Radio review – CP#9 – “Arrowsmith” (1939) **1/2

One of those stories which you can tell are based on best sellers because they have this aura of seriousness and sort of amble along and feel like an adaptation of some tome. Orson Welles is very dignified in his conclusion to this one, perhaps because his co-star was Helen Hayes. She plays a simple, adoring wife of a whiny doctor (Welles) who is interested in biology, then becomes a small town doctor, then researches the plague and Hayes dies.

It feels like a shortened version of a long epic – wasn’t there a second wife or something? Although Welles’ character is a bit of a whinger and Hayes’ goes on about her ignorance a bit too much, the ending where she dies is quite moving. But this felt as though it needed another half hour to really give it the sweep it deserved.