Radio review - Best Plays - "John Loves Mary" (1953) **1/2

Norman Krasna's incredibly popular play given an average production - in truth, this is a hard play to do well because it's so light, it needs really top playing and energy. Also there's no laugh track - a studio audience would have really helped. Nina Foch overacts in the female lead (which she played on stage), Van Johnson is alright. It's okay, and you can't really say the play deserves better, but it's not sensational.

Radio review – Best Plays – “Autumn Crosus” (1953) **

There’s always a market for a tale about a middle aged (35) spinster who finds love in a foreign country with a foreigner and this was Dodie Smith's first big success on stage (even if she was so nervous she wrote it under a pseudonym). Here it’s the Alps and the twist is the guy is – wait for it – married. Summertime, Shirley Valentine… you know what to expect. John Chapman calls this a romantic comedy – it isn’t really. Walter Slezak is fine as the foreigner who actually loves the English woman but can’t be with her. The scenes were the girls’ family poo-poo her dreams are effective.

Radio review – Best Plays – “There’s Always Juliet” (1953) **

This might work if it were played by two big stars you really liked but the casting here is unknowns (Herbert Marshall and Edna Best played it on stage) so all you are left is with charm, little jokes, hardly any story: The plot is about a American man who falls in lovewith an English woman really quickly. That’s kind of about it. She decides to marry him at the end. You couldn't even call this a romantic comedy as it's not very funny and doesn't try to be. Written by John Van Druten who liked to write that sort of thing eg. Voice of the Turtle.

Radio review – Best Plays – “Home of the Brave” (1952) ****1/2

Arthur Laurents was once a radio playwright which might explain why this adaptation of his play works so well – it doesn’t have many actors in each scene so is easy to follow who is who, and the jungle fighting stuff works brilliantly: gunshots, screams of a friend being tortured by the Japanese off in the instance. It’s a solid melodrama - some of it’s devices now seem dated due to being used on a lot of soap operas (eg a shrink inspiring a Jewish man with psychological paraplegia to stand up by calling him anti-Semitic names) but it’s still effective. And it’s underpinned by serious issues – not just anti-Semitism but the fact one of the soldiers loses an arm at the end. Intensely acted by the cast – no famous names but apparently they played the role on Broadway.

Radio review – Best Plays – “The Rose Tattoo” (1953) ***

A middle aged woman can’t stop thinking about sex – the plot of many a Tennessee Williams play. She’s played here by Maureen Stapleton, in the role which made her name on Broadway, even if it was originally written for Anna Mangnani. She’s a widow determined to turn her back on sex after her husband dies and that her daughter should join her – despite the fact a young sailor is panting around her, and an Italian is panting around him. Oh and the reveal that hubby rooted around on her. Eli Wallach is the guy who turns Stapleton back on to sex (the same role he played on Broadway). Because at the end of the day no one can live without it, huh, Tennessee? Not one of the very best TW but still enjoyable and it's important that these two performances were captured.

Radio review – Best Plays – “MacBeth” (1952) ***

Solid version of the play, cut down to emphasise the leading couple, i.e. less Macduff, Malcolm, etc. Always worth listening to but functional more than inspired. No stars in it: Eva Le Gallienne, Staats Cotsworth, Paul McGrath, Raymond Edward Johnson.

Radio review – Best Plays – “The Madwoman of Chaillot” (1952) **

There is a mad woman – the eccentric lady who tries to stop greedy people digging for oil in Paris – but as John Chapman points out a more accurate title would be “mad women” for there’s a bunch of nutters. It doesn’t translate that well to radio – too many characters, too theatrical – I think you need to see it. Didn’t help that the version I heard the sound was fuzzy in the last five minutes. Aline MacMahon plays the lead.

Radio review – BP – “The Petrified Forrest” (1952) ***

Cyrill Ritchard stars as Alan Squires, with no one else famous, so the piece is geared to him. We have a lot more wafty dialogue with the waitress and talk of philosophy, less Duke Mantee. It’s not as exciting but the central situation so strong, the characters so vivid, that it still holds.

Radio review – BP – “The Male Animal” (1952) **1/2

Comedy about American academia from someone called Elliot Nugent who also stars – he plays a married nerdish professor who is visited by a former football player, an ex-beau of his wife. There’s another plot about academic freedom – he wants to use a letter written by an anarchist as a study tool. Amiable enough. Martha Scott co-stars.

Radio review – Best Plays – “Biography” (1952) **

I think maybe I’d like S N Behrman’s plays if I watched productions with stars I was fond of – the plots are so wafer fin and the jokes and characterisation not particularly strong. This was a stage hit for Ina Claire and it’s a good vehicle for a female star (Faye Emerson plays the role here): she’s a glamorous painter in New York who decides to write her memoirs for a bit of cash. Everyone loves her: the intense, principled editor, the man running for senate – but at the end she decides to be single. Good for her. Shame the jokes aren’t funnier.

Radio review – Best Plays – “Susan and God” (1953) **1/2

A socialite starts doing “good deeds” by telling the truth therefore spreading havoc amongst her set. It’s not a bad idea for a play – there was probably more dramatic meat to be mined, or at least better gags. Judith Evelyn plays the role made famous by Gertrude Lawrence on stage and Joan Crawford on screen.

Radio review – BP – “Camille” (1953) **

Sexist codswallop which has proved very durable over the years because it has a terrific part of a female star – Camille the courtesan, beautiful, funny, adored by a younger man, who noblys sacrifices her love for his sake (and his sister), gets to talk (a lot), then dies tragically (with a little cough here and there). She breaks up with Armand at the pleading/bossing of Armand’s father, who in some interpretations could be seen as nice but here comes across as a horrible oppressive bully. Eva LaGallienne and Richard Waring play the lead roles.

Radio review – BP#1 – “Winterset” (1952) **

A once-renowned play which isn’t well done these days but made an impression on debut in 1935 and was the first work for the Best Plays radio show. It’s from Maxwell Anderson, who drew attention by writing in verse (i.e. poetic, non realist style). Burgess Meredith plays a man determined to prove his father’s innocence – there are gangsters, corrupt judges, sisters of gangsters, stoolies. Maureen Stapleton plays the girl Meredith fell in love with. I found it a little hard to follow purely on ear. A play more interesting than enjoyable. Meredith and Stapleton both have excellent voices.

Radio review – BP – “Ethan Frome” (1952) **1/2

Ari Gold in Entourage once dismissed Edith Wharton’s books as always being about the same thing – a guy wants to f*ck a girl but he can’t because those were the times. It’s a little simplistic but not without merit. Ethan is the guy here (Carl Webber), the girl is Mattie, an assistant at his farm (Geraldine Page), the reason why they can’t is he has a horrible oppressive wife who sounds old enough to be his mother. Ethan and Mattie decide to kill themselves but stuff it up and both wind up alive and crippled. The ending is the best bit about an otherwise very slow paced story, with lots of regional accent acting.

Radio review – BP – “Rope” (1952) ****1/2

If you thought James Stewart was miscast in the film, wait til you hear Victory Jory here. Jory has a wonderfully deep radio voice, and he tries – and isn’t terrible it should be said – he’s simply not believable as the one legged, tormented Rupert. Hurt Hatfield and Lloyd Bochner however are excellent as the killers and the piece is full of menace and dread. The stuff in the play with the girl going “I bet the dead body is in that chest” is less OTT on radio because you can’t see the chest.

Radio review – BP – “Missouri Legends” (1952) **1/2

The last days of Jesse James, a topic familiar from films rather than Broadway. John Forsythe plays the lead role, living under the name of William Howard, trying to go straight but with much enthusiasm - he keeps being tempted to rob trains. We meet his brother Frank and the Ford brothers as well as his wife Zee. It's treated seriously. 'The Ballad of Jesse James' is sung. This was based on a play written by David Belasco's secretary.

Radio review – BP#4 – “The Hasty Heart” (1952) ****

Hokey but very effective, something you could also say about Teahouse of the August Moon, also written by John Patrick. Patients at a hospital in Burma towards the end of World War Two are informed that they’re going to be joined by a soldier who is terminally ill (dodgy kidneys) but he doesn’t know it yet. They try to be nice to him but he’s a dour Scot – orphaned, miserable, proud, penny pinching, into kilts and playing his bagpipes. It’s a cliché character but it wouldn’t work if it wasn’t – the humanisation of Lachie/Scotty is very moving, and you feel for him as he falls for the nurse. The Aussie character in the play gets a few lines, the African a few grunts (he gives Lachie beads, of corse), but the biggest roles are to “the Yank” and the nurse. I didn’t recognise any of the cast - apparently Ann Burr, who plays the nurse, did that part on Broadway.

Radio review – BP – “St Helena” (1952) **1/2

Napoleon’s last days on the island of St Helena have inspired a number of writers. It’s not hard to see why – the once-most-powerful-man in Europe stuck out on an island in the middle of nowhere, with his skeleton staff, memories and hurt pride, is one of the great "coda" stories in history. It's a terrific "and then this happened to him." I can't think of anyone else who finished their life in such a melancholically romantic way - maybe Bonnie Prince Charlie.

This was an adaptation of RC Sherriff’s play, which (according to John Chapman’s introduction) was destined for an unheralded short run at the Old Vic in the 1930s until a glowing letter of recommendation from Winston Churchill to the Times saw it transferred successfully to the West End. Maybe Churchill related to this tale of a once powerful figure in exile; he of course made a comeback (two, in fact) but Napoleon never did.

The problem with this as a play is a big one: there’s no real story. From the first scene Napoleon is bitter and complaining – he hates being called “General” instead of “Emperor”, he wants a bigger allowance, he doesn’t like his men talking to him as equals, he squabbles with the Governor who wants to keep him on a leash. It’s repetitive and lacking in decent characters. There’s a few mini plots – they won't let him send letters, there's some fear of an escape attempt, a loyal general insists on telling him the truth – but they all feel the same. By the time Napoleon carks it you’re almost glad because he was such a whinger. I remember once reading an analysis of R.C. Sherriff's writing (I think it was in a book on The Dam Busters) which said he struggled if the story didn't provide him with a ready made climax, such as Journey's End and that's definitely the case here. Dennis King plays Napoleon.

Radio review – BP – “Elizabeth the Queen” (1952) ***

Eva LeGallienne plays the lead role in this version of Maxwell Anderson’s famous play. I’d never heard of her before this – she was a famous theatre actor whose career spanned decades, making the cover of Time magazine at one moment. I preferred her and Richard Waring to the Lunts, who also did a version of this, for Theatre Guild on the Air. I’d be interested to read a feminist take on this – Elizabeth is a strong ruler, but always seems to want to cave to Essex… but she is never really serious about it.

Radio review – BP – “Another Language” (1953) **

An example of the sort of play which was made irrelevant by radio and then TV. It’s about a large family in some small town overly interested in itself. One of the women who’s married into it (played by Faye Emerson) is a free spirit and feels stifled (hubby is under mum’s thumb, dad’s only concerned with their good name), so she and ends up having a fling with a young man – which does provide this piece with a decent enough climax (she elects to stay with her husband). Apart from that it’s pretty boring. 

It was a massive hit on Broadway in the early 30s so it obviously struck a chord with audiences – but then unhappily married couples have always been one of the big markets for theatre, not to mention married women who like to think they're really a free spirit and terribly attractive to younger men.