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BEST SHORT STORY ADAPTATION (COMEDY)
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<<QURPRiSE for the Boys” has been selected for reprinting O not only for the comic excellence of the story itself but for the strong evidence of technical mastery in every scene of the adaptation. The basic idea of the story is simple; a dour and colorless convict, awaiting execution at Sing Sing, cheats the chair by telling his executioners that he has just swallowed a small cylinder of fulminate of mercury which will blow up the entire jail the instant an electric current passes through his body.
The comedy situations created by the author (Herbert Lewis, in Esquire Magazine) were considerable; but for successful conversion to radio the task of performing the complete story in dialogue, of keeping clearly before the listener the identity of fast scenes as they shift back and forth between the death house and the city room of a newspaper, of alternating scenes described and scenes dramatized, of maintaining suspense and of steadily accelerating pace — this task has also been considerable. From the point of view of broadcasting, the brilliance with which this has been effected marks the adapter, Victor Smith, as an extremely competent professional in this field.
“Surprise for the Boys” was heard over station WOR and the Mutual Network on Sunday, March 6, 1938, from 8:00 to 8:30 p.M. It was the first in a series of short story adaptations conceived, arranged, and presented by the Radio Division of the WPA Federal Theatre Project under the personal supervision of Leslie Evan Roberts, director of the Federal Theatre Radio Division in New York.
Surprise for the
by Herbert Lewis Adapted for radio by Victor Smith
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