From: "Ted Kneebone" <tkneebone1@[removed];
To: "Old Time Radio Digest" <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Quiet, please
Jim Widner commented on the geniuses of Quite, Please -- and I surely agree.
Minimal use of sound effects and speaking to one person in his listening
audience were hallmarks of Cooper's and Chappel's gifts to us. Another
feature that I appreciate was Bert Berman's organ sound design. Often he
became the sound effects person. The organ made the sounds and helped to
set the mood.
In the modern era, we can listen to the BBC re-creations of the Sherlock
Holmes stories with Merison/Williams and find the same kind of
understatement. There are sound effects, but they are sparingly used, and I
think most of them were "live." And the music usually is a single violin!
No need for a full orchestra.
The intimacy of radio can never be duplicated by television, movies, or the
stage. And most of that potential has been replaced by talk, news, and
recorded music.
Speaking of music, I recall some program that used a single harmonica very
effectively. Wonder what that show was?
Ted Kneebone. OTR website: [removed]
Democrats: [removed]
1528 S. Grant St., Aberdeen, SD 57401 / Phone: 605-226-3344
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 12:00:52 -0400
From: OTRadiofan@[removed] (Stuart Lubin)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Least-liked, Most Poorly-Written Radio Program
My vote for the most poorly-written radio program was "Broadway's My
Beat". I was a great fan of Larry Thor, and that's why I tried, week
after week, to listen and absorb. I could also recognize the supporting
cast of great West Coast radio actors. I could never understand what
was happening on that show. As an adult, into the hobby 50 years later,
I listened to a copy, and I still didn't enjoy the writing. I guess it
is just a matter of taste because the show had some of the finest talent
in Hollywood radio: writers, Morton Fine and David Friedkin;
producer-director Elliott Lewis, as well as lead Thor, who was a staff
announcer as well, of programs emanating from CBS' Pacific West Coast
headquarters. Thor also did local newscasts for KNX, Los Angeles. He
was a multi-talented man. Dunning even refers to "BMB" as a
"better-than-average police show". This only proves that there is no
accounting for taste.
Stuart Lubin
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 13:55:08 -0400
From: "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: One Man's Family
While I have no concrete proof, I have been let to believe
(as apparently Morse did too) that some NBC affiliates
chose to broadcast the remaining chapters that had
already been produced.
Ed Titus (Historian for One Man's Family Family)
Have you checked the bound NBC logs that are now in the Library of
Congress? NBC did not have any secondary national wireline connections at
that time, I believe, and if the extra programs were fed either from or
thru New York, they should show up there even if it was not used by the
entire network nor aired by the New York City affiliate. Usually there
would be a list of the stations that did air it. Of course these programs
could have been shipped out on tape to the stations, or fed late at night
for an overnight recording. If they were fed from [removed] and did not pass
thru NYC, they might not be on the logs.
Michael Biel mbiel@[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 13:56:09 -0400
From: chris chandler <chrischandler84@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: One Man's Family signoff
Ed Titus weighs [removed]
I have been let to believe (as apparently Morse
did too) that some NBC affiliates chose to broadcast
the remaining chapters that had already been
produced.
I think my buddy Jim Cox may have been at least
partially quoting me the other day, so I'll just add
that it would be satisfying to have this lingering
mystery settled once and for all.
Historians like (also my buddy) Ed Titus and John
Dunning have indeed been led to believe that "some"
stations carried the series for two more weeks, but
realistically, it's just very very unlikely. It's
simply not the way the business works, and indeed NBC
premiered a cheesy romance anthology show in the old
OMF slot on Monday, April 27, 1959--there was no gap
in the NBC daytime schedule (except for the one in the
executives heads!)
A fun question, on this subject, is what would have
happened *if* OMF had been allowed to carry on another
year or so. When it left the air, the series was
absolutely reeling from the (permanent? temporary?)
departure of leading lady Bernice Berwin--it had left
a much more obvious gaping hole that I'd ever have
imagined, and whatever the intention, constant on-air
references to her character only served to remind
listeners of her absence. It would be fun to learn
how they managed to finally settled this problem.
On the other hand, and somewhat astonishingly, the
material the series was producing as late as February,
1959 (Penny is shot at Joan's wedding) was as good as
anything they'd done in years--so the old girl may
well have had plenty of life left, if given the
chance.
chris
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 14:51:09 -0400
From: "R. R. King" <kingrr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re:Best shows I never heard as a [removed]
He is at his best when the protagonist is speaking
to the listener, which Cooper often did even in some
of his works which are not part of QUIET, PLEASE such
as "The Signal Man" from LIGHTS OUT. Cooper's use of
the inner voice is superb.
I agree with what's said here, but Cooper apparently did not write
"The Signal-Man" episode from the 1946 revival of "Lights Out." The
announcer credits it to Frederick J. Lipp, I believe. The 1945, '46
and '47 summer revivals of LO mainly use scripts that Cooper wrote for
the series in 1934-1936 but, for some reason, "The Signal-Man" doesn't
seem to be one of them.
Of the circulating LO episodes by Cooper that I have heard, two have
first person narration: "The Haunted Cell" and "Man in the Middle."
These are apparently not the original titles of the scripts. "Man in
the Middle," for example, was originally called "After Five O'Clock,"
when it was broadcast in Chicago in March '35, according to the
Chicago Tribune. It's an unusual episode with the kind of
stream-of-consciousness narration that would later be associated with
Arch Oboler. The plot concerns a businessman who carries on an affair
with his secretary and has to deal with the secretary's brother and
his own wife. All during these encounters we hear the thoughts in his
head commenting on the drama as it unfolds.
"The Haunted Cell," which may have been broadcast in February '35
under the title, "The Death Cell" (at least, there's an episode with
that title in the Chicago Tribune's radio listings), has a first
person narration which makes it seem like a virtual blueprint for
Cooper's "Quiet Please" series. This one is about a murder suspect who
tells of how the Chicago police, unable to beat a confession out of
him, lock him up in a supposedly haunted jail cell. There's a
marvelous QP episode called "Good Ghost" which is sort of a companion
piece.
[I notice, by the way, that the Library of Congress claims to have a
recording of Cooper's "The Rocket Ship" from the '45 LO season. Is
this circulating? There's a similarly-titled Oboler episode ("Rocket
from Manahattan") in circulation which seems to be from the '45 season
of "Arch Oboler's Plays" but which sometimes masquerades as LO's "The
Rocket Ship."]
One of the interesting things about "Quiet, Please," is that many of
Cooper's protagonists not only address the listener but are usually
well aware of the fact that they are communicating by radio,
referencing the medium itself.
--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2005 Issue #146
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