Radio Archives’s ninth set of Great Gildersleeve episodes featuring Harold Peary contains twelve episodes, all the circulating programs from September 19, 1943 to March 19, 1944. The bulk of the third season of Gildersleeve focuses on Gildersleeve’s love life. The over-arching through-line in the story is about the love triangle between himself, the very newly widowed Leila Ransom (Shirley Mitchell), and elementary school principal Eve Goodwin (Bea Benaderet), who both find themselves vying for Gildersleeve’s affections.
Beyond this, the episodes are mostly self-contained stories that cover a lot of ground. In one episode, Gildersleeve having agitated against the old water commissioner in the previous season, he finds himself in “hot water” when low water pressure becomes a problem. My favorite episode is “Sleight Ride”, in which Gildersleeve gets together some male friends in the hopes of getting Eve and Leila to join them. The episode is nice for some fun character interactions. It’s also a bit of a time capsule, capturing a practice that you don’t see anymore except for some really rural parts of the country. It was probably out of style by 1944 in most places, but it was a plausible good time to have in a small town where gas rationing limited how much people could drive. The set ends with Gildersleeve launching a mayoral run (and immediately trying to ditch an important meeting with a congressman for the sake of his social life.)
The relationship angle is the most prominent part of the set and also the most frustrating. Once again, this has nothing to do with Radio Archives, but with the episodes missing from circulation. Of the twenty-seven episodes that aired during this time period, there are only twelve in circulation, and the fourteen missing episodes come in chunks of three, seven, and four weeks, so you feel like you’ve missed a few important points in the ongoing romance angle.
Gildersleeve, as a great sitcom hero, manages to provide plenty of situations that lead to misunderstandings, mostly in understandable ways. He’s non-committal and wants to avoid making up his mind, and when he does, he manages to say the wrong thing and botch things up. And by the end of this set, due to his indecision, rivals are emerging for him in both women’s lives, so maybe we’ll write about a love pentagon in the next set. Of course, he’s not the only one to cause problems. In one episode, Leila tricks Gildersleeve’s cook, Birdie (Lillian Randolph), into letting her take Gildersleeve’s roast. A major issue in an era defined by meat rationing!
The only real issue with Gildersleeve that seems a bit too stupid to be funny is that he keeps actively working to bring Lelia and Eve together for social occasions. They don’t like each other, it’s awkward, and ends uncomfortably for him. There’s no logical in-universe reason to do it. It just makes the story a bit convenient for the writers.
Still, it doesn’t happen that often in twelve episodes, and the series is enjoyable, with a solid ongoing cast. And, as always, Radio Archives does a beautiful job with the transfers. If you’ve enjoyed past GIldersleeve sets, you’ll enjoy this one, even while wishing we could hear all the missing episodes in this collection.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5