Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Radio review – TGA#122 – “For Love or Money” (1948) *1/2

Dim rom com about a Broadway star who’s taken time out at his Long Island estate to recover from the death of his wife (but it’s okay since the wife was a tramp and he didn’t really like her). He stumbles upon a ditzy girl from Denver who is 20 years younger and – get this for a concept – she doesn’t know who he is. So he hires her as a secretary. Both of them have people who are in love with them, but I think the audience is meant to be glad they get together. "Gee, I hope that child hooks up with the man who is her boss and old enough to be her father."
It’s the sort of “story” that you saw in the 50s on screen a lot, when every second rom com seemed to have a generation gap between the leads (Debbie Reynolds was in a bunch). You might get away with it with some lush colour photography, great sets and costumes, and stars – but here it’s radio and the leads are C-list, Joan Caulfield and the always-wet John Loder, who did the part on stage. I should add that people liked it: it ran for almost 300 performances on Broadway (it was based on a play by F Hugh Herbert who wrote Kiss and Tell and The Moon is Blue).

No comments: