Harlan Zinck, Preservation Manager for the First Generation Radio Archives, has asked me to contribute some more liner notes for a new Premier Collection to be released in September. To reveal what the collection will be would, of course, spoil the surprise—but I’m really jazzed about doing it and I promise not to let it interfere with the fun we have here at the clubhouse.
10:51:25 AM    comment []  trackback []  

R.I.P. David Raksin

I apologize for arriving late with this, but one of moviedom’s greatest composers passed away last week at the age of 92—David Raksin, whose work includes classic scores for The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), Laura (1944), Force of Evil (1948) and many, many more. Jaime J. Weinman remembers Raksin’s phenomenal score for The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and then uses this as a launching pad for two very well-written posts on this film, one that addresses director Vincente Minnelli’s penchant for the long take and another that attempts to sort out the age-old guessing-game “Which real life person is this based on?”

Jaime also has some additional comments on the early, superior years of Happy Days, and examines the resurgence of Daffy Duck. Great reading all around.
10:49:47 AM    comment []  trackback []  

Don’t shoot the messenger

Derek (“Ether Knows Best”) Tague gave Old-Time Radio Digest readers a heads-up by alerting us to the news that Leonard Maltin’s 2005 Movie Guide has yanked several of its older, OTR-themed entries like Gildersleeve’s Ghost (1944), It’s a Joke, Son (1947) and Inner Sanctum (1948). Leonard explains in the book’s preface that this pruning (as well as other older, obscure film titles) was dictated by the fact that the addition of new movie reviews threatens to burst the seams of this seminal volume with each passing year (it’s close to 1,600 pages!).

I was kind of cheesed off by this—and I thought Derek made an excellent point when he wondered how Maltin, a longtime OTR fan (The Great American Broadcast) could allow this to happen, reckoning that the decision was probably made by committee. But apparently 2005 will see the publication of Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide, another oversized paperback that will focus on pre-1960 titles (both those that have already been cut and will be cut when the 2006 Movie Guide appears next August). Better yet, this new book will also expand coverage of 1930s and ‘40s films—so it just may be that this will be the only book I’ll ever need.

Oh…who am I kidding? The 2005 Movie Guide arrived yesterday in my mailbox, and I’ve been poring through it like I do every year. Pound for pound, it’s still the best economically-priced movie guide, bar none.

(UPDATE: I came across an entry for Gildersleeve's Ghost while thumbing through the Maltin book last night, so I apologize for the misinformation in the first paragraph. I have sent my good friend Mr. Tague an e-mail to properly correct and shame him.)
10:46:06 AM    comment []  trackback []  

“I don’t need a gun for you, mister…you’re all eaten up with fear and hate…the most you can hope for now is a fast death.”

I took a CD with a couple of Have Gun, Will Travel programs to work last night, and while the sound left a lot to be desired (courtesy of the quality-unconscious folks at Radio Spirits) both broadcasts were good fun. In the first episode, “Birds of a Feather” (4/19/59), Paladin receives letters from both the Rio Grande and Western Pacific railroads seeking to hire his gun over a dispute over a depot and gorge that raises the stakes involving the transcontinental railroad. “Birds” was originally performed on the television show March 8, 1958; Ann Doud adapted Terence Maples’ original script for the occasion, which features Ben Wright (as Hey Boy), Vic Perrin, Joseph Kearns and James Nusser in support.

I really enjoyed the second broadcast—“Homecoming,” from July 28, 1959—in which Paladin is summoned by Will Stanhope (Jack Moyles) when Stanhope becomes convinced that a man named Ed Stacy (Harry Bartell) is going to kill him. You see, two years earlier Stanhope hired the gunslinger to make certain that Stacy—falsely accused of robbing Stanhope’s stagecoach line—went to prison, but Ed has now been exonerated…and thirsting for revenge, perhaps? Doud also adapted this one for radio (it was originally televised May 23, 1959) and it features another great supporting cast of radio veterans: Virginia Gregg (as Miss Wong), Ken Lynch, Barney Phillips and Lou Krugman. The practice of retooling HGWT’s TV scripts for radio was quite frequent during the radio show’s early years, but as time passed, original scripts from the likes of Doud, producer-director Frank Paris and the legendary William N. Robson were utilized.
10:40:26 AM    comment []  trackback []