From Those Were the Days:

1921 - KDKA radio in Pittsburgh, PA did the first play-by-play broadcast of a baseball game. Harold Arlin described the action as the Pirates beat Philadelphia 8-5.

1935 - The radio drama Backstage Wife was first aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System. The show was heard until 1959.
12:17:15 PM    comment []  trackback []  

The Reward of Treachery

Mandrake the Magician (1939) concludes with this twelfth and final chapter, as our heroes manage to stumble out of the rubble that was once stately Mandrake Manor. Everyone is present and accounted for, though Dr. Andre Bennett (Edward Earle) has been seriously injured and is discovered lying unconscious in the wreckage. Mandrake (Warren Hull) gets James Webster (Kenneth MacDonald) to take Bennett to the hospital; on the trip there, Bennett comes to and tells Webster he’s okay—just drop him off at his office. He invites Webster inside and apologizes for suspecting that Webster is the Wasp, and for good reason, too: it’s Bennett who is the masked villain, and he slips Webster a mickey for good measure.

Meanwhile, Mandrake and Lothar retrace their previous steps when they were tailing Dirk, and they discover the abandoned storefront, which Mandrake deduces that the Wasp’s now-dead lieutenant may have slipped into. He breaks a window to get inside (it's refreshing to learn that even Mandrake is not above the law) and makes his way to the “gas” chamber (also known as the Memorial Dirk Death Room), whereupon Andre/Wasp tries to kill him in the same fashion. Fortunately, Mandrake is made of sterner stuff.

Mandrake confronts the Wasp, and ripping off his disguise, is stunned to see Andre. Or is he? Mandrake reveals that he suspected his physician “friend” all along: “I checked through the Medical Association Directory and found that you had been barred as a doctor.” (Nice going, Magic Man—couldn’t you have done that a few chapters back?) Andre responds, “That’s true…I was barred from the practice of medicine…it was then that I resolved to have more power than any other doctor…than any living man…”

“You’ve been very clever, Andre…but your ambition for power has warped your brain,” counters Mandrake. (Ya think?) Cue the fight music, as the two worthy adversaries duke it out—Andre escapes through a secret passage, and when Mandrake follows he finds the unconscious Webster, whom he revives. (Webster tries to tell him that Andre is the Wasp, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Mandrake got the memo on that, thanks all the same.) Andre then beats a hasty retreat via automobile, with Mandrake and Lothar in hot pursuit…a bullet from Mandrake’s gun is all it takes, as Andre’s tire is shot out and he veers off a cliff, plummeting to his almost certain crispy-critter death below. (In the immortal words of Jan and Dean: “Well, the last thing I remember, Doc, as I started to swerve…”)

We then cut to a screaming newspaper headline: “Professor Houston Receives Medical Science Reward: Radium Energy Machine Boon to Mankind.” (As my friend Pete M. would say, “Hooray for Professor Houston!”) Yes, things have returned to a state of normalcy—and as Mandrake’s friends catch him and Betty snogging out on the balcony we hear a voice cry out: “Hey, Mandrake! You just saved the human race and got the girl…whaddya gonna do now?”

“I’m going to Disneyland!” the Amazing Mandrake replies, as he throws a smokescreen pellet and brings his serial saga to an end. (Okay, I made up those last three lines of dialogue.) In conclusion, I would like to apologize to Frank Raymond (Don Beddoe) for suspecting him of being the Wasp—I just hope he doesn’t slip me a mickey.
12:12:47 PM    comment []  trackback []  

“It’s a free country.”

I finished watching the rest of this week’s Netflix rentals (because I had the night off), a pair of classic film comedies that I have not seen in quite some time. Watching The Lavender Hill Mob last week whetted my appetite for some more Ealing Studios product—so I went with The Ladykillers (1955), considered by some to be the studio’s best, if not the best-known.

Professor Marcus (Alec Guinness, whose teeth are even funny) is the criminal mastermind in charge of a gang (Herbert Lom, Cecil Parker, Peter Sellers and Danny Green) who’s planning an armored car heist—so they pose as a string quintet and hide out in the home of a dotty and proper old widow, Louisa Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), who’s incognizant of their scheme. Unfortunately, things go slightly awry and she does find out—but getting rid of her is easier said than done. This black comedy is filled with laugh-out-loud moments (like Johnson’s continual stepping on Guinness’ scarf) but my favorite is Sellers’ reaction to Lom’s plan to take Johnson out to their car so they can get rid her—as her guests arrive for tea, one by one, Sellers cracks: “What should we do—charter a bus?” (It’s interesting to see these two actors work side-by-side nearly a decade before they would convulse audiences in the Pink Panther film series.)

Directed by Alexander Mackendrick and scripted by American writer William Rose, The Ladykillers is a 24-karat comedy gem—and it’s been so long since I’ve seen this film that I had no idea it was in color (I must have watched it on a black-and-white TV). I’m curious to see the Coen Brothers’ 2004 remake, but I’ve heard decidedly mixed reviews on that film, so I’m a little gun-shy.

I wrapped things up with Born Yesterday (1950), a comedy based on Garson Kanin’s hit Broadway play that provided the ever-delightful Judy Holliday with her signature role as “dumb” blonde Billie Dawn. Billie’s fiancé, boorish junkman Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford), hires newspaperman Paul Verrall (William Holden) to “smarten up” his girl and boy, is that going to come back and bite him in the ass. I positively adore Holliday, particularly in The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956) and Bells Are Ringing (1960), so you can just imagine how fascinated I get watching her steal the show in this classic—she also swiped a gold Oscar statuette for Best Actress that year, due to the splitting of the vote between Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard) and Bette Davis (All About Eve). Born Yesterday has dated a bit, though; for the most part it works wonders (the gin rummy game with Holliday and Crawford is comedy gold) but the scenes in which Holden shows Judy the sights around Washington, D.C. sort of come off like bad Capra. George Cukor did the directing honors, and Kanin’s play was adapted by Albert Mannheimer—the film was later remade in 1993, but you need to avoid that one like intestinal flu. (Oh, and there are some similaries between Yesterday and Frank Tashlin’s 1956 cult film The Girl Can’t Help It—that one you can definitely check out.)
11:49:13 AM    comment []  trackback []