Month: December 2021

Audio Drama Review: Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1, Week Three

This is the third part of our review of Radio Archives’ Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1 covering the third week of the series. For a look at an overview of the set, see the first week review.  Also see week two.

Oh Really, No O’ReillyIn a Western town that’s dying out since the railroad came through Denver, a crooked saloonkeeper and a dishonest undertaker engage a corrupt insurance salesman to take out a policy on a drunk drifter named O’Reilly when plans to poison him and collect the insurance money. That becomes a lot harder than they think. Golden Age Stars: Tyler McVey, Daws Butler, Marvin Miller, Don Diamond, Barney Phillips, and Howard Culver 

Review: This was based on a true story that was the basis of many stories including the 1955 Johnny Dollar serial “The Indestructible Mike Matter.” The story is hit and miss as a dark comedy but really does turn in a few very good plot twists at the end. Grade: B- 

The First National Radio Aptitude Test. An on-air radio aptitude quiz is conducted with some interesting answers.  Golden Age Stars: Alan Young, Marvin Miller, Daws Butler, Lillian Buyeff, Mary Jane Croft, Shepard Menken, Don Diamond, and Jerry Hausner 

This is a bit different. Andy Griffith gives a monologue about radio, its history, and the golden age of radio. I did have to chuckle when Griffin said he wouldn’t say anything about those headsets being worn by joggers and young people and wondered what he’d say to our modern world’s ubiquitous all-ages use of earbuds. He then sends the show over to a radio quiz master (Young) who provides a wacky quiz while receiving constant interruptions. 

There’s a lot to like. There are some funny jokes and if you’re a fan of the golden age of radio, there’s a boatload of talent from the era represented in this little production. 

On the other hand, this is a production that tries to overwhelm you with jokes, a lot of which don’t hit. There’s a Groucho Marx/You Bet Your Life parody that goes on too long. In addition, there’s a lack of logic. It was decided they wanted to include parodies of old time radio shows and poke fun at collectors, so without explanation they stop the quiz and do that. 

Still, this was entertaining. It plays well to nostalgia, has some funny bits, but could have been better. Grade: B 

The Mask: A businessman/art collector steals an old, sinister-looking mask from Africa with a bad reputation. He gets home and finds that reputation is deserved. Golden Age Star: Ben Wright 

This is an odd one, honestly. The businessman and a corrupt local official steal the mask and then the official is hospitalized with serious burns when his stove blows up and the businessman’s family start having minor fire-related injuries. Than the story has a twist…that’s almost absurd, but I think gives it a Twilight Zone feel to it. It does have some interesting turns, but there are also some flaws in the story logic. Still, it wasn’t a bad listen. Grade: B- 

For the Love of Laura: An actress and party girl frequently proposes marriage but never follows through until she asks herself who she’d really like to marry. Golden Age Stars: Janet Waldo, Shepard Menken,  Barney Phillips, and Vic Perrin.   

Janet Waldo does as good a job with the material as anyone could and the same can be said of all the actors. That said, Laura is just not a likeable character. The whole of the story is a combination of Laura leading men on, and imagining how good/how bad it might be to be married to each one.  She remains self-absorbed and shallow and strings each of these men along while she made up her mind. I will say she does show some character growth. She’s still shallow by the end, but not nearly as shallow as when she started. She’s self-absorbed but without being as foolish about it. 

I also think there are too many guys in the story. She has five beaus: a smart guy, a weightlifter, a golfer, her agent, and a guy who looks good but whose chief personality trait is breaking out a racist joke whenever there’s a lull in the conversion. Each time she remembers or fantasizes about one of them, she has to do it with each of them in turn. With so many male characters, they end up as shallow as her. If people wanted that much shallowness, they could just watch TV. Grade: C- 

Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby: More than a thousand years in the future, a couple are permitted by their government to get married and when they get a family-sized housing unit, they think the government is going to let them have a baby. They hope to be given a pink or blue card for their new baby. Instead, they’re horrified to draw a yellow card and find the extra room is designated for a seventy-five-year-old man who was cryogenically frozen in 1975 after having a near-fatal heart attack. Golden Age Stars: Herb Vigran, Marvin Miller 

This story deals with the idea of over-population, which was a huge environmental concern of the 1970s and 1980s. But I have to give writer Elliott Lewis credit for taking a different tact than many writers of the era. He doesn’t imagine some environmental cataclysm that wipes out the human race or humans going into space. He imagines humans continuing to find ways to survive until every inch of the planet is claimed and filled, the human population is in the trillions and has a powerful computer-led government running everyone’s lives, approving decisions to get married, where they can live, and how much food they’re given.  

The government that runs the plan does horrible things but is assured of it own beneficence, even stating so after having made a mistake that ruins this young couple’s life.  Whether you agree with or like Lewis’ setup, it was strikingly different. Of course, the radio program does dance around some of the ethical implications of this society.  

And it manages to get away with it because it acknowledges some broader human themes it chooses to explore through this world that manage to work. Herb Vigran is great as the man who finds himself more than a millennium out of time, awakened by Earth’s government because they need him for some purpose they don’t tell him. The character’s humanity pushes against a bureaucratic world. The character is very likable even as he makes questionable choices. 

The story also raises questions about the wisdom of cryogenic freezing, as it shows serious downsides with a little bit of upside at the end.

I do question its inclusion for a Friday program. Given its focus on having a baby, love, and relationships, this doesn’t fit with much with the “Adventure” theme Fridays were supposed to offer. Given a Sci-fi Comedy was played by comedy day, this might been a better fit on Thursday’s love day. 

Still, this merits a grade: B+ 

Our series will conclude on January 1st

EP3638: Tales of the Texas Rangers: Christmas Present

Two men, pretending to be charity Santas, hold up a bank on Christmas Eve.

Original Air Date: December 24, 1950

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Video Theater 218: Dragnet: The Big Little Jesus

Friday and Smith try to recover a stolen statue of the child Jesus for a church before the Christmas Mass.

Original Air Date: December 24, 1953

Season 3, Episode 17

EP3637: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Emil Carter Matter

John Lund

Johnny is invited to meet the prime suspect in the murder of an insured gangster.

Original Air Date: June 16, 1953

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EP3636: Philo Vance: The Cover Girl Murder Case

Vance investigates the murder of a top fashion model.

Original Air Date: December 26, 1946

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EP3635: Man Called X: Vienna

Herbert Marshall

The Man Called X goes to Vienna to investigate the death of a newspaper reporter and a feud between his two children…one of whom is connected to the Communist Party.

Original Air Date: June 22, 1951

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EP3634: Jeff Regan: The Smell of Magnolias

Regan’s hired by a songwriter who fears his nightclub singer/wife will be murdered.

Original Air Date: April 19, 1950

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EP3633: Casey, Crime Photographer: Fog

Stats Cotsworth

Casey and Ann go to a large fog-bound estate after Ann receives an anonymous letter warning of a jewel robbery.

Original Air Date: March 11, 1948

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Video Theater 217: Sherlock Holmes: The Christmas Pudding

A serial killer threatens to get Holmes before he’s executed. Episode 23 of the 1954-55 Sherlock Holmes series.

Original Air Date: April 4, 1955

Audio Drama Review: Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1, Week Two

This is the second part of our review of Radio Archives’ Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1 covering the second week of the series. For a look at an overview of the set, see the first week review.

The Mutiny Against George Washington: In the closing days of the Revolutionary War , there’s a mutiny at works led by Washington’s officers to overthrow the Continental Congress. 

Review:  A really strong piece. It doesn’t fit in the “Western” slot of Mutual Radio Theater, but it fits here better than anywhere else. The story has two parts. In 1775, as a member of the Continental Congress, the story shows how he’s chosen and takes command of an undisciplined continental rabble. In the second act, the war is effectively over, but the Treaty hasn’t been signed and the troops are waiting for pay after many false assurances from Congress.  

When I think of Fletcher Markle, I think of his behind the mike work on programs like Studio One during the Golden Age of Radio and he also was a producer and director on this seriesHowever, he does a magnificent job as Washington. The script takes a really interesting and nuanced view. It does inject some modern cynicism that certainly resonated with listeners a few years after Watergate and will still today. However, there’s also real respect for Washington even if he wasn’t the type of man who’d fit in 1980s society. It’s an intriguing story and my biggest problem is that it left me wishing this had been a multi-part story, because it was so interesting to listen to. Grade: A 

Let’s Play House: A couple plan to build a new house on a mountain but run into many obstacles. Golden Age stars: Frank Nelson, Vic Perrin, and Peggy Weber.  

Review: On the positive side, Andy Griffith does do a fair bit of narrating and I’m always up for hearing him tell a story. Also, Frank Nelson plays the typical sort of character he played with great success on the Jack Benny program. There were some funny moments in the story.  

But its big problem was that it doesn’t feel like a thirty-eight-minute radio play. The plot is essentially something like the movie The Money Pit but with new construction on a mountain instead of renovating a mansion. The story takes place over two years and jumps from comedic event to comedic event using exposition to fill the gaps. It also has really goofy incidental music that indicates that the story thinks its funnier than it is. This begins to grate after a while.   Grade: C- 

Double Exposure: A mob informant gets placed into the custody of an agency closely related to the government and is then given cosmetic surgery that he’s not told about until afterwards. The story opens with him disheveled in a fleabag hotel. The question is how did he get there? Golden Age Stars; Vic Perrin, Mary Jane Croft, Marvin Miller, Bill Zuckert 

Review: This was a really good crime/suspense story takes a lot of turns. The acting is generally solid, with strong performances from Croft and Perin. There’s a little bit of audio engineering issues when one character sounds like he’s not in the same room when he should. While this is distracting, this is still a fine story. Grade: B+ 

One Dollar Dream House: A young married couple move out of the Suburbs and become urban homesteaders, buying a large home in the middle of the city for $1 and beginning the process of rehabilitating. They also have a zeal to help make the world better, but can that withstand reality? Golden Age Stars: Ilene Tedrow, June Foray 

Review: This story becomes a bit of a counterpoint to the hapless yuppies building their dreamhouse on a mountain in the play two days before. I quite enjoyed this. The idea of “urban homesteaders” particularly in the context of buying, improving, and living in distressed property in urban zones with a minimal payment wasn’t anything I’d heard of, so I appreciated it from an educational level. I also liked the couple. They’re very sincere but run smack into reality. The story walks a fine line, it’s got great heart, but it doesn’t lose touch with the challenges of the real world.  

While like “Let’s Play House,” this play covered a long time period. It didn’t rely as much on narrator exposition but found less intrusive ways to let us know what happened. This type of thing could have the potential to be a really good radio or television series, as a heartfelt family drama in an unusual place. This was solid listening and I enjoyed it. Grade: B+ 

North to Marakesh:  A female reporter goes to Morocco to interview a warlord with grand ambitions. Fearing for her safety, her boyfriend (and competing male reporter) follows her. Golden Age Stars: Hans Conreid and Peggy Webber 

This story sets out promisingly enough with Leonard Nimoy giving great narration, setting the stage for an adventurous tale of danger involving this reporter going into harms way. Unfortunately, that’s the best part of the play.  It is horribly paced with a lot of humor added as padding. You can have a good adventure story with humor, but this uses it in the wrong way. It leaves you wondering how serious is the danger our heroes are going into? Through way too many conversations between characters, it takes more than half the play to get to the villain who’s not that interesting to start with. 

We’re told the female reporter is no fool, but she certainly talks like one in concluding the warlord isn’t a threat because he was educated in English schools. This despite the recent deaths of two reporters who went to interview them. The only remotely interesting character was a corrupt policeman turned guide. But that’s not enough to save this from being a big lowlight for the series so far. If not  for Nimoy’s opening narration, I would have graded this worse. Grade: D 

To be continued next week.

EP3632: Tales of the Texas Rangers: Clean Up

Ranger Jace Pearson and another ranger go undercover to uproot the corruption in an oil boomtown. They’ll start out by solving the murder of a wildcat oil operator.

Original Air Date: September 30, 1950

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EP3631: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Oklahoma Red Matter

John Lund

Johnny seeks to determine whether an owner of an insured race horse was justified in shooting him.

Original Air Date: June 9, 1953

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EP3630: Philo Vance: The Bulletin Murder Case

A newspaperwoman is murdered while on her way to interview Philo Vance.

Original Air Date: December 19, 1946

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EP3629: Man Called X: The Amazon River

Herbert Marshall

The Man Called X goes to a remote village along the Amazon where the production of rubber is being threatened by unrest among the local population after the murder of a Doctor friend of Ken Thurston.

Original Air Date: June 15, 1951

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EP3628: Jeff Regan: A Tree Grows in Encino

A man hires International to prove he murdered his wife three years ago

Original Air Date: April 5, 1950

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