Radio review – BP – “Farmer Takes a Wife” (1952) **

I always get this mixed up with The Farmer's Daughter - this one isn't about politics, but life along the Erie Canal, the old link between New York and the Great Lakes. The farmer of the title - played on Broadway and film originally by Henry Fonda (the role that made him a star) but here by John Forsythe - works on the canal but really wants a farm. He falls for a girl (Joan Laurie) who doesn't want to leave the canal. And that's about it. This is set just before the railways came in reducing the canal's importance. It's probably the sort of piece that you need to see and feel to really work - the faces, the atmosphere, the subplots - because it's charms escape me here.