Radio review – TGA#10 – “Emperor Jones, Where the Cross is Made” (1945) ***

Double bill of two works by Eugene O’Neill sponsored by the good folks at US Steel, presumably on a culture kick. Well, be grateful we have Canada Lee’s Emperor Jones on record – co-starring with Boris Karloff no less, who is effective as the snivelling Pommy who deals with Jones. Lee is very good – but the piece doesn’t adapt that well to radio, because there isn’t a lot of plot (the start of the play is the end of Jones’ story and most of the action consists of him freaking out). To pad out the running time they adapted another O’Neill work, a one act play called “Where the Cross is Made”, which felt at times like an old school horror film with a crippled sailor bitter against his mad father and a subplot about buried treasure (it was a very early O’Neill work but is still entertaining – it’s a shame it never was turned into a horror film); Karloff was in this too, along with Everett Sloane.