Variety (Jul 1941)

30 RADIO REVIEWS P^geff Wednesday, July 30, 1941 Follow-Up Comment Trvlnff Berlin achieved the unique | even a haU-wit listener knows, Mar- distimcUon ol the first ASCAP 'plug' got (the sister) is going to undergo an operation and be cured. As Joyce says, 'We want you to share our happiness—won't you let us try?' And Margot answers, 'There's some- thing true and warm and gentle about you.' Well, it's pretty melo- dramatic, but by serial standards rather effective. Title part is ex- pressively played, while the hubby is properly quite-yet-flrm and vital. Part ot Margot had too abrupt a mood transition to be convincingly played. on CBS in eight months at last Wednesday's 'Dollars for Defense (Texaco donates the time) show which, being a trailer for U. S. de- fense bonds and stamps, cancels all ASCAP restrictions. Thus, as part of Alec WooUcott's intro of Berlin, plus a miniature biog of his career, the songsmith introduced a new song, 'When This Crazy World Is Sane Again.' This is the tune that constitutes a pro-Berlin, Inc . Pj"6; His other songs, 'Any Bonds Today^ and 'Arms for the Love of America, were donated by him to the U. 5. 'Home of the Brave,' In the words Government outright, even the copy- of the intro spiel, is 'the story of the rights being in the names of Govern-' lives and loves of real people—this ment officials. I day's pioneer at New Chance, where Incidentally, the day before, on ufe is today and hope is tomorrow.' Tuesday Mrs. KUin (Irving) Berlin As heard recently on WEAF-NBC, Epoke over WMCA with a forthright it's also a muddled yarn of puzzling -tj *_ n-itoir, tjirs situation involving ill-defined char- acters. Localed in one of the Rocky Mountain states, it deals with a strangely-boyish telephone lineman, the gal he loves but who doesn't love him, an older boy she loves—and re- cently a typically-serial villainess, an eastern society belle named Vida Sinclair. Hard to see why there should be much sympathy for the characters, nor interest in the action. The western gal. Casino, had a meaty scene with a good change of mood on the episode caught—and she played it well. Otherwise not much to recommend the show or the pro- duction. The Guilsdorfs get author billing. Product is Certo, allegedly insuring modern, speedy and 'flavor- retaining' jelly and. jam-making. 20 Winks plea for material aid to Britoin. Mrs. Berlin, possessed of a cool, calm and reasoning voice, was highly effective, evidencing she's no novice before a mike. Elsa Maxwell, guesting Sunday (27) night on 'Star-Spangled Theatre via NBC-Blue, played a fictionalized version of herself as the proprietor of 'Hotel for Women," scripted by Villa Stiles and Michael Davidson. Others billed in. the cast included Joan Banks, Virginia Peine and Pa- tricia Wilder, with Walter Kinsella Identifiable as an Irish house de- tective, but not billed. Bert LyteU was m.c, but not in the dramatic portion. Show was inexcusably pro- duced, only Miss Banks and Kinsella emer^ng without almost complete loss of dignity. There were innum- erable muffed lines, silences, missed cues and instances of just plain bad acting. Miss Maxwell was the worst, demonstrating that she isn't an ac- tress at all, out only a mistress of ceremonies, a strong personality and, apparently, a breezy 'character.' Miss Peine and Miss Wilder had little con- nection with the story, so never had a chance. Script itself was trans- parent trash. Whole show was in- credible for a major network offer- ing. •We Are Always Young,' sustainer jerial on Mutual out of WOR, New York, holds up fairly well, at least partly due to an exceptional cast. Donald Cook, currently the male lead in the legit 'Claudia,' at the Booth, N. Y., has recently joined the cast and, in a recent chapter, quickly added a few knots to the plot com- plications. Playing a ■ silverware nabob engaged ever-so-long to the siren Gloria, he has obviously taken a tumble for the nitery singer. Dawn, thereby boding no good for cab- driver Gary. But then, Gloria is go- ing soft on Gary, so maybe it cancels <)ut. Yarn has fair pace and a color- ful setting, plus reasonably potent characters. Cook is oke—if unmis- takably Cook—as the new plot wrin- kle, while Jessie Royce Landis now registers more forcefully as Gloria. Linda Watkins is kinda hard-voiced as the singer, and William Janney is rightly direct as the cabbie. Direc- tion Is Inventive for a serial. Inci- dentally, air billing is given not only to co-authors Ashley Buck and Nicholas Cosentino and director Robert Shayon, but members of the cast on each day's episode identify themselves at the close. It's a novel and effective device. 'The Manros,' sustaining serial on NBC-Blue (WJZ), was an agreeable show as heard Wednesday afternoon (16). It draws inevitable compari- sons with 'Vic and Sade,' both pro- grams being quiet character-comedy creations about married couples and both confining the plot to few char- acters. Chapter caught dealt with Gordon'.s short-lived triumoh after he set Margaret's paper-stuffed desk in order. As anyone could have fore- seen, when he went to demonstrate the efficiency of his filing system, he couldn't find anything he was look- ing for. As Margaret expressed it, what he needed was 'more system in his system.' Ending was obvious from the start, but no less entertain- ing or absorbing on that account. Not side-splitting comedy, but amus- ing. Characters are human and uni- versally identifiable. Nice show— and well played. 'Joyce Jordan, Girl Interne' has risen beyond her title. No longer an Interne at all, but having given up 'a brilliant hospital career to devote herself to private practice in a small town.' She's also married a doctor and U deep In daytime serial plot complications on CBS. Hubty never told her he had a sister in the bdoby- hatch, so it was a great shock re- cently to learn about it. And hubby, ■the old clam, never told his sister he'd married. Sis is bitter because •he Is 'terribly scarred.'- She sits in a dark room and snarls at people be- cause they're 'always hammering away at her.' But when Joyce comes 'Story of Kate Hopkins,' according to the intro blurb, is 'the story of a beautiful and courageous woman who lives to serve others.' Appar- ently her beauty is about to bring on events that'll test her courage, for that Desperate Desmond of tifie kilocycles, Robert Atwood, master of Atwood Manor, Is plotting to en- snare Our Heroine. He's already engaged to Diane, but Kate's son Tom has been lured into an attempt to win the gal away, not realizing that would play right into Atwood's mitts. As Atwood says, Tom is just a boy—what does he know of in- trigue? According to the chapter heard on CBS, the show seems ob- scure and slow. Direction reveals a good sense of character and pace, but there was a puzzling use of a filter mike in one scene. Use of quiet musical background is good. Maxwell House commercials plug the idea ice coffee for ho* weather. They're plenty long. The Siory of Bess Johnson' has lately undergone extensive changes. Still sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive- Peet, but it now plugs Klek soap in- stead of Palmolive and is handled by the Ted Bates agency instead of Ward Wheelock. Margaret Lewerth and Ann Daly have replaced William Sweets on the script, and Basil Loughrane has succeeded Diana Bourbon as director. About the only thing remaining is the title and the actress who supplies it. Obviously Have they decided yet who plays the loudest. Sonny or Bunny? . . . Walter Lippmann is on the air, via those foreign policy speakers, so he might as well take the plunge . . . these all-night programs figure to have two ^diences, the dressed and undressed. The dressed prob- ably are on the job somewhere, behind the wheel of a taxi or in a factory, while the un- dressed are likely heading for bed, by way of the kitchen, or maybe already prone with a book. The fast talking lads with their commercial breaks (and tunes of endless vocals) likely suit the guy who's up and around. But he's a pain to the bunch trying to read. Point is that no New York late hour sta- tion makes a bid for the bath- robe brigade with straight music. Question is, which audience has the most ears? . . . NBC went from Manila to Tokyo to Ba- tavia, one right after the other, and nobody had imagination enough to dramatize the broad- cast by merely giving the dif- ference in time. That's what's called lack of showmanship . . . Shep Fields and his new brass- less band gets an especially good break if following one of those daffy trumpetecrs who sounds like he's playing a kazoo . . . What about the Eberle who sings with J. Dorsey? Every song a recital. When they start taking pop ballads as serious as this some of the vocal antics border on the ridiculous. Shudders of the week: WOR's 'Here's Morgan.' Not only is this on early in the evening but Jerry Lawrence repeats it, off a record, early in the morning. It's the fastest way Lawrence has yet thought up to lose an audience. Maybe Stan Shaw is writing Morgan's material. If he is we're sore at him, too. Into some pretty red-blooded action. It's still daytime serial material, but the plot has movement, the situations are plausible, the characters are sharply drawn, and the dialog is solid. As caught Friday (25) morn- ing, the sequence dealt with the heroine's adventures with a mysteri- ous neighbor, Scott Thome, appar- ently a genuine he-man, but because of some sinister work he does, poison to the surrounding inhabitants. Epi- sode was skillfully produced and played, except for an unexplained knocking sound effect. Miss Johnson, always the super-power commercial spieler, slUl reads the lengthy open- ing plug, but the male announcer handles the short closing one. On the stanza heard, Miss Johnson seemed to be trying too bard, pos- sibly because of the new product and setup. Never noted for her subtlety on handling blurbs, she was pound- ing like a lady pile-driver. 'Bachelor's Children,' on WEAF- NBC, has gradually wandered from the original line of the vicarious father and his household of kids.' Seems Sam and Janet Ryder are nearing one of those inevitable mari- tal crises, this time because she had a luncheon date -with Neil Burgess. Any serial addict knows it didn't amount to anything and presently Sam will realize that, too. Dr. Bob is standing by with sympathy and advice, especially the latter. Mean- while, young Mike and Kathleen want to get married and some of the femmes in the script are palavering about getting a new house. Plot has more threads than a crocheted bedspread. Old Dutch Cleanser gets the plugs. o,T=, x^uv —rr- - .'"Hen Randolph,'ever a sanctimo- -•Sr'-see-»'«r«I?"Wl«'5!2'*^ ii»y**<A!A- ^'tf*^Am t '*iK #^ y'.:-s*#^)*!).-»r, ;6 still-soakine her right away, of course, but too quickly ; lust like that, but at least the story ! {1^°"*'ii^'^' pathos. As heard on to be convlncine, even so. And, as i has gotten her off the campus and NBC-Red recently, she might have I been repeating one of the same cliche-studded, hokum-loaded scripts of a couple of years ago. And a couple of years ago Ellen was a pretty dreary gal. Seems she's now given up her admirer, Paul, and has retired to the mission in the slums, to be under the administering good- ness of the kindly padre and spread her righteous influence among the unfortunate. This is what they mean by the term 'soap operas.' Milton Cross reads the Supersuds blurbs. THE MAN I MARBIBD' With Lesley Woods, CUyt«B CoIIyer, Ethel Owen, Helen Waren, Shlr- ling Oliver, Del Sharbutt 15 Mins. CAMPBELL'S SOUP Daily, 11:15 ajn, WABC-CBS, New York (Wheelock) Ward Wheelock agency's purchase ot this serial for Campbell's soup to replace 'Martha Webster' appears to be one of those cases of buying a name instead of using imagination or creative judgment. 'Martha Webster' was a weak sister that never had been able to get a sizable rating, par- ticularly lately, when opposite 'Pep- per Young.' Now wheelock has bought 'The Man I Married,' by Carl Bixby and Don Becker, whose 'Life Can Be Beautiful' has consistently been one of the top-ranking serials and currently has the highest C.AJB. rating. Besides not being creatively Im- aginative, this move doesn't even ap- pear to be good judgment. 'Man I Married' may be by Bixby and Becker, who may be names, but it was never in the ■ class with their 'Life Can Be Beautiful.' It was never able to get a rating when Procter & Gamble had Itj and its strongest im- pression was made by some dubious bedroom sequences that had people in the trade talking and wondering. But all that is past history and possibly of questionable value In judging "The Man I Married' as com- petition for 'Pepper Young.' As heard last Friday (25) morning, the show was still a doubtful bet. Not too clear and 'way overboard on weepy hoke. Characters are well de- fined, but they don't mean much amid such studio-searing melodra- matics. Yarn was about the childless young Warings, Adam and Evelyn, and sour, jealous Aunt Mathilde. They've adopted the baby of Mrs. (3ray, whose increasing wails on the epi- sode caught took the line, 'I know how poor I am—you needn't rub It in—I'm just a woman who works in a mill, whose husband ran oft and left her—you're trying to take my baby away from me.' By that time it was complete hysteria and, for- tunately, fadeout. It was tedious listening. Of those heard, Lesley Woods had a refreshingly cheery quality as Evelyn, but the others were stymied by the material. Apparently Oliver Barbour, who directs the program for Transamerican, liked the script, for he stressed the histrionics in .the per- formance. Pacing was good. Wheelock's commercials for Camp- bell's vegetable soup had novelty and apparent sales punch and, as deliv- ered by Del Sharbutt, were stom- ache-warming. Kobe. to Daddy and Mother before going to bed. He was kindly, but mascu- linely dense, while his wife was the all-wise, all-seeing, all-knowing, but not-saying-too-much eternal woman and mother. It was straight-forward, uncomplicated, readily-grasped and rather artful hoke. What will hap- pen? wondered the announcer in the teaser finale,' 'Only time will tell.' That was the only too-obvious bit on the show. Use of a piano for the theme music Is unusual and effec- tive. Commercial used the line that Mrs. So-and-So is worn out from washing' hubby's grimy overalls be- cause she doesn't know about P. & G. soap. THE O'NEILLS 3J ..AM?: vvEsr i\'OV-.' U.'ADKO S /ViOST P(JPU!..'-',;! 1^ i-.»,^-il!.V BiilNGS V(3LI i^O\l> -.IIGM'IER 'TbAR!; a;vd |-|EA!'iT-T!'R0B5 P •" s c n!,? d J y ! V o r y 5 o a p 9 9 " . ■ ■ : 3 j r e IJCTni TWICE DAILY NBC Red Netv/ork, 12:16 to 12:30 P.M., ED8T IM WABC—6:30-6:46 ED8T—CBS • • COAST TO COAST Mr. CO UPTON ADVBKTISINO AOBNCT MOT. EO WOLF—RKO BLDG, NEW YORK CITY r -Ford Summer Hour continues mixture of jazz and classics. Although the program of Sunday (27) was a decided '- Imnrovement over the hodge-podge at the begin- nin? of the series, class was still lacking. Harry Horlick, wielding the baton, is getting more out of the orchestra than most of his predecessors, and his numbers were very pleasant. Soloist Frances Comstock best <;inning was in Grieg's 'Ich Liebe Dich.' Felix Knight tenored a creditable 'La Fleur' from 'Carmen,' although the 'A' flats sounded a bit forced, and lacking in resonance. However, his hitting the high 'B' flat on the nhrase 'Et petals une chose a toi' with a <nging forte, and ■the ■!^%vebss^il.en\ dim.xuendo was so.r ning seldom heard these days. Balance of his singing unfortunately was not up to the "art set by this standard. Lynton Wells' boost for Henry Ford's 78th birthday and Paul Wing's questions and answers were quite dull. 'Pepper Toanr's Family' had a good script a recent morning on NBC-Red. Pace was slow and authoress Elaine Sterne. Carrington was pushing the what - every*- woman - knows valve down pretty hard, but the characters were clear, sympathetic and recog- nizably human. Episode opened with Carter Trent and Puggy Young strolling home hand-in-hand through the 'most beautiful night they've ever known." They were breaking their formal engagement because of parental opposition, but weren't de- pressed, as they were determined to remain actually engaged. As Carter exDre.';sed it, 'There's only you and ' me; the rest of the world doesn't, exist.' Then Peggy went in to talk' 'Reg'lar Fellers,' the Jack Benny replacement Sunday nights on NBC- Red for Jello, has still not begun to mesh. It consumes considerable energy and uses the talents of some caoable radio craftsmen, but appar- ently general popularity just isn't In the cards. Last Sunday (27) night's stanza had the comic-strip kids do- ing a show at the home of their school teacher, Miss Robbins. There were several painstakingly-contrived comolications leading to the key sit- uation, but it seldom seemed credible. And the climactic situation iXseV wasn't enacted on the air, but was merely related in a few lines of sub- sequent dialog. Aside from the lat- ter flaw, the script was skillfully written and the direction seemed er- pert, but the juve actors merely turned the show into a babble an'' let any olausibility evaporate. Ernie Wntson's musical clues were' unu.sr- ally expressive, and Harry von Zeir.«- narration-announcements were big- league. CAESAB PETBILLO ORCHESTRA With Dale Evana 30 Mlna. Sastaining Monday, 12 ra. CDST WBBM-CBS, Chicago This studio outfit gives out with a full half hour of music to satisfy the most discriminating. Show is good, straight music, interspersed with some first-rate vocalizing by Dale Evans. Coming in at midnight, it is a welcome relief from most of the music flooding the airlanes and de- serves mention as such. There is a fullness to the band that can only be achieved with full sec- tions, and fine musicianship. The leader's authoritative touch is con- stantly in evidence. Beautiful shad- ing by the violins and reeds, and the brass has an unusual clarilty of tone. Arrangements are on the classical side. The band is also capable of kicking on the swing side, as evi- denced by its treatment of a rhyth- mic novelty. 'Sergeant, Can You Spare a Girl?' Dale £vanf, , a gal with, fine con- ception .of/bbtl^' ballads and swing tunes, got excellent results on 'Every- thing Happens to Me' and a Spanish tune, 'Blen, Blen, Blen.' She has range and her diction is excellent. At any time this band would be v6ry listenable, but at this midnight spot, PetriUo and his crew should at- tract a large listening audience. Gold. LIMA DOING BUSINESS ON IDEAS All we have on our shelves at WLOK is idea mer- chandise. They're bright and shining packages like the Meadow Cold Title Tunes production which is drawing up to 4,000 pieces of mail per program for the dairy- sponsor. We know pur market, and surveys have proven the acceptance of our station. We'd like to build a selling program for you. Let Va Get Our Mind on Your Business— and Watch Sales Grow I WLDK