Radio review - Lux Radio Theatre - "Each Dawn I Die" (1939) ***

The Cagney-Raft prison film goes to radio, with Franchot Tone instead of Cagney (and Lyn Bari instead of Jane Bryan) - but it doesn't really matter because the story is more driven by Raft's character than Tone/Cagney's.

Tone is passive a lot of the time - thrown into prison, befriended by Raft who kind of falls in love with him, then busts out of prison ostensibly to help prove Tone's innocence, changes his mind, changes his mind again after hearing Tone won't dob, then busts back in prison.

Raft's better on radio than I thought he would be, without his great "look" - but then, the role is perfect for him and his tight-lipped delivery. No one else gets much of a look in.

Two silly things about the film are even more glaring here without visuals and Cagney's extra star power - the confusing stuff about Raft being annoyed Tone told the cops, and Raft going back in to prison to get a rat and help Tone. But it moves fast and is fun.

Radio review – Lux - “Sorry Wrong Number” (1950) ***

Not the radio play but an adaptation of the movie adaptation of the radio play. Not as good as the original - even at an hour it's padded but there is Barbara Stanwyck repeating her role in the lead. She is good fun and it's still a strong story.

Radio review – Lux – “Fancy Pants” (1950) **1/2

The success of The Paleface prompted Bob Hope to go out west in a loose remake of Ruggles of Red Gap – you wouldn’t believe him as a butler so he’s an American actor in England who specialized in playing butlers. Which robs the piece of a lot of its culture clash, fish out of water aspect... but Hope is always fun and he's well matched by Lucille Ball.

Radio review - Lux - "It Happens Every Spring" (1949) **

There's great wish fulfilment in a college lecturer becoming a champion baseball player but its lessened by the fact he is basically cheating and not even through his own ability (an accident in the lab creates a device that repels a baseball... was this the inspiration for The Absent Minded Professor?) Also, even in 1949 was it possible for someone to be a very famous baseball player and not have their face splashed everywhere (he doesn't want his fiancee and father in law to find out). The relationship between the lecturer and his catcher is nicely done, though. Ray Milland is good at this sort of comedy, although it would have been better with a less obviously English star.

Radio review - Lux - "Little Women" (1950) ***

Several of the cast from MGM's film repeat their screen performances - June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Margaret O'Brien and Janet Leigh, but no Elizabeth Taylor, which is presumably why the part of Amy is so truncated. It's serviceable enough, with everyone trying - the only one really out of his league is Lawford, who doesn't have a strong enough voice for radio. Even though this is a story for kids it's very adult - Allyson and Lawford may be childhood soul mates but don't get together and he winds up with someone better looking and shallower, which happens; O'Brien dies; it's set against the background of war.

At the end O'Brien makes a crack about hoping the fact she and Lawford came out to Hollywood together from New York "doesn't wind up in the columns" - she was 13 at the time but knowing Lawford that didn't make her necessarily safe. Allyson jokes about her upcoming movie with husband Dick Powell.

Radio review - Lux - "Vivacious Lady" (1941) **1/2

Don Ameche and Alice Faye don't quite make ideal substitutions for James Stewart and Ginger Rogers - Ameche is a bit too classy and civilised, so it isn't as much a shock he marries a showgirl as it was for aw shucks Jimmy; likewise Faye seems so nice and friendly, she lacks Rogers' slightly hard show girl edge that she brought to the role. Story wise this has problems - the gimmick is a professor marries a show girl but is embarrassed about it... for act two he hides the marriage which emasculates the lead. Actually he hides it for a lot of act three. It's bright and amiable enough and probably would have made a good musical.

Radio review -Lux - "Merton of the Movies" (1941) ***

Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland are a delight as ever in this adaptation of the throughly-road-tested story about a young man who wants to be in movies. It's a perfect role for Mickey; Judy doesn't really need to be in it, but it's great to have her along - she sings a few tunes, including one at the end from Babes in Broadway 'I Like New York in June'.

Radio review - Lux - "The Whole Town's Talking" (1941) ***

The guy who starred in Fibber and McGee or whatever it is plays the role made famous by Edward G Robinson - a nebbish clerk who is also a dead ringer for a gangster. Not as much fun on radio where you can't see the resemblance but it's still a solid farce. His love interest is a woman he's been engaged to for 12 years which is different from the film, from memory.

Radio review - Lux - "Frenchman's Creek" (1947) **1/2

World War Two was an ideal time for this tale of a married with children noblewoman during the Restoration who dons pirate garb and runs around Frenchman's Creek in Cornwall with a French pirate. This really needed to be done by Gainsborough rather than hollywood but still has a bit of action - she kills a man who lusts after her and goes back to her husband, but the pirate isn't killed (she helps him escape). Joan Fontaine repeats her film role, with David Niven of all people stepping in as the pirate - and he isn't that bad (even if not vaguely French). He talks at the end about soon going back to England - presumably this was to make Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Radio review - Lux - "Captain Horatio Hornblower" (1951) **1/2

Both Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo feel miscast in this adaptation of the movie adaptation of Forster's novel hero. The big gag is he coughs when nervous but he's brave. Like most sea movies e.g. The Sea Hawk it starts at sea, then goes back to land then finishes at sea where the hero is captured by the enemy then escapes. Actually just writing that out it's awfully like The Sea Hawk. (This was meant to be a vehicle for Errol Flynn too but by this stage he was too old and too much trouble.) 

The ending is a bit yuck when Peck finds out Mayo has been widowed so they can be together - hooray. He's hardly been dead five minutes!

Radio review - Lux - "Kitty Foyle" (1941) ***

The Best Actress Oscar is known for being given to capital A Actors giving capital P performances but Ginger Rogers won one for a natural, unmannered performance as a girl next door who falls in love with a rich man, and is tempted to run off with him despite him being married and the love of a good, poor doctor (even though he's poor it's not like picking someone who's going to be permanently poor though). The fact she falls pregnant to the rich dude prior to marriage isn't as clear here. Dennis Morgan and James Craig repeat their screen performances and are ideal handbags - its' one of Rogers' best performances.

Radio review - Lux - "Jolson Sings Again" (1950) **1/2

The Jolson Story was such a hit that Columbia decided to come up with a sequel, which just gets over the line in terms of a reason to exist - it covers Jolson's divorce and remarriage, decline in career, and recover in popularity by singing to the troops, including the making of The Jolson Story. This includes the bit where Al Jolson meets Larry Parks - although Jolson here is played by Jolson himself (which means the songs are done very well). The best scene for me is where Jolson and his new wife go back to the home he used to live in with his previous wife - Hollywood films of the time rarely touched on divorce. Less great is the kindly Hollywood producer who decides to bring him back to fame. Barbara Hale and William Demarest repeat their film performances. Jolson jokes (actually he probably wasn't joking) at the end about being up for a third film which Demarest quips should be called Jolson Sings Again and Again and Again.

Radio review - Lux - "Johnny Apollo" (1941) ** (warning: spoilers)

Burgess Meredith isn't the first actor one thinks of as a replacement for Tyrone Power, but it was radio and his voice has presence and authority, and he ends up giving a fine performance as the young man who becomes a gangster after his corrupt millionaire father is revealed to be a crook. Edward Arnold plays Dad and Dorothy Lamour is the girl he falls for (she sings a song). There's a soft element at the centre of this - Meredith never becomes much of a gangster, Arnold is set up to die at the end to save his son but he doesn't, and Meredith doesn't go down in a blaze of glory but only for a couple of years.

Radio review - Lux - "Hold Back the Dawn" (1941) ****

Billy Wilder was a refugee and former gigolo so it's no surprise he penned this tale of a shifty European (Charles Boyer) living in Mexico and trying to marry his way into America - he sets his eye on a school teacher (Susan Hayward, stepping in for Olivia de Havilland). Paulette Goddard is a fellow European who has married and sets her cap at Boyer; there's further complications from an investigating US official. It's done with cynicism and intelligence, at least at first - of course he has to reform. That isn't done very believably but the rest is terrific. The tale is bookended with Boyer telling his story with Cecil B de Mille playing himself in order to make money before he is arrested (he needs to pay for Hayward's operation) - so ten years before Sunset Boulevard here is de Mille playing himself in a Wilder script.

Radio review - Lux - "Wake Up and Live" (1943) **1/2

A very young and awkward Frank Sinatra is cast as a very young and awkward page at a radio station (shades of Kenneth from 30 Rock!) who actually has a great singing voice but is scared of the microphone. A girl gets him to sing into a mike that he thinks is dead but actually people hear it and he becomes a star - sort of like the Phantom of the Opera. There are also plots about a columnist and producer. Aimiable, dim entertainment with some famous tunes such as 'Embraceable You' a'nd 'Dancing in the Dark. At the end spiel Frank talks about his new son. Bob Crosby (Bing's brother) and Marilyn Maxwell co-star.

Radio review - Lux - "Sangaree" (1955) **

Dull melodrama set in post American Revolution Georgia, with Arlene Dahl and Cesar Romero falling in love amongst law suits and squabbles over plantations. Romero is a doctor who wants to work for the poor; Dahl has a nasty fiancee who wants the plantation. They all own slaves presumably so who cares? This sort of thing is okay on TV with colour and pretty Dahl and sets and stuff but on radio the creakiness of the story is well exposed.

Radio review - Lux - "The Westerner" (1940) ***1/2

Maybe Walter Brennan wasn't a great actor but he was a great personality, and never more effectively cast than as Judge Roy Bean, the ruthless, Lily Langtry-worshipping law West of the Pecos who is hoodwinked by horse thief Gary Cooper, which makes Bean surprisingly sympathetic - even when later on Cooper picks up the cause of the homesteaders against Bean. Doris Davenport repeats her film role too as the woman who basically spots Cooper as good husband material and sets about converting him. Cooper later whinged that Brennan's part outshone him, which it does, but the fact his character is initially a bit duplicitous makes him a lot more interesting than usual.

Radio review - Lux - "The Letter" (1941) ****

The original three of the film's cast - Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall and James Stephenson - are united for this excellent radio production, which only really struggles in the final scene as it's hard to convey Davis' murder by the dead man's wife as effectively with words. Marshall isn't quite believable as a rough man of his hands as the role really requires but is spot on when it comes to playing a slightly dim cuckold willing to stick by his wife no matter what. Stephenson is very good as the lawyer attracted to Davis to the point where he breaks the law (his wife is given a short effective scene where she idiotically prattles about vowing not the make a cocktail while Davis was on trial - a good sharp contrast to Davis). You could point to the slippery cultured double dealing Chinese lawyer as an example of Hollywood racism but the white race is hardly well represented here. I wondered if Marshall's and Stephenson's characters wound up in a Japanese POW camp.

Radio review - Lux - "The Wizard of Oz" (1950) ****

Judy Garland reprises her legendary role and several of the best known songs are here - two 'Over the Rainbow's, 'If I Only Had a Brain', 'We're Off to See the Wizard' and 'Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead'. The work is such an institution it defies criticism, rather like the Atlantic Ocean. At the end Judy talks about bringing along her three year old Liza. The one the audience love the most is the Cowardly Lion - every line of his gets a big laugh. Nothing's as universal as a coward, I guess.

Radio review - Lux - "The Lemon Drop Kid" (1951) **1/2

After his success with Sorrowful Jones Bob Hope returned to Damon Runyon land as a tout who accidentally gives a wrong tip to a gangster and has to raise ten grand. He does it by exploiting a little old lady for charity purposes. Hope is lively and suits the milieu, even if it got a bit tired and things like him pretending to be a woman don't transfer well to radio - his sometime mistress Marilyn Maxwell plays his girlfriend here. Naturally he makes a joke about Democrats and there are some ad-libs which crack up the audience.