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The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2002 : Issue 490
A Part of the [removed]!
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
Struts and Frets; On Writers [ Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed] ]
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Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 19:24:30 -0500
From: Charlie Summers <charlie@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Struts and Frets; On Writers
STRUTS AND FRETS
by Harry Bartell
++++
On Writers
Among those of whom I stand in awe - people who understand computers, golfers
who don't slice, men and women who can repair automobiles - are those high on
the list who can write dramatic material for any medium. The idea of turning
out a half-hour drama weekly is simply overwhelming, especially when limited
by the confines of a given format.
John Dunkel, who wrote a great number of shows especially on CBS said, "It's
really very simple. You put your hero up in a tree and throw rocks at him."
thereby creating tension and conflict which is the essence of drama. Of
course, the "rocks" could be either mental or physical. It isn't really that
simple. But when it is done right the result is something wonderful.
Any radio show, however skilled the personnel, is going to come up with a
clinker or two. The idea is to keep from having clinkers every week. No
matter the sentimental ties one might have about the shows of his youth, a
lot of them were pretty dreadful. They were loaded with contrived plots,
cardboard characters and dialogue never spoken by homo sapiens. But, to the
actor running into a script in which the characters really talked to each
other in situations with a sense of reality it was a joy. Except for shows
like Lux where movie stars were involved, writers were seldom seen at
rehearsals or broadcast but after a while it was possible to make fairly
accurate guesses about the author of the script without looking at the title
page. A script for a given show was going to include the regular characters,
usually in the same setting, but the "feel" of the show was different with
different writers. A good example is Gunsmoke. John Meston had a tendency to
write hard-edged, gritty scripts. Les Crutchfield provided a very real sense
of time and place. Kathleen Hite emphasized human contacts, particularly with
women.
With Dragnet however, there was less room for variation. I can't recall
whether Dick Breen wrote the first story but most of the early scripts were
done by Jim Moser, supervised closely, as you can well imagine by Jack Webb.
He set a mold which was comparatively rigid and when former sound man John
Robinson took over the writing, the change was not too noticeable. The
limitations of language and style were firmly established and woe to the
transgressor who wandered afield.
Anthology shows imposed fewer restrictions. Many of the programs were
adaptations from other sources and original stories didn't suffer the
comparison test with last week's script. Before the term "hyphenate" came in
vogue there were directors or producers who also wrote scripts for their
shows. In both cases I think Bill Robson and Jack Johnstone were better
directors than writers and yet Robson adapted Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
for Escape, and Johnstone wrote Johnny Dollar. I have a soft spot for
Occurrence. It was my first Escape (1947) and one of my favorite
performances. I can't very well knock Johnny Dollar. I did the show well over
50 times and that many checks have a tendency to cast a rosy glow over the
scripts. But, in the cold hard perspective of 50 years later, the show was
formulaic, carried by the personality of the leading character.
Another, perhaps stranger addition to this group was Cy Howard who, like
Harfield Weedin, the nominal producer of Dear Abby, had worked in the
advertising department of a Houston newspaper. How Cy became (a) a comedy
writer, (b) a producer-director, (c) the progenitor of My Friend Irma and
Life With Luigi I don't know. He was always immaculately dressed, including
pipe, and exuded the air of a lot of money which may or may not have been
true. Cy was one of the few people I have known who could swagger sitting
down. In retrospect, I think he was not the most popular director at CBS but
there is no denying two hit shows that were definitely his creations. I never
got over the irony of casting J. Carrol Naish, an Irishman, as the prototype
Italian but who is to argue with success?
Cy Howard brings up the subject of comedy writers as a species. I always got
the impression that those I knew had a lifetime commitment to topping the
other guy's joke. If they were sitting around in a group and one told a truly
hilarious story someone else might emit a flat-toned "Funny." If the joke
turned out to be a real howler, the response might be "Funnee!" As an actor,
I was nearly always bothered that the high comedy I had known in the theater
so seldom appeared in radio which is a stupid attitude from someone whose
heroes were Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy.
Comedy writers as a group had one common enemy: censorship. The networks
maintained that there was no such thing. However, tucked away somewhere in
the back rooms, each had a department called Continuity Acceptance. CA's job
was to prevent any incipient blush among the tender listeners. They were most
diligent in their efforts to maintain moral rectitude, finding threatening
words or phrases in lines that the average civilian wouldn't. A woman might
be expecting but she couldn't be "pregnant."The nit-picking was sometimes
amusing but mostly ridiculous. In hindsight, most of the "objectionable"
material was so inoffensive that one might wonder what all the fuss was
about. Cuts from Continuity Acceptance were a natural target for comedy
writers. Historically, jokes have tended toward the ribald, at least from the
times of the ancient Greeks, and the trend continues. One technique that was
frequently employed to protect a line or phrase was to precede it with a joke
that was so blatant the writer knew it would be cut. In the haste to cut the
offender, the next line would be overlooked. It didn''t always work but it
was successful often enough to give it a try.
There was another form of censorship exercised by the advertising agencies.
The aim was to protect their shows from possible publicity for a competitor.
This applied all types of programs For example, on a show advertising
Chesterfield cigarettes a man might be "fortunate" but not "lucky". If a show
sponsor happened to be selling shaving cream, a character could not use an
electric shaver. It is difficult now to place one's self in the social
attitudes of half a century ago. If the protectors of audience sensibilities
then were suddenly exposed to some of today's television programs, the result
would be group apoplexy.
I don't know to what extent - if any - writers were typecast. I always looked
forward to shows written by Dave Friedkin and Morton Fine because I knew the
dialogue would be bright and colorful. Frank Burt and Robert Libbott were
great story tellers. Milton Geiger's scripts were always soundly structured.
Gil Doud was great for hip dialogue. I am not a critic - for which I am duly
grateful. These impressions are from the perspective of one who is given some
words and told to translate them into people. Only once was I on the other
side of the page.
Vic Perrin and I wrote two scripts for Gunsmoke. It was rather late in the
series run and a lot of plot ideas had been used up. We submitted story lines
to Norm Macdonnell and they were accepted. We worked the plot lines together
and then he wrote dialogue for one, I the other. Then we exchanged scripts
for each to correct. I can't remember how Vic and I became friends. He was an
announcer at ABC before he started acting. Our voices were frequently
confused although I never thought we sounded alike. When we worked the same
shows he always maintained that the guy who read first got to choose the
voice range, high or low, in which to play his character. Over the years we
became more personally involved. One of his weddings - he was married three
times - was held in the living room of our house.
Vic was not adept at finding names for his characters. When we were laying
out plots he called everybody in the story "Winthrop". Many years later,
1989, we had moved to Oregon and I hadn't seen Vic for a long time. In June,
my wife was recovering from hip surgery in a hospital in Santa Barbara. I
left her to go to Los Angeles to record introductions for a new Sherlock
Holmes collection and returned early evening. When I arrived at the hospital
I was told to call Vic Perrin at once, it was very important. It was about 9
o'clock when I got to a phone. Vic's wife answered. She brought the phone to
Vic. He said, "Hi, Winthrop! I wanted to say goodbye." His voice was slurred
and his speech slow but he managed to tell me that he and Rita had finally
managed to take a cruise in Europe and he had a wonderful time. And then he
said, "I can't talk any more. I'm awfully [removed]" He went into a coma that
Saturday night. On Tuesday he was gone.
- ------------------
Harry Bartell maintains that his major accomplishment as a professional actor
for forty years was to survive with his mind, morale and marriage intact.
Born in 1913 in New Orleans, he grew up in Houston and graduated Phi Beta
Kappa from Rice University in 1933. After a stint at Harvard Business School
and a couple of years forced labor in a department store he moved to
Hollywood and stayed there for the next fifty-one years. Three seasons at the
Pasadena Playhouse led to work in 185 radio series and 77 TV series plus a
dozen or so properly forgettable motion pictures.
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