The 11th Volume of the Radio Archives collection begins with the start of The Great Gildersleeve’s fourth season on the radio, with Harold Peary starring as Gildersleeve during the 1944-1945 radio season. It collects twelve of the first fourteen episodes from the fall of 1944.
After big arcs in the previous two seasons (around Gildersleeve’s romance with Leila Ransom (Shirley Mitchell) in Season 2 and around his engagement to Eve Goodwin (Bea Bernadette) and his run for mayor in Season 3), Season 4 sees Gildersleeve promising to avoid getting too serious with anyone, and he keeps that promise as far as he can.
There are actually two shorter story arcs in this set, as well as some episodes that feel more stand-alone.
The season begins by shaking up the status quo. Gildersleeve is fired as Water Commissioner in the very first episode, by the man who bested him in the mayoral primary at the end of Season Three. Whether the decision by the mayor was politically motivated is something the series doesn’t address. If it was, though, Gildersleeve gives him an excuse. The season opener has probably the most ironic ending in the entire box set.
The stories after GIldersleeve is fired as water commissioner of Summerfield and therefore unemployed have some ups and downs, not helped by the show forgetting continuity about the family’s financial situation and Gildersleeve’s own prosperous past when it feels convenient. The overarching idea of the story is that Fibber McGee (from Fibber McGee and Molly) has come up with a post-war plan for a new mouse trap which Gildersleeve is pursuing. It doesn’t appear that this was actually a plot point on Fibber McGee and Molly at the time, so it appears McGee is acting off-air.
I didn’t care much for the plotline. There are some funny individual moments, but the mouse trap scheme is so thin, uninspired, and doomed to fail that it feels like a pointless McGuffin to center plots around. Probably the most interesting aspect of this whole series of episodes is when McGee is looking for a job and has a minute where he and a guest character discuss their feelings of uncertainty about the post-War economic future, as, even with the war still ongoing, some war manufacturing operations are winding down. Given the general positive vibe of the series on the war, that is a fascinating moment.
The second plot arc happens toward the end of the box set and it involves Gildersleeve and Judge Hooker (Earle Ross) trying to help a Spanish dance instructor get started in Summerfield. The judge is interested in her, and Gildersleeve tries to be supportive but is clearly attracted to her. There’s a failed party thrown by Gildersleeve to help her promote her business. Then events conspire to lead her to think Gildersleeve has proposed, and the box set ends up on one of the classic tropes of Golden Age comedy, the breach of promise suit. It’s the more funny and interesting plot and hopefully, there will be more resolution in Volume 12, although that volume has far more missing episodes than this one.
Outside of the overall arcs, the biggest thing to happen in this season is the formation of the Jolly Boys Club. This group would formalize the fraternity of Gildersleeve and his closest friends and also lend themselves to some great acapella performances of great standards of the era.
There is also a nice election day program that begins with comedy and political bluster, but ends up striking the most patriotic tone of any episode so far in this season.
Beyond the individual episodes, what impresses me is how lived-in Summerfield feels in these episodes. When I was listening to the first season, I was struck by how the only real characters throughout the season were Gildersleeve, his niece Marjorie (Lurene Tuttle), his nephew, Leroy, the family Cook (Birdie), and Judge Hooker.
At this point, the series regular supporting characters include Peavey, the druggist (Richard LeGrand), and Floyd the Barber (Arthur Q. Bryan) with both of Gildersleeve’s ex-fiancées continuing to make regular appearances. And there are also a number of recurring characters as well. Not everyone is in every episode, but as Season 4 starts, Summerfield easily feels like a real-world community, rather than just a staging area for a sitcom.
As usual, Radio Archives features a high audio quality on this set. All in all, these are a decent run of episodes. While I do think the first story arc was a bit lacking, the rest of the episodes more than make up for it. And the birth of the Jolly Boys club is something every fan of The Great Gildersleeve should listen to.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
