Episodes
Sunday Mar 15, 2009
Backstage Wife - September 3, 1947
Sunday Mar 15, 2009
Sunday Mar 15, 2009
Again we drop in on Mary Noble, struggling through life answering the question, "What's it like to be married to a famous Broadway star?" In this show from September 3, 1947, Mary and her husband Larry go to the apartment of Regina to talk with her about dropping out of a play that Regina is backing. It seems that Barnwell, the producer of the play, is suing Larry, dragging his name through the mud, and he wishes to bow out of the play to save Regina embarrassment. This short series of various shows we've heard on the blog over the past couple of months, taken from the storyline revolving around the production of a play, have been a real mess for Larry and Mary that gets worse as things go along. If acting is this much trouble, perhaps Larry should take up another profession. The program was sponsored by Energine and original broadcast on NBC. Our mp3 was transferred directly from a line check acetate recorded at a local NBC station, probably for time-shifting purposes.
Sunday Feb 22, 2009
Claudia - Audition
Sunday Feb 22, 2009
Sunday Feb 22, 2009
This week, we feature a guest post from fellow otr collector Daniel Sears who shares a rare 78 rpm record set with us containing an "audition" for the soap opera "Claudia". Daniel is the Creative Director for GrumpyFILMS, inc in New York. Many thanks for the show and blog post - I hope we can hear more from Daniel's collection in coming weeks. - Randy "They saw...they met...they married each other. Six whole weeks ago." So goes the intro for this audition episode of "Claudia", the well-known daytime serial sponsored by "your friendly neighbor who bottles Coca-Cola." This audition program, however, seems to take plot points and parts of scripts that would later be broadcast across several episodes and squishes them together into one 15-minute program.
In this visit with Claudia and David, we hear the craziness that ensues when David has to get up early for an appointment in Connecticut, and he discovers what Claudia has done to his socks and his breakfast. Later, Claudia goes shopping for a dog with her mother, and in the third segment we see what happens when David comes home and discovers what kind of dog Claudia has bought. Looking at the radioGOLDINdex, my guess would be that parts of this script would later be used in programs broadcast on 9/30/47 ("Waking Up Early"), 10/13/47 ("Claudia Ruins Breakfast"), and 10/14/47 ("Claudia Buys David a Big Dog"). However, I was not able to find postings of these episodes online to confirm that. The broadcast episodes of "Claudia" featured Kathryn Bard and Paul Crabtree, with Joe King announcing. Comparing this recording with snippets found online, it sounds like Ms. Bard is the only one also found on here. No cast list is announced, so does anyone have any guesses as to who the other actors are? Maybe the actor playing David didn't make the final cast because of the couple of goofs he makes... This file was transfered directly from a pair of vinyl 78 rpm discs with great maroon/brown marbeled vinyl. The surface noise gets a little thick in spots, but I hope you'll enjoy this rare program.
Friday Feb 13, 2009
Phyl Coe Radio Mysteries, Pgm 7
Friday Feb 13, 2009
Friday Feb 13, 2009
I'd like to give a special acknowledgment to David Kiner for this week's mp3 transfer. I recently arranged a trade for a couple of transcriptions with him and he generously threw in a digital transfer of the discs, complete with CEDAR processing. Kiner sells high quality discs of old time radio material and you can find his cds at his ebay store.
"Phyl Coe Radio Mysteries" is a distinctive series in many respects. Marking the first appearance of a female detective, the show was syndicated in 1936 to about 250 radio stations and was structured for a unique sponsor promotional gimmick. The show was sponsored by Philco and local dealers would give listeners a booklet to fill out clues from the mysteries for a chance at cash prizes. Not only is the namesake detective ("Phyl" being short for "Phyllis") a sponsor tie in, but the show offered all kinds of opportunities for witnesses and suspects in the mysteries to casually listen to the radio and remark on great quality Philco sets and tubes! In program 7 of the series, "Last Will and Testament", Phyllis is called in to solve a murder that centers around a will, a hat pin, and annoying relatives. Even though we do find out the name of the killer, the complete details of how Phyl solves the mystery isn't revealed for purposes of the contest. However, you can match your wits with one otr listener who has posted their possible solutions to the mysteries. The show was transferred from an original World Broadcasting transcription and restored using CEDAR noise recution by David Kiner. The matrix number of the disc is BB14924C1.Sunday Feb 01, 2009
Backstage Wife, August 13, 1947
Sunday Feb 01, 2009
Sunday Feb 01, 2009
"What is it like to be married to a famous star?" That's the question the long-running classic soap opera, "Backstage Wife", tried to answer, following the trials and tribulations of Mary Noble and her actor husband, Larry. In this episode, we're continuing a story line heard on the blog in January in this post. Mary is living alone in their house in the country. Husband Larry has gone back to New York, shocked that he found playwright Eric Jackson making a move on Mary. Eric's scheme to produce his play at the summer playhouse is falling apart. Meanwhile, Larry pays a visit to Regina, an atrractive woman that he hopes will back a new play he wants to star in. I have a funny feeling that Backstage Wife Mary won't be happy about that, especially since his business meetings with Regina at a nightclub have made the gossip columns. The show is sponsored by Energine Cleaning Fluid - "Keep it clean with Energine!" Unfortunately, this show is a bit difficult to listen to. Sorry for the surface noise on this one - the years hadn't been kind to this one of a kind lacquer, but it appears to be a lost episode of the series. The mp3 was directly transferred from an original aircheck acetate transcription recorded from the NBC line by an unknown local affiliate. I have a couple of more episodes from this period in the run of the show that I'll be posting in future weeks.
Friday Jan 02, 2009
Backstage Wife - July 3, 1947
Friday Jan 02, 2009
Friday Jan 02, 2009
Now that we're in a great mood and ready to face the day with a smile, let's have some heartbreak and tears, courtesy of the long-running soap opera, "Backstage Wife", the program that attempts to answer the question, "What is it like to be married to a famous star?" In the program of July 3, 1947, originally broadcast on NBC, playwright Eric Jackson, who has a hankering for Mary, is signing a deal to produce a play at a summer playhouse so he can be close to Mary. What will Mary's husband Larry make of this? The show is sponsored by Haley's M-O and Energine. The program was transferred to digital directly from an original acetate line check made by an unknown local NBC affiliate; it includes the opening system cue.
Saturday Dec 06, 2008
Miss Pinkerton, Inc. - Audition
Saturday Dec 06, 2008
Saturday Dec 06, 2008
We've had a thread running on the old time radio mailing list about this show, so I thought I'd go ahead and put up my copy of it. "Miss Pinkerton, Inc" was a proposed series about Mary Vance, an aspiring law student who suddenly inherits her uncle's private detective agency, and is one of the few radio shows about female detectives. The program features Joan Blondell and Dick Powell and probably dates from 1941.
It would appear that the show never actually aired - it's too bad since the script is fun and there's great chemistry going on between Blondell and Powell. I have to wonder if the creators of "Moonlighting", the 80s television series with Cybyll Sheppard and Bruce Willis were inspired by it. It's unknown how this audition show came about and whether it was proposed as a full network or regional network series or something for syndication. The program was transferred from an original vinyl transcription pressed by Radio Recorders, matrix numbers RR 7499 and RR 7500D. A member of the old time radio mailing list has a copy of part two of the show with matrix number RR 7500 - on that disc there's a flubbed telephone sound effect. So there may be two different performances of the second half of the show in existence (or the engineers may have made a dub of the flubbed performance and inserted the corrected sound effect). By the way, Goldin lists a twenty minute "closed circuit advertiser's presentation" with this title dated 1942 but with a different plot. It's likely a second try at an audition for the series.Thursday Oct 30, 2008
Joyce Jordan MD – July 3, 1947
Thursday Oct 30, 2008
Thursday Oct 30, 2008
Thursday Oct 30, 2008
Laura Lawton – Sept. 3, 1947
Thursday Oct 30, 2008
Thursday Oct 30, 2008
What does it mean to be married to one of the richest and most attractive men in the world? Well, we probably won’t be asking Melinda Gates about that, but we might get some insight from "Laura Lawton", a soap opera broadcast on NBC in the 1940s. The series looks at "the conflict between love and riches in a world everyone dreams of – but where so few dreams come true". Sounds like a reality tv show on MTV, doesn’t it? From September 3rd, 1947, we offer this episode, brought to you by Bab-O Cleanser, where Gail deals with her sister-in-law, who is putting a plan in motion that may mean Gail’s downfall. And, yes, all the scheming and high drama going on with these people does sound much like a modern day reality tv show. They should all be voted off the island. The show was transferred from an original Audiodisc acetate recorded from the NBC network line by an unknown local station, probably for time-shifting purposes during Daylight Savings Time or a similar purpose. (There's no label to post a picture of this time around.)