Subject: [removed] Digest V2003 #313
From: "OldRadio Mailing Lists" <[removed]@[removed];
Date: 8/15/2003 1:25 PM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

    ------------------------------

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2003 : Issue 313
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      Re: German radio in WWII              [ "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed]; ]
      Re: Dr. Biel, Call Surgery            [ "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed]; ]
      Richard Denning                       [ "Cooper Smith" <coopersmith@[removed] ]
      Re: My Favorite Husband on TV         [ Roo61@[removed] (Randy Watts) ]
      Suspense Music                        [ "evantorch" <etorch@[removed]; ]
      Today in radio history -- sort of     [ Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed] ]
      "Smoke Rings"                         [ "Cope Robinson" <coplandr@bellsouth ]
      CBSRMT music                          [ "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@hotm ]
      Re: History of Mystery book           [ "Jan Willis" <jlwillis@[removed]; ]
      Richard Denning                       [ Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed]; ]
      CBS Radio Suspense's Closing Theme    [ Mark J Cuccia <mcuccia@[removed]; ]

    ------------------------------

    Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 23:03:42 -0400
    From: "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: German radio in WWII

    Jim Widner replied to questions from Dominick about the survival of German
    wartime broadcasts and confirmed that the Germans had developed the reel to
    reel tape recorder but wasn't sure if it was being used for archiving at
    that time.  It was.  But many of the tapes were erased and re-recorded by
    the allies at the end of the war because the BASF factory which made the
    tape had been bombed out of commission.  J. Herbert Orr used to tell a
    story that Eisenhower ordered him to rebuild the plant and make new tape
    when a portion of a Hitler speech was broadcast following the end of an
    Eisenhower speech that had been recorded on the same tape as the longer
    Hitler speech.  Orr returned home to Opelika, Alabama after the war and
    founded Irish Tape there.

    German Radio had an extensive library of classical music concerts recorded
    on tape during the war that was available for loan to stations throughout
    the axis.  Several hundred of them survived, including nine that were
    recorded in stereophonic sound.  Because Berlin was allowed to be liberated
    by the Soviets, a large library of Nazi tape recordings were taken to
    Moscow to the State Sound Archive.  During the 1970s most of them were
    returned to Berlin to the EAST German Archive.  I was hoping to be able to
    inspect these when I visited that archive in 1995 but found out that they
    had just been transferred to the former West German archive in another
    city.  Following re-unification it was decided that the Berlin archive
    would house recordings from the Communist era, while the other archive
    would hold the recordings made before 1946 and after 1990.  But many
    wartime German tapes do exist, and many have been used for reissues on many
    labels including an extensive opera series on BASF records in the 1980s.

    Discs were also used for recording by the Reichrundfunk, but they were not
    of the type that we are used to here in the [removed]  The 16 inch size was
    rarely used anywhere in Europe, and by the war the two main types of
    recording discs used in Germany were the Simplat, which was a solid vinyl
    disc that was soft enough to be recorded on, and another disc type which
    had a lacquer coating similar to ours but used a white vinyl base instead
    of metal or glass.  The Simplats have held up well, but the other type
    usually exhibit delamination.  The one example I have has lost most of the
    lacquer coating, and in the Vienna Phonogramme Archiv I saw a pile of them
    that had solidified into one lump that could only be separated by peeling a
    lacquer coating from a white vinyl base.  Which, of course, they don't
    do--waiting for someone to figure out how to properly separate them.

    Both the Germans and the Italians used regular shellac pressings for some
    broadcast recordings.  The famous propaganda jazz recordings by Charlie and
    his Orchestra were manufactured this way.  The National Archives has an
    enormous number of metal stampers of Italian broadcast recordings including
    speeches by Mussolini.

    But in addition to the recordings made by the Axis broadcasters themselves,
    there are the recordings made by the Allied monitoring facilities in
    England and the [removed]  Daily printed transcripts of the most important
    foreign broadcasts were published--the British still publishes them--but
    some of the dictating machine cylinders made of the broadcasts for
    transcribing still survive in the National Archives, and probably also the
    Library of Congress and the British Museum.    There also were some higher
    quality recordings made of the axis broadcasts, most notably of William
    Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) and Ezra Pound.

    Wire recording was strictly an American device during these years.  Martin
    Camras had developed a machine that was used in several forms during the
    war.  In fact, the broadcast of the Japanese surrender ceremony from Tokyo
    Harbor was heard via a wire recording made by a friend of mine, the late
    Steve Cisler, who at that time was a Marine signal corpsman.  MacArthur did
    not want the ceremony broadcast live in order to give the press reporters
    an even chance, so the Army recorded it on disc and Steve recorded it on
    two wire recorders for the Navy.  The Army had to take the discs to a
    shore-based station while all Steve needed to do was to get to an adjacent
    ship.  Despite the fact that one of the wires flew off the machine while it
    was being rewound, it was his other wire which got on the air first, and
    thus was the one that was broadcast by the American networks.  If you have
    a recording of the fifteen minutes before this broadcast began you will
    notice that there is a great amount of confusion as to when the broadcast
    would begin.  This is why.  I am mentioning this here because the question
    about the German broadcasts included a note about the use of wire.  The
    Germans were not using wire recording at all.

    Michael Biel  mbiel@[removed]

    ------------------------------

    Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 23:55:38 -0400
    From: "MICHAEL BIEL" <mbiel@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re:  Dr. Biel, Call Surgery

    Chris Chandler's summary of the events of the broadcasts of the House
    debate following FDR's Dec 8 Declaration of War Address is quite correct.
    I used the recordings of the CBS and Mutual broadcasts for a C-Span
    broadcast on Dec 7, 1991 which was repeated many times that weekend but
    never again due to the restrictions of the use of the film of FDR's speech
    by the archive controlling the Fox Movietone material for 1941.  Following
    the broadcast I deposited the full recordings of the two networks in the
    National Archive and the Library of Congress, neither of which had these
    broadcasts nor the film of FDR's speech.  My Mutual recording is missing
    the material before the speech and about two or three minutes following the
    speech, so if Chris has that first fifteen minute segment, I would love to
    have a copy of it.

    The CBS reporter in the House gallery was Park Simmons, someone we have
    never been able to trace to any other broadcast.  He is not listed as an
    accredited Congressional reporter, so it might have been an innocent error
    on his part that the broadcast on CBS continued from the House after the
    speech was over.  Simmons did not talk during the debate broadcast, so this
    part of the recording is the best way to hear the proceedings.  He did pull
    the plug as soon as he was advised to, and the broadcast then shifted to
    New York.  Over on Mutual, Fulton Lewis, Jr. knew exactly what he was
    doing, and yes, he can be heard clearly laughing at the idea that he was to
    stop broadcasting.  He did stop a few minutes later, and I bet the aide had
    brought with him an armed guard to assert his authority over Lewis!
    Although Lewis kept on talking while many Representatives had the floor,
    his asides help tell us about the adventure of Janette Rankin trying
    unsuccessfully to be be recognized by the Speaker of the House.

    On the C-Span broadcast I had to remove the segments I had included of Park
    Simmons because at the last minute CBS threatened to charge C-Span $700 a
    minute for the airing of the voice of any of their reporters.  But most of
    the debate that was heard on C-Span came from the CBS recording until they
    took the debate of the air, and then I switched to Mutual.  The speech was
    broadcast from the film, and there were two short segments missing.  A few
    months later a friend reminded me that Blackhawk Films had the speech in
    their catalogs for many years, and I am still surprised why we had not
    found anyone with this version of the speech film.  I'm still looking for a
    Blackhawk print of the speech just to say I have it.  As for the broadcast
    recordings, CBS does have it in their archive but they don't know it and do
    not know of its significance.  You might remember that in 2001 Walter
    Cronkite embarrassed himself on NPR when it was evident that he did not
    know that his own network HAD broadcast the debate.  Portions of the CBS
    broadcast appeared on an LP that was sold at the Pearl Harbor memorial for
    many years.   Sides 2, 3, and 4 of the Mutual broadcast had been found
    hidden away at WGN, and I also found a home recording of much of the Mutual
    broadcast in a garage sale around 1971.   I'd love to know the background
    of the Mutual recording that Chris has.

    Because the C-Span broadcast was on Dec 7 rather than on the 8th, that left
    me free that day to go and sit in the House gallery 50 years to the minute
    of the time of FDR's speech.  And then a half hour or so later I went down
    to the statue gallery to the statue of Janette Rankin, 50 years to the
    minute from when she tried to speak during the debate before becoming the
    only Representative to have voted against entry into both WW I and WW II.
    She may not have been correct, but she had guts.  (Of absolutely no
    interest to some of the people reading this digest is the fact that two
    statues away is the statue of Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of the
    Image Dissector TV camera tube.)

    Michael Biel mbiel@[removed]

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 01:10:29 -0400
    From: "Cooper Smith" <coopersmith@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Richard Denning
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    After a variety of roles during the last days of OTR and the
    early days of TV, Richard Denning reached what was probably the peak of his
    career when he played Deborah
    Kerr's wealthy "patron," in "An Affair To Remember."
    Although he didn't make the nominations for best supporting actor he was
    prominently mentioned as a potential candidate.
    He had better luck as a candidate near the end of his life when he had a
    recurring role on, "Hawaii 50," as the governor.

      *** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
      ***                  as the sender intended.                   ***

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 01:11:02 -0400
    From: Roo61@[removed] (Randy Watts)
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: My Favorite Husband on TV

>     Did CBS ever go though with thier plans to
>     make the radio series a television sitcom
>     besides I Love Lucy? If it did happened I'm
>     sure that they had a differant cast.

    MY FAVORITE HUSBAND ran on CBS Television from 1953 through 1955,
    originally with Joan Caulfield -- later Vanessa Brown, as Liz Cooper and
    Barry Nelson as husband George.  I saw a couple of episodes of the
    series on tape a few years ago and it didn't seem to have a great deal
    in common with the radio version.  Same basic premise but played in a
    more subdued, less "wacky" manner.

    Randy

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:49:43 -0400
    From: "evantorch" <etorch@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Suspense Music

    While on the subject of the excellent use of music on SUSPENSE, it is worth
    mentioning that in Fugue in C Minor the organist was Joseph Kearns, who
    played from a church (live) not far from CBS.

    Evan Torch
    etorch@[removed]

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:49:52 -0400
    From: Joe Mackey <joemackey108@[removed];
    To: otrd <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Today in radio history -- sort of

     From Those Were The Days --

    1911 - Procter & Gamble Company of Cincinnati, OH introduced Crisco
    hydrogenated shortening.  (Where would all those shows have been with
    Crisco as a sponsor?  And remember, its digestable! -ed)
       Joe

    --
    Visit my homepage:  [removed]~[removed]

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:50:40 -0400
    From: "Cope Robinson" <coplandr@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  "Smoke Rings"

    Jim Cox wrote:

>     All my life I've sung the catchy little Chesterfield commercial to the
>     words "Smoke dreams, smoke, smoke dreams, while a Chesterfield burns <snip>

    I am happy, Michael Hayde, that Jim Cox sings that Chesterfield theme at
    all.  Too bad that all his life he has been on key with slightly off lyrics.
    Thanks to you he will sound a great deal better from now on.

    Cope Robinson

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:50:24 -0400
    From: "Martin Grams, Jr." <mmargrajr@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  CBSRMT music

    Dixon Hayes asked:

>     Now I've heard the "Twilight Zone" music on CBSRMT (the actual RMT opening
>     theme can be heard in the TZ episode "Two," with Charles Bronson and
>     Elizabeth Montgomery), but where did the "Dark Shadows" theme come from?
>     The
>     1966-71 "Dark Shadows" was always an ABC fixture.  I don't remember hearing
>     it on the "Mystery Theatre."

    I heard the DARK SHADOWS theme on an episode that featured Fred Gwynne that
    took places on the moors of England - one of only two episodes of the series
    I have ever heard of the series and that was thanks to a friend who brought
    them along when we drove to Cincinnati together.  I do remember hearing some
    sound tracks to TZ's "To Serve Man" as well.
    Martin

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:51:24 -0400
    From: "Jan Willis" <jlwillis@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Re: History of Mystery book

    Regarding Chis Werner's fine recommendation of Max Allan Collins'
    _History of Mystery_.
      It's a beautiful book, and well  worth the retail  $45 price
    [removed]
       but it also happens to be available from one of the Kings of Remainders,
    Edward R.
    Hamilton, for $[removed], plus shipping.
      (( $[removed] for the first book, $.95 additional  shipping for each book after
    that, I think)
        I've bought from them for over two decades  and can highly recommend
    them.
      This online  link should work:
    [removed]
      While there, click on the "Search" feature, and do a Power Search using
    "radio" as a key word in the Title box  and you will
    see other radio-related titles, books and CDs,  at discounted prices.
      You can also leave Title and/or Author boxes  blank and choose  a
    particular publisher -  Collectors Press, McFarland, etc. -  and find all of
    that publisher's books currently being offered  by Hamilton.  Lots of
    Collectors Press titles, right now.

    Jan Willis

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:51:50 -0400
    From: Kermyt Anderson <kermyta@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Richard Denning

    Here's a page on Richard Denning, summarizing his
    career (with particular emphasis on My Favorite
    Husband). Interesting explanation of why Lucy's tv
    transition involved a whole different show.

    [removed]

    Several people have mentioned that Denning played on
    television the radio characters Mr North and Mike
    Shayne. That's true, but don't forgot that both of
    those characters appeared in print (first) and in
    movies (second) before appearing on radio (third).
    Brett Halliday wrote Mike Shayne stories from 1939
    through 1976, and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine was
    published from 1956 until 1985, so I'm sure the
    television show wasn't using only the radio show as
    source material. (Found a pretty cool and
    comprehensive Mike Shayne website at
    [removed] . There are also some
    screen shots of Denning as Shayne.)

    Kermyt

    ------------------------------

    Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:54:05 -0400
    From: Mark J Cuccia <mcuccia@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  CBS Radio Suspense's Closing Theme

    Chris Holm wrote:

>     All this talk of Suspense reminded me of something, and I thought I'd
>     share it and see if anyone else feels the same way.  Suspense is one of
>     my favorite OTR shows (the others being Gunsmoke and Lum & Abner), and I
>     love the intro theme music.  It's dark and a little spooky.  In the 40's
>     they use the same music at the end of the show as well.  However,
>     sometime in the early 50's (I think), they changed the end of show's
>     music to a rousing march, which I find more than a little disconcerting.

>     Like many of you, I listen to OTR when I go to bed.  Some nights, as
>     I'm drifting off at the end of a particularly good Suspense, it sounds
>     like a marching band has just started going through my bed room.  I'm
>     not a big fan. Why the switch?

    The original theme of SUSPENSE, used for virtually every episode from the
    beginning in Summer 1942, all the way through the premiere episode of the
    1951/52 season in late [removed], was the "dreamy" or "spooky" theme song
    with strings and chimes, etc., composed the the late great Bernard
    Herrmann, who composed a great deal of the music for numerous other CBS
    Radio and CBS-owned/produced television programs of days gone by, this
    music eventually being incorporated into the recorded CBS Music Library.
    (Herrmann also composed music for several movies of Hitchcock and Orson
    Welles. He also composed the score for Welles' Mercury Theater episodes
    on CBS Radio in the 1930s/40s).

    But shortly after the 1951/52 radio season of Suspense began, for WHATEVER
    reason (STILL UNKOWN to me!), the *closing* theme song was changed to this
    "march". The opening was still the "eerie" strings and woodwinds with
    chimes of Bernard Herrmann, but only for a few brief seconds though. This
    was what I refer to as the "second half" of the Autolite years. (Also
    beginning in late Summer/Fall 1951 was the change of the closing CBS
    outcue from "This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System" on both radio
    and TV, to "This is the CBS Radio Network" and "This is the CBS Television
    Network"). I do seem to remember in an early [removed] episode (I can't
    remember which one), that the Suspense/Autolite announcer did identify the
    title or composer of this "march" closing theme. But I only remember
    hearing that "march" theme credited in this *ONE* episode! The *brief*
    opening of the traditional Herrmann "eerie" chimes, woodwinds, strings,
    along with the closing "march" theme, continued through the  "sustained"
    years of June 1954 thru late 1956/early 1957.

    Beginning in [removed], CBS Radio seemed to migrate all of the more popular
    remaining dramas into a Sunday afternoon/evening block (perhaps to compete
    against the ever-growing-in-popularity/profits NBC Radio's Monitor?).
    Suspense, Johnny Dollar, CBS Radio Workshop, Gunsmoke, and others, all
    moved to this Sunday afternoon/evening time slot. During this period, with
    the real "deep voiced" announcer, Suspense returned to (a now pre-recorded
    version of) the original (closing) theme song of Bernard Herrmann. And
    this continued for Suspense all the way through the very end, 30-Sept-1962
    even the New York produced/originated period starting [removed]

    *IF* you hear the "march" theme on Suspense episodes of 1957-59, it is
    *THOSE* episodes which are AFRS-edited. During the closing theme song, the
    staff/booth announcer at CBS/KNX Hollywood (Roy Rowan, Hugh Douglas,
    George Walsh, etc) would read the outcue and even promos for maybe another
    CBS Radio programming or the network "in general". The cast credits were
    read just prior to the beginning of the closing theme itself. That outcue
    and promo might not have been desired by AFRS, if the local AFRS base
    station didn't carry that program being promo'd by CBS, or if it were not
    going to "immediately follow Suspense" when AFRS would air that program.
    Thus, AFRS probably felt it better to completely replace the theme song
    with their own "stock" copy of the 1951-56 "march" theme.

    When Suspense moved production/origination to NYCity in [removed], the
    closing was modified a bit, to where the NY-based CBS announcer (usually
    Stuart Metz, but also sometimes Art Hanna and others) would read the cast
    credits while the (Herrmann-composed) theme song played. AFRS-edited
    copies do *NOT* edit this closing theme, except for Stuart Metz final
    words of the CBS outcue or promo+outcue ([removed], "Listen to Arthur Godfrey
    time, weekdays on the CBS Radio Network), these outcues, sometimes with
    brief promo, would follow the final note of the closing theme with Metz
    saying "... another tale, well calculated to keep you [removed] SUS-PENSE".

    [removed] AFRS-edited copies for the 1959-62 timeframe sometime do *ADD* the
    march theme at this point, sans original CBS-outcue/promo. During this
    march, you'll hear an AFRS announcer say something like "Suspense has come
    to you through the worldwide facilties of the United States Armed Forces
    Radio, and Television Service".

    As for which closing theme song I like?

    I too prefer the "Herrmann-composed" version, used from 1942-51 and then
    1957-62. But I can tolerate the 1951-56 "march" years as well, as I also
    associate this with Suspense. BTW, that "march" almost sounds like the
    theme song for another CBS Radio drama of the 1940s/50s, "The FBI in Peace
    and War". I guess that in 1956/57, the new producer at that time, William
    N. Robson, preferred the earlier "Herrmann" composed theme as well (like
    we do), and decided to restore it for the closing!

    Mark J. Cuccia
    mcuccia@[removed]
    New Orleans LA USA

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #313
    *********************************************

    Copyright [removed] Communications, York, PA; All Rights Reserved,
      including republication in any form.

    If you enjoy this list, please consider financially supporting it:
       [removed]

    For Help: [removed]@[removed]

    To Unsubscribe: [removed]@[removed]

    To Subscribe: [removed]@[removed]
      or see [removed]

    For Help with the Archive Server, send the command ARCHIVE HELP
      in the SUBJECT of a message to [removed]@[removed]

    To contact the listmaster, mail to listmaster@[removed]

    To Send Mail to the list, simply send to [removed]@[removed]