Variety (Apr 1941)

80 RADIO REVIEWS Wednesday, April 9, 1941 ppBbTHT KILGALLEN fbie Voice of Broadway' With Allan Slnart IS Mlns. ■ : dUNSON & JOHNSON Saturday, 11:30 a.m. .: WABC-^GBS, New York - : (Young & Rulbicom) Dorothy Kilgallen, columnist of the g\."Yi Journal-American is dishing aturday. mornings on 59 CBS sta- tions. .What she dishes is; standard chit-chat about the great narhes of the show world and the cofinoscenti; : It has a plausible air of being good, lively stuff. Both as the getter of ,the Ihfo and the voice that, f'eads it, Miss Kilgallen clicked nicely- on her,-first broadcast. The prograni sounded like a str6hg Saturday entry and a •ehsible buy for Johnson & Johnson, which seeks thereby to hypo the sale of Its baridraids, or home bandages. '. It was av crowded quarter hour, with lots o'f names and itemsi several full-bodied commercials from Allan Stuart and a guest appearance by -Raymond Massey. Oh the whole Miss Kilgallen delivered a lot, even allowing for. the agency to. get in its . points.- ■ . - . i What seemed laboted at moments • was the script as converted into radio by a writer presumably bthef than Miss Kilgallen. At: least it sounded Ske It was her stuff put in-some^ ody else's words. .The script seemed to reflect a fear of allowing the columnist to. talk top consecutively. Aiinouncer Stuart/broke: in some- times jiist for thie sake of having ■oriiebody break in. Also the ear de- tected a straining for informality— a studied, deliberate, ; trying-hard* stylized inlorinality. Instead of just being natui'al. Most abused and most phoyney-souhding adjective employed was 'swell;' It kept popping up. : Miss Kilgallen gets, around, -knows her realm, has news sense;; A little help irbm the announcer will suffice. Too much intrusion by Allan Stuart with questions and cliches arid . 'swells' will only detract from what the program is selling, which is Kil- .fallen, ■■: News Is mingled With fashion com- ment. There, are romantic predictions aad little details about big names. Mrs. Huntington Astor's short. man- like . fingernails, Dolores Del Rio's dance frbcfc at EI Morocco, Tyrone Power's restoried health, the. lily at Fannie Hurst's waistline were ex- Smples.. One. of. show business'most eartenlng loyaltieis, jCrrace Moore'g well-known devotion to her sick iusband, was mentioned. This Is not a.'swell' program. But It Is an interesting one. > Land, SCAVENGER HUNT SO Mlns.—Local PUBLIC SERVICE BUS CO. frlday, 10:30 p.m. ITIV. Pblladelphla . A travel atidiehce participation projsram which provides chuckles for listeners. Each night during the Week at 6:45 announcer discloses one Item to be found during the week's scavenger hunt. Finders of each of the Items - thiis announced are eligible to. appear on broadcast, tell about most difficult one to get, an- swer a question, and recite a jingle about the bus sponsor. . Winners get four major prizes .(portable radio; wrist watch, trip to Atlantic City, and tickets - to Fox theatre). At catching scavengers brought in a Chinese laundry ticket, a 1914 . newspaper, 30 burned-out electric bulbs, a cop's nightstick, a ouija board, a cuckoo clock, and . man with a tatoo on his chest. Lat- ter item provided most giggles; John Bennett, staff gabber, han- dles program smoothly, with straight spieling broken up by organ music. Shot., JOE EMERSON <Bymi» of All ChnreW 16 Mlns. GENERAL MILLS M-T-T, 9:45 a.m. WABC-CBS. New York. (BlatifccftiiSompIc-Hummert) ,jQje Emerson is back again with his familiar hymn-singing three mornings a week 6ver CBS, out of Chicago, for General Illills <Gold Medal flour). *Betty Crocker' has the Wednesday and Friday editions of THE AMAZING MR. SMITH' With Keenan Wynn. Charlie Cantor, Elizabeth Reller, John Brown, Santos Ortega, Ward Wilson, Allen Drake, Cliff Carpenter, Brad . Barker, Harry Von Zell, Harry Salter orcli. 30 Mins. AMERICAN CAN CO. Monday, 8 p.m. WOB-MUtiial, New York (Yottng & Rubicatn) - Comedy-whodunit series is the first ever placed on: Mutual by the Young, & Rubicam agency. It's something of; a\ hybrid of. half-hour night- time dramatic thriller with a sort: of Bob HoperMiltori'. Berle brand,: of wise-cracking. . Premiere edition Monday .(7) night had distinct prorti- ise, but revealed the need of doctor- ing before the formula can be set for a click. It also derhonstrated that scripters Martin Gbsch and Howard: Harris must maintain a headlong pace If the series isn't Inevitably; to run downhill. 'Starred' on the show are Keenan Wynn, legit act6r-;S6n. of Ed : Wynn getting his^ first netWork break, and Charlie Cantor, vet character comic regularly oh the Fred Allen and Kate Smith . programs; Wynn plays the title part of Gregory Smith, 'a young man with ah amazing knack of at- tracting trouble' and with a brash style of comedy delivery. Cantor plays his dumb-lug valet, chauffeur, stooge, and general mari-of-all-dirty- jobs. Opening yarn Was the 'StOry of the Hooting Owl,' a concoction about murder: _and \ assorted 'skull-, duggery at Montauk Point, Lpng Island. It abounded with .creepy situations and sound effects arid had a number .of potent chuckles. As samples , of the 'comedy, :Wynn ari- swered k spooky gas station attend- ant with the crack, 'All right, Orson, how do we get there?' and later rer. lerred to the guy as a 'road eonipany Dracula.' He described the haurited Gilmore riiarision as 'Wuthering Heights with a hangover' and greeted the heroine; 'Want to hold hands? •No?. Okay, let's neck.'• • For the initial stanza, the show had a studio audience, which is all right for: comedy, but gerierally riot considered desirable for : draniatic programs. It's effect in this case: Was questionable,' as the sound of laughter undoubtedly hypoed the . comedy moments for the listener, but it tended to destroy the illusion-at other points and made the comedy lines that faUed to dtaw laughs fall flat. Whether due to inherent script weaknesses or because a program of this tyije won't hold up for .2S min- utes without a break, the opening session tended to sag in th^ middle. It may be :that: a commercial at that point would be fatal—on the other hand, the interruption might provide needed lift. .: • Wynn and, Cantor jvere excellent on this debut shoW, both individually and as a team.: Their contrasting styles are nicely adapted to the ma- terial Gosch and Harris have writ- ten for them: arid each is a funhy guy on his own. Harry Salter's mu- sical backgrounds and bridging were expressive, though occasionally slow on. the pickup. ■ .George McGarrett's direction seemed firm and deft for a preem. Harry VorivZell read the commer-. cials, merely an Identification as the opening, and a brief institutional at the close of the debut, but doubtless due to mushroom on future editions. •■ Hobc, ♦ ♦ ♦ » ♦ » ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ » ♦ ♦ » \. Fo9iow-Up Comment I ,» » » » ■ » ♦ ♦ # ♦» ♦ ♦»♦♦♦ ■ » ♦ ♦ > ♦ Jack Benny had one of the fun- niest shows Sunday; (6) night iii many weieks, with four Alka-Seltzer 'Quiz Kids' from Chiiuago as his. spe- cial guests for the occasion; Pro- gram was patterned as a contest be- tween the nioppets and the: JellO KidSi consisting of :Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Dennis Day: iand Don Wilson; SiErioushess was strictly taboo, however, with the youngsters answering genuinely tough questions arid the grownups floundering on the most palpable kind of setups-^all ob- viously rehearsed but still goofy eribugh to break up the urchins sev- ^9l;times.-' _ ■■..;'■: '•:■;:.:■ Orson Welles' contribution last Sunday (6) to the Free . Company series (CBS) proved one of the most provocative of them all so far.; It'was a potent blerid of inductive reaSon- ini? arid: dramatic exposition. Welles, who did the writing, casting and di^ recting bf the-program arid who also functioned as narrator, elected to Sroject his story, 'His Honor the layor/, by stating the question, and. after showing how his own protago- nist had answered it, by leaving it to the listeners to decide whether they would have acted the same way. un- der like circumstances.. The ques- tion concerned the right of free a'sr; sembly as guaranteed under the'bill of rights,, and the protagonist was thie maybr of a small town who was' faced with the problem of suppress- ing a riieeting of locail secret shirt organization. Despite his contempt for: arid opoosition to the leader and tenets 6t the latter ^roup. this law officer defies the. overwhelming wishes of the townsriien and refuses to Inteirfere With the meetihe.: He insists on interpreting the Bill of Rights literally,: holding that as Ibng as the incident comes within.the law it must be protected., because once a corrimuriity; starts making exceptions rio one kitows When the sariie process will be exercised to suppress other and far less anti-.«!ocial groups. In every department Welles showed his command of the medium, while a big batch of credit Is due Ray Collins for; his reading of the mayor part. Franklin P. Adams, again declared, alriiost boosted, on last week's 'Infor- matiori, Please' that 'I do not listen to radio.':. Statement, making of which seemed doubtful wisdom arid showmanship, before a nation wide audience listening via a medium in which Adams has been earning a sizeable stipend for several yearsj came as a followup to a question about the identity of. 'Mortimer Snerd.' Professor Lyman Bryson, who. conducts Columbia's "The Peo- ple's Platfom' and teaches adult education at Columbia University, said, as_ audience laughed, that Snerd was associated with a more famous character, Charlie McCarthy.: Clifton Fadlman : added that Fdgar Bergen was the creator. 'When the quiz- master jokingly chided Adams, the latter boomed he 'did not listen to radio.' the strip with recipes and household lore. Enierson has much the same offering as before^his own whole- some baritone, plus a choir. Instru- mental group and organ. To anyone who sees nothing In- congruous In exploiting religion to sell a commercial product, the pro- gram should do a satisfactory job. This shouldn't be an expensive show and there's obviously a huge listen- mg. public for hymns. In this case Emerson : Includes hymns of the Catholic and all denominations of the Protestant /aiths, with brief storiies of the origin of each comipositlon.: . ^Commercial xopy pliig^ Gold Medal flour's healthful qualities and reasonable price, besides; mentioning the Betty Crocker recipes. Hobc. 'me Q'Niius' By JANE WEST NOW RADIO'S MOST POPULAR FAMILY BRINC7S YOU MORL- [aUGHTER Ts^ARS and f-|EART-THR0B5 1 Presented bylvory Soap ■99'' :pure \ LISTEN ^'^^ '^^"-^ • - NBC Red Network, 12:16 to .12:30 P.M;, EST |M WABC--5:15-6:30—063 • • COASt TO COAST Dir. COMPTON ADVBRTISINO AOENCT MOT. ED WOLF—RKQ BLDGv NEW YOHK CITY person, the script Was not (nor In., tended to be, obviously) entertainr ment for mass appeal or of commer- cial prospects. It was, in fact, only partially successful even on Its own grounds. Yet It posed a thought- provoking subject and, in many re- spects, made adult, arresting aiid even affecting radio,. The device of opening and closirig the drama with an identical situation for the tWp belles : of different generations was ingeniously apt. Helen Warren and, Chester Stratton .achieved somethihg of a tour de fbrcie (if that's not too grandiose a term for kilocycle erriot- ing) by playing the two leads irom riioppet-age to riiaturity, while .Jane Houston^ Neill O'Malley, Irene Hub- bard and.: Peggy Allenby registered in supportirig parts. Lester O'Keefe directed the show' expertly and Josef Honti's musical ba'clcgirourid as^ slsted. .. . Fred Allen pirograim last week unintentionally pulled the same routine on what had been intended as.a big plug for 'Swing Me a Polka,' that It had burlesqued earlier in the show. .Song was to get. its'first Im- portarit cbast-to-coast .airing when after a iew bars by/Al Gbodmari's band the' announcer stepped, in with the closing commercial.: The earlier comedy sketch hiad kidded those pro- grams which set out to present a singer but' actually devote nine- tehths of the broadcast tiriie to lorig and repetitious commercials with intervening brief chirps by- .the vocalist.^ .■• 'City. Desk,' Palmollve's weekly half-hour problem child. Is still not out of headache stage to "Its Ted Bates agency tutors. Last Thursday (3) night's edition, Written by Addi- son Smith, was lurid and crammed with action, but^was hardly believ- uole. However, the two leading characters, the reporter and his re- porter rgirl. have been considerably, and helpfully, revised. The girl is now on the Wise-crackirig side, a few of her flip toss-aways being fairly pungent, while her admiring co- reporter Is a straightaway he-man, if not too bright. City editoir. the third leading character. Is a high- pressure guy. Edition caught was capably produced by LIndsey Mac- Harrie and played by Gertrude Warner and Donald Briggs; Conir mercials stressed, the 'thin: film of. soap';>lbrmed by Palmolive shave soap, thus avoiding 'razor burn.' Sledge-hariimer, method of delivery was used by the unbilled announcer. Itoekliig Horse Wlnhei^,' adapted by W. H. Auden and James Stern firom D. H. Lawrence's, short stonr of the sariie. name, was presented Sun- day (6) night on 'Columbia Work- shop.' A weird fantasy about a youngster who, FaustJike, pledged his" life to lUck and won fortunes by pluhging bn .his inspired tips on the ppriies, It Was. obscure but curiously atmospheric^ George Sturgeon gave vibrarice to the character of the child who rocked himself into an frispirai- tional frenzy on his rocking horse; Burfprd Hampden and Alfred Shirley were rlghtlv eerie as ,the two 'voices.' Eustace : Wyatt was ; :<;onvlnclngly stod^ as the family chauffeur; and Phyllis Joyce Impressed as the mother. Ian Martin was a credibly crusty uncle. All were English-ac- cented. Giiy della Ciopba directed dextrously, with Bernai:H: Herrmann conducting Benjamlri Britten's back- ground score. The sound effects were notably helpful, . . . •The Next Is Always a Waltz.' a , thoughtful, rathfer somber originar drama by Lynne Thompson, was of- fered as Thursday (3) night's edition of 'Listener's Playhouse' on NBC I red (WEAF). A tragic yarn about a girl- who developed ai Complex and frustration because everyone thought of her, only as a beauty, not as a, Howard Barries, drama rievlewer six midnights a week over WOR, New York, continues to improve as he grows nibre familiar with the radio ritiedlum. As heard Tuesday (1) his coverage of that night's Open- ing of 'Watch on the Rhine;' at the Martin Beck, N. Y., was enthusiastic, without being gushy, arialytical but not hyperTcritical, authoritative yet not opinionated. With brily a .Short time to prepare his script, Barries nianages to . convey ! an. : unusual amount of information about a shbw. He has enough to say about the play so as riot to have to fall back on that bane of aU, listening—the plot-teller. Silver Thetttre's (CBS) recent scripts, or. at least some of them, have been strongly on. the arid and off-the-elbow side but last Sunday (6) . the series : unloaded, and in blunderbuss fashion, a : real beaut. It starred Kay Kyser and his staff, vocalist, Ginny Sims, and. was written by the bandman's own radio writer, William Hampton. Theme of the piece riiight iri .more expert hands have been a wow. In this instance it was, discounting a couple of solid chuckles, a drawnout dud. When it was all over Kyser could still be credited as a resourceful mu- sician and niyc. and Miss Sims an ingratiating singer of popular songs. Net plot had to do with the marriage between, a household hints cbluriiriist and a sob sister for. a newspaper promotion. stunt and the complica- tions which ensued when the girl finds out that the justice-of-the- peace that presided had been the real mccoy.. Columbia now presents 15-mlriute roundups of quotes frorii editorials of the cbuntry's leading dailies iri the 11 o'clock spot. Sunday nights when a big news story has broken. Net- work offered stich a broadcast this week (6), With . comment from a dozen or more papers, including the N.Y. Times and Herald Tribune on the Nazi invaslori o^ Yugoslavia and Greece. .Quotes are obtained by wire in advance of publication, as in the case: of the two New York sheets included, they were not yet on the streets at the tjme bf the broadcast and in the case of out-of-town papers many wouldn't be available in New York for a day or so. Pro- gram frequently offers an Illuminat- ing idea of what the gerieral public reaction to Iriiportant everits will be, particularly whert'the story In ques- tion is a controversial orie/ Beeause of. the show. 'Meet the Music,' nor- mally scheduled from 11. to 11:30 p.m., was cut this week to 15 ihin utes. Bonnie King, EMBC Act, Sold to KMOX Acct. Kansas City, April 8. Bonnie King,' songstress,: has been sold bjr KMBC to B. B. D. & 0. for series on KMOX, St. LoUls. Griese- dieck Brothers Brewing is accoimt. Schedule Is five quarters hour per week, minimum to be 13 weeks. BERTBANO BUSSELL With Huntington Cairns, Allen Tate. Carl Vnn Doren 'Invitation to Learntnf 30 Mins. Sustalniof Tuesday. 9:15 p.m. WABC-CBS, New York ; Bertrand RUssell, English phlloso- pher-riiathematician now living in the U. S/A.; was the guest mystifier last week oh Columbia's center field fljr,- 'Invitation to Learning/ , the higher-than-highbrow program pur- posely designed to. be Over people's heads and proud of it. The discus- sion spiralled narcotically around the early . I9th .ceritury CJerman meditator, Hegel, This heel who laid the philosophic linoleum for the hell temple of today: wrote a book which few will ^ read as a result of this broadcast. In^ fact It is difficult to imagine just what the: results of the Hegel broadcast riiight be other than" a temporary gift;.of the CBS audience to NBC. It seeriied to prove that an educational program is a program too proud to want people to listen to Huntington Gaiirns came out danc- irig. with a qiiote frbrii a letter from the visitor. They sparred with short words during which Russell scored the: first Iritelligibillty. It seemed he didn't admire ,Hegel. This. Was about', the only definite conclusion war- ranted by the whole bout The in- fighting got down to thesis, an- tithesis and synthesis : almost Im- mediately.; Arid everybody re- membered to' keep his antithesis up throughout. Had the thesis work been as good, the fight might have pleased the . fans more. At moments the synthesis became so synthetic it was plain phoney. Russell, had a tendency to swing out In the clear, but his Ariierican colleagues, Huritirtgton Cairns, Allen Tate and Carl. .Van Doren, kept his verbal elbows nicely pinned in. They instinctively recognized that the visitor had a dangerous tendency toward intelligibilify which had to be suppressed or people might get interested in his rather Interesting British style. At. one point the Briton seemed about to go blatantly popular, jar- ring his opponents with Some quick unexpected shafts of simplicity that stung the Americans' pride of schplarship. ^ They promptly jumped in and began mlxlrig up.: Mixing up everybody. One blow seeriied rather. lOw: 'You mean he sort Of literalized the anterior arid posterior?' It Is open ta question If this Was not a foul. Not that anybody cried .'cad.' Nobody flinched or gave quarter. Arid every time there was a lull they returned immediately to thesis, an- tithesis and synthesis. This seems to be One. of. thsi phenomena of America, circa 1941. A travesty on the word 'education.' A self-conscious and self-impressing exercise in the wasteful use of the human mind to make itself in- effectual. An educational program with nothing to lose but listeners. As for the public, there's, nothing to learn, period Land. 'THE FLYING CADETS COMPETE' With Hoyt Aiidres, Kern Tips 15 Mlns.—Regional . WOAI-TSN, San Antonio Prom Randolph Field, the West Point .of the Air, comes this quiz show In which, only the flying cadets and officers compete.: There are two teams, one from each side of the field with four men on each team. Winning team is used for each, suc- ceeding broadcast while new team Is taken from questions sent in by the cadets. Each question used is asked by-the .cadet who submits it. Win- ning team receives $40 cash. Con- testant who answers most of the questions correctly, whether on the winning or losing team receives an extra $10. , Quizmaster Is Kern Tips, manager of station KPRC, Houston, who keeps program moving along. Hoyt Andres does a nice job annoimcing. Andy. NOW-Da^ & Night 5000«*TTs NO INCREASE IN PRICES CNLr [II O.U[I iN INDIANA ^5000 WATTS DAY wNIGHT YOUR BEST NATIONAL SPOT BUY A NEW MMOACH ID THE NEW YORK MARKET