I’ve decided to clear a little brush on the blogroll and eliminate a few blogs that have apparently decided to close up shop and go out of business. So now’s as good a time as any to alert you to the fact that in addition to The Rogue Raven and Bill’s Blog we prevent for your edification Jaime J. Weinman’s Something Old, Nothing New. Described as “Thoughts on Popular Culture and Unpopular Culture,” any blog that riffs on The Manchurian Candidate, Archie comics, the death of character actor Eugene Roche (R.I.P, Eugene) and Soap is okay in my book.
12:24:09 PM    comment []  trackback []  

Terror Rides the Rails

Our Mandrake-a-thon continues with Chapter 9 of the 1939 serial, “Terror Rides the Rails.” In the last chapter, the Wasp took the liberty of destroying a nearby dam by using Professor Houston’s radium energy machine (clearly at odds with the invention’s purpose “to aid humanity”) and I could have sworn I saw Mandrake and his faithful lackey Lothar fall into the path of the cascading torrent, but…apparently I was mistaken, since they managed to climb to safety. (I’m reminded of Kathy Bates’ character in Misery when she rails about how the old cliffhangers used to “cheat” by showing a bit of footage that wasn’t seen in the previous chapter.)

On their way back home, our two heroes stop off at a gas station whose attendant (Lester Dorr) helped the bad guys escape in the last chapter by activating a fence that provided a secret hiding place safe from Mandrake’s prying eyes. In examining the fence, our magician pal notices a set of tire tracks on the opposite side and he begins to suspect that something is amiss—so he offers Gray a nice little $5,000 bribe: “I’m not only a magician, I’m a collector of rare insects as well…right now I’m in search of a WASP…” (Oh, he’s a slyboots, that Mandrake.)

Gray, his eyes bulging with greed, decides to take Mandrake up on his offer but makes the foolish and deadly mistake of doing this on the telephone—which has been bugged and overheard by Dirk and the other henchman. Mandrake, Dr. Bennett and Lothar are on their way when there’s a cut to a shot of a service station exploding. “What was that?” Mandrake asks. (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a Python lesson on “How Not to Be Seen.”) We see only the wreckage that resulted from the explosion and Bennett commenting, “There’s nothing much I can do for that fellow.” (Short of getting an envelope and some tweezers, no doubt.)

So here’s the plan: Mandrake must take the “platinite” ore to a smelting plant that evening, and the journey will be made first by car—then by train. The Wasp’s henchmen are dispatched to intercept the car, and what results is a car chase in which the bad guys try to run the good guys off the road—then, when this fails, they start shooting at the car. The caliber of the Wasp’s hirelings is borne out by the fact that they cannot hit the broad side of a barn. (They can’t even manage to shoot out the tires, ferchrissake…) Soon, Mandrake and Lothar are allllll abooooooard…

Dirk is not pleased with this turn of events, as it most certainly will not look good on his year-end job evaluation (he gives one of the goons a Stooges-like “I oughta…”). Then, in contacting the Wasp, he gives out with one of the funniest lines in the serial: “Mandrake got past our men and made the train…shall I enforce the usual discipline, sir?”

The Wasp sighs, as if knowing you don’t send a boy out to do a man’s job, and uses his handy-dandy radium energy machine to derail the train…will Mandrake escape? Tune in tomorrow for Chapter 10: “The Unseen Monster…”
12:10:43 PM    comment []  trackback []  

“That's one of the tragedies of this life…that the men who are most in need of a beating-up are always enormous.”

I finally got the opportunity last night to preview a pair of programs from The Old Gold Comedy Theater, currently being offered by First Generation Radio Archives as this month’s Premier Collection. (An earlier 5-CD collection—Volume 1, containing ten broadcasts—was offered in mid-May this year; it is also being offered again with the new collection of twenty shows on 10 CDs.) This comedy anthology series ran for a single season on NBC Radio from October 29, 1944-June 10, 1945, and according to Richard Simonton—who contributed the liner notes to the two collections—was intended to be a lighter version of the popular Lux Radio Theater. Renowned comedy director Preston Sturges had originally been tapped to be the program’s host, but he took a pass and instead suggested that they hire a friend of his—famous film comedian Harold Lloyd.

Harold Lloyd is often referred to as the third member of silent comedy’s “Holy Trinity”—the other two being Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton—and truth be told, Lloyd’s films actually did better box office than the other two comedians (though in Chaplin’s defense, there were quite a few long patches between his 1920s features). But sadly, Lloyd is often neglected to the same degree that Chaplin and Keaton are revered—and I think this can be explained by the fact that his films aren’t as accessible on VHS or DVD as the other two funnymen. (The last I heard, the Lloyd estate was sort of dragging its collective feet on DVD releases due to some thorny copyright issues, which is indeed a shame. So if you’re searching for Lloyd on DVD your only salvation might be this upcoming Kino release or a copy of The Milky Way [1936] on Alpha Video.) I remember fondly many a Saturday morning watching Lloyd’s classic comedies on our local public TV station; like many fans, I adore Safety Last (1923) but I think my very favorite is The Kid Brother (1927).

I listened to the October 29, 1944 premiere broadcast during my lengthy motel shift last night, a radio adaptation of Sturges’ The Palm Beach Story (1942) starring Claudette Colbert (reprising her film role) and Robert Young as a newly-separated couple who find themselves entangled romantically with a stuffy millionaire and his dotty sister. Let me just say this—if you haven’t yet seen this wonderful screwball comedy, then you’ll probably enjoy this broadcast; but if you have, you’re just going to pine for the fact that you really should be watching the movie instead. Not that the show isn’t without merit; the performances are great and Lloyd is an excellent (if a little nervous) master of ceremonies—and there’s one bright spot in that actress Natalie Schafer plays the role of the millionaire’s sister, nearly twenty years before playing a millionaire’s wife on TV’s Gilligan Island.

The second show I checked out—the twelfth show in the series, January 14, 1945—adapts the 1941 Bob Hope comedy Nothing But the Truth and stars Alan Young (who was just beginning to make a name for himself with his self-titled ABC radio comedy series) and Anne Baxter. Truth tells the story of a young stockbroker (Young) who bets his boss $10,000 that he can tell “nothing but the truth” for 24 hours. I thought this show worked a little better, mainly because the Hope film on which it’s based is rarely shown (I’ve only seen it once, back in the halcyon Comedy Channel days). Modern day audiences will notice that the movie shares a similarity (although it was previously filmed in 1920 and 1929) with Liar, Liar (1997), a comedy starring Jim Carrey.

There were a total of thirty-two Old Gold Comedy Theater shows broadcast during its solo season on NBC—twenty-nine of which were discovered in Harold Lloyd’s basement along with some of the program’s scripts. FGRA has located a thirtieth show—one that was rebroadcast over AFRS as The Comedy Theater—and as previously stated, has split the run into one set of 5 CDs (ten shows total) and another with 10 CDs (the remaining twenty). Both sets are being offered at a reduced price from now until the end of August (is that an incentive to join or what?) and although I haven’t snapped up the second set yet I certainly plan to do so, especially since I’m curious to hear a January 21, 1945 broadcast starring Fred Allen and Portland Hoffa in The Show-Off (a production that was filmed three times as well: a 1926 version with Ford Sterling and Louise Brooks, a 1934 outing with Spencer Tracy, and a 1946 feature with Red Skelton). As a rule, I’m not all that partial to those radio shows that are essentially aural adaptations of movies, but I will acknowledge that listening to this program—and especially hearing Harold Lloyd in (for him) a completely different venue—is a simply fascinating bit of history from Radio’s Golden Age.
12:05:14 PM    comment []  trackback []