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for January 1935
69
Looking behind the dials to see the stars you like to hear on the air
Phil Baker, above, whose spontaneous comedy adds spice to the diet of listeners-in, talks a little "shop" for SCREENLAND'S readers.
Mary Pickford has become one of radio's most popular stars almost over-night, an astonishing accomplishment even for one of the screen's most popular figures. The Pickford magnetism found no difficulty in projecting itself via the air.
Paul Gulick, billed as "The Man Who Knows Hollywood" — and he does, you'll agree if you have heard his talks about screen stars.
NIGHT after night large numbers of radio's "great unseen audience" have a way of becoming decidedly visible. Indeed, they can be observed, "in the flesh," by radio stars who work before microphones in capacious studios accommodating all the way from fifty to fifteen hundred spectators.
Just how many people attend these broadcasts, or what percentage finds any real amusement in the experience, I wouldn't know. But as far as concerns radio itself, and the entertainment it is designed to afford, it's a question if the fans gain anything more than satisfaction of mere curiosity over the mechanicsof the business by looking on at performances that are contrived solely to be listened to.
Far be it from this corner to insinuate that radio fans should deliberately shun an opportunity to see a broadcast. But at the same time no tears will be shed in this quarter over the alleged plight of some enthusiast who is just cuhrasy to see a broadcast but can't because there is no important stud io in that neck of the woods. It just doesn't seem that future enjoyment of programs can be enhanced for the fan merely by having the curiosity over the mechanics satisfied.
If you would like to know, along about here, what brought this up, blame Phil Baker. You can do that with an easy conscience for two reasons. In the first
place Baker brought this to mind in a talk I had with him during one of his rehearsals and later at a broadcast at which I was a spectator ; and in the second place Baker must be used to abuse by this time — what with his stooge "Beetle" around all the time !
"To anybody with my background, that is the stage," Phil said, "working without an audience in the studio would be pretty tough, especially for a comedian. But there's a fly in the ointment. The radio audience naturally wants to know how the wheels go round, and they are not out to be entertained like the audience that goes into a theatre, settles back in the chairs and is ready to be amused.
"Why, I have seen somebody, right at the top of some comedy gag, look around toward the back of the studio to see what was going on in the control-room. Boy, what a feeling that gives you when vour gag is being delivered and others in the audience follow the gaze of the first person who suddenly decides to look around !"
If that isn't enough to slay any comedian, send him into a panic, you will have to think up something to top it — I can't, and I doubt if Baker or any other stage comedian can.
Later, at his Friday night broadcast, I did not see anybody do exactly that. But I did see that Phil Baker was working under a tension until the actual show started, and even then, while (Continued on page 80)