"The Greatest Ghost Story Ever Heard" Part 2

Continued from Part I. (Lionel Barrymore experiences setbacks and success in the role of Scrooge; and several of the most important actors in Golden Age Hollywood play Dickens not only at the movies and on stage, but in the theater of "the mind's eye.")

Join Craig on the RADIO ONCE MORE webcast Friday December 3rd at 9pm, to discuss the Carol's history, and to hear his own and Barrymore's productions of the story, as well as excerpts from several others: http://www.radiooncemore.com/.

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Charles Dickens. Composite image by Art News.

MGM studios, impressed no doubt by the radio success one of the biggest members of their stable of “more stars than there are in heaven,” had planned to star Barrymore in a film version of Dickens’ classic, but the actor’s recurring hip injury flared up. Barrymore, not wanting to let the project die, recommended British character actor Reginald Owen for the role.

MGM hoped to promote both the film and its star on their in-house radio program, Good News. So Barrymore was paid not to play the lead –- but he did narrate the film. Evidently, he also agreed not to compete with MGM by playing the role for Campbell’s – so Orson Welles, radio's "boy genius" took on the role, apologizing for Barrymore’s absence.

Per usual for the Mercury, the 1938 production overall is good. The script is different from the norm – it opens with the Nativity story from the gospel of Luke. Ex-Lucky Charms Leprechaun Arthur Anderson, 16 at the time, is very good indeed as the Ghost of Christmas Past, who was described by Dickens as ”like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium”. Alas, the performance of the show’s Scrooge is far from Orson Welles’s shining hour – the 23 year old actor sounds like he’s doing a comic opera “Old Man.”

But next year came the most famous of all of Lionel Barrymore's turns as the "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!”

The Christmas Eve 1939 Campbell Playhouse presentation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, starring Lionel Barrymore as Ebenezer Scrooge, was a performance that helped introduce me to the wonders of the Theater of the Mind. It probably was for many others as well, as it is likely one of the best-known broadcasts from the Golden Age of American Radio Drama: it has been circulated on reel-to-reel tape, vinyl record, audiocassette, CD and mp3.

It is quite wonderful; at an hour’s length it's one of the longest of all of Barrymore’s performances of the story. Welles is terrific – Dickens’ classic "...I am standing, in the spirit, at your elbow..." line is thrillingly delivered by the former Shadow, and stands as a comment on the power of radio itself. Ernest Chappell (from the 1926 Carol mentioned previously) warmly announces; and Mercury actors including Everett (Journey into Fear) Sloane, George (Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb) Coulouris, Ray (Touch of Evil) Collins and Bea Benederet all bring their very best games.

Welles’ introduction stated that “‘A Christmas Carol’... has long been a classic ... and Mr. Lionel Barrymore’s appearance in it is rapidly becoming one,” and the actor’s hold on the role solidified throughout the 1940s. (A later Campbell’s press release suggests that the ’39 show was officially rebroadcast for Christmas of 1940, which was rare in the era of Old Time Radio.)

In 1941, the thespian presented the story as a part of Rudy Vallee’s Sealtest Show; and an abbreviated Carol was presented each year from 1942 to 1948 in the slot of Barrymore's own weekly series, The Mayor of the Town. (In fact, some records show that starting in this period, there was more than one Barrymore Scrooge haunting the airwaves –- both live and ghostly re-broadcast!)

Also in 1942, Barrymore moonlighted in a modern wartime variation on the theme: the Treasury Star Parade’s "A Modern Scrooge," hosted by Fredric March (later an early TV Scrooge, himself). In this one, a town crank refuses to buy Bonds until a ghost shows him his nephew’s peril on the battlefield, for want of the bullets that his money would have bought.

And so “Lionel Scrooge” marched on...

The Dec. 25, 1944, issue of Life magazine features a spread of full-cast, fully-staged pictures shot on the MGM lot – a tantalizing “what if?” look at what a Barrymore Carol film would have been like.
In 1948, NBC offered a special six-hour Christmas Festival, leading off with Barrymore in The Carol, followed by performances by the likes of Gene Autry, Danny Kaye, Burns and Allen, the Andrews Sisters, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson.

And in 1949, the actor completed his “conquest by Christmas spirit” of the major radio networks: Mutual presented The Capehart Christmas Hour, with a program of A Christmas Carol and music. For the next two years, Barrymore stayed on Mutual.

But in 1952 it was back to where he had started for Lionel Barrymore -– CBS featured him on the Hallmark Playhouse that year. And the next season, the actor became host of that series, now called the Hallmark Hall of Fame. His 1953 performance there, featuring B-movie beauty Lynn Bari, marked 19 years since Lionel’s first essaying of the role.

And it was to be his last.

Lionel Herbert Blythe (his birth name) passed away at the age of 76, on November 16th of 1954. Hallmark that year reran the previous year’s production as a salute to the actor – and in tribute to a truly amazing achievement in broadcasting. Barrymore had been named Best Actor in a 1942/43 national radio listeners’ poll, based largely on the Carols and his work in Mayor; his annual Scrooges were always welcomed in the press like the return of an old friend; and he had to all intents and purposes finally played the character onscreen (without, sadly, the key redemption scene), as Old Man Potter in Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. The actor's performance in A Christmas Carol had become for the United States what William Makepeace Thackeray had said that the original book was for England: “a national benefit, and to every man or woman who (heard) it a personal kindness." Barrymore even stated "As you know, I have played many roles during my career. But if there is one role I really hope I'll be remembered for, it's that of Ebenezer Scrooge."

Now, in all those years when the Babe Ruth of radio Scrooges was hitting them out of the park every season, there WERE other players in the league.

In 1949, Favorite Story presented host Ronald (Lost Horizon) Colman very ably embodying the lead, supported by Arthur Q. Bryan (best known as Elmer Fudd's voice) and Jimmy (Twilight Zone) Lydon. 1951 saw Stars Over Hollywood offer the story on CBS starring Edmund Gwenn (though his avuncular style fit his Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street better!) That same year, ABC presented a production starring Alec Guinness, that originated in Great Britain; and in 1953, another transatlantic Carol was a part of Theater Royal on NBC, with Laurence Olivier as Scrooge (though as with Welles in 1938, it’s far from the best performance of an otherwise gifted actor.)

During this same era the classic story was also recorded directly for home-use on 78 rpm discs.

The first such production is the 21-minute Decca version from 1941, starring Ronald Colman as Scrooge – who in a unique twist, narrates the story in the first person! Also in the cast are Barbara Jean Wong (known from the Charlie Chan series), Hans (The Twonky) Conried and Gale (The Lucy Show) Gordon – who, in another twist, plays a SPEAKING Ghost of Christmas Future! (The same script appears to have been also used for Colman’s 1949 radio broadcast.)


That same Christmas season (which was also, sadly, to include Pearl Harbor), RCA offered a version that featured another return to the Carol fold by writer/producer/narrator Ernest Chappell. This one also had a seasoned cast: Eustace (Gaslight) Wyatt in the lead, with Richard (Meeting at Midnight) Gordon, Bud (Superman) Collyer and Dick (Spaceballs) Van Patton. At a pleasingly long 40 minutes, it’s a very well done adaptation.

In 1942 it was Columbia Records' turn – featuring Basil Rathbone as Scrooge, with music by Leith (Destination Moon) Stevens. The script was by Edith Meiser and to this listener’s ears, uses too many of her own phrases and too few of Dickens’. But Rathbone is very good in the role, which he would play twice on television in the 1950s. And again, great vocal support comes in the form of Lurene (Psycho) Tuttle, Arthur Q. Bryan, Walter (Sherman and Peabody) Tetley and narrator Harlow Wilcox. And MGM records offered their own Barrymore “home edition” in 1947.

Moving on into the 50s and 60s, we enter the time when radio was being killed by the networks to pay for television... but all was not lost for audio Carolers!

There was another for-records production in 1960, by Caedmon – with a storied cast including Paul (A Man for All Seasons) Scofield as narrator and Ralph (Tales From the Crypt) Richardson as Scrooge. Even more recently, Patrick (Star Trek: The Next Generation) Stewart recorded a version of his smash 1989 Broadway one-man presentation.

Back to radio.

Amazingly, the post-"Golden Age of Radio Drama" era saw new network versions. On the Christmas Eve, 1975 episode of veteran producer Himan (Inner Sanctum) Brown’s CBS Radio Mystery Theater, series host E.G. (Creepshow) Marshall took a character role in addition to narrating for this single time, and makes a fine Scrooge. And in 1990, National Public Radio mounted a production with Jonathan Winters and Mimi Kennedy based on Dickens’ reading version.

If you'll indulge me, I'd like to mention just one other, more personal production. In 1995, by the good graces of NYC’s WBAI, I had the pleasure of joining the illustrious company mentioned above by producing my own one-hour radio version, and played the role of Ebenezer Scrooge. Directed by my friend Jay Stern, it had sterling work by all, and was topped off by Tony Award- winner Mark Hollmann’s score. We removed the quaint “Disneyfication” often added to the piece, returning to it the grit and fear of what its author called “a ghost story.” It was the inaugural production of Quicksilver Radio Theater, and can still be heard by way the Public Radio Exchange and through iTunes.

“The End of It…(?)”

On the occasion of Charles Dickens’ death in 1870, a poor London child asked a stranger, “Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?” But A Christmas Carol lives, and forever will, in the hearts of all of us who know how to keep Christmas well – if anyone alive possesses that knowledge!

And so, as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless us, every one!”

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Craig Wichman is an Actor, Writer, Producer and lifelong lover of The Carol, who lives in New York City. His work includes the films The Devil You Know and A Christmas Carol – In Eight Minutes. He wishes to thank the veterans in OTR whom he has had the pleasure of talking with, as well as the esteemed members of the online OTR resources Old Time Radio Digest and The Digital Deli.

Corrections and additions to this information, and questions about acquiring recordings of several of these broadcasts, are welcome at QuicksilverRT@aol.com.

Portions of this material appear in the Autumn 2010 issue of NOSTALGIA DIGEST .



Primary Sources:

Davis, Paul. The Life and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Sammon, Paul. The Christmas Carol Trivia Book.

Kobler, James. Damned in Paradise.

Kotsilibas-Davis, James. The Barrymores.

The Digital Deli. November 2010. Web. http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/DigitalDeliToo/dd2jb-A-Christmas-Carol.html

"The Greatest Ghost Story Ever Heard"

The final month of the year brings us into the Nativity-and-noel, solstice-and-Santa season. Traditionally a time to tell ghost stories, TDSH kicks off December with a guest article (in two parts) on the audio versions of the greatest and most spirit-ed ghost story of them all-- Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I'm grateful to author Craig Wichman for sharing it here.

This is Part 1. Part 2 runs tomorrow.

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THE GREATEST GHOST STORY EVER HEARD

A History of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as Audio Drama
By Craig Wichman

Several of the most famous horror actors of the golden age of films performed Dickens' classic tale not only at the movies and on stage, but also in another theater almost forgotten today -- radio's "Theater of Imagination."

1949 ad for radio/tv combo.

On a brisk Christmas Eve in the early 1970s in the Midwestern countryside, a young boy and his little sister sneak away from the extended family festivities to huddle in front of the hulking “Entertainment Center” radio upstairs. The strains of Tchaikovsky’s “Theme from Piano Concerto No.1 (Tonight We Love)” begin and soon the two are whisked away to Queen Victoria’s London (and somehow, to Franklin Roosevelt’s Depression-era America at the same time.)

“A solemn Phantom, shrouded in black, draped and hooded, came towards him slowly and silently...like a mist along the ground...”

A local AM station was re-broadcasting the classic 1939 Campbell Playhouse “A Christmas Carol” with Lionel Barrymore (Drew's great-uncle), and it was as magical that night as when first heard on the eve of the Second World War. It would be one of the main reasons why the present writer – only 4 years old when such programs were killed by the networks in 1962 – became a life-long lover of radio drama.

Of course, fantasy and horror were no strangers to Golden Age Radio. Starting in the early days with shows like The Witch’s Tale, programs including Wyllis (Son of Frankenstein) Cooper’s Lights Out, Inner Sanctum and Suspense presented works by Lovecraft, Stevenson, Poe and Wells, performed by the likes of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Peter Lorre.

Photo of Barrymore as Scrooge from a 1940 Winnipeg Free Press article. Image source here.

This specific radio production by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre of THE iconic Christmas story, is a deserved classic.

“This must be distinctly understood, or nothing
wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate...”

In the summer of 1843, 31-year-old Charles Dickens was already a famous writer, but his most recent work was not generating money as quickly as he had hoped;. and with an extended family that looked to him for support, the fears about money that had haunted him since the sometime poverty of his childhood returned. While taking his daily walks among the common people on the “black streets of London,” he decided to present them with a holiday treat that would also quickly raise cash for himself. With time short, he would build on a preexisting foundation: a portion of his novel The Pickwick Papers which just happens to be the story of a hard-hearted man who is shown the error of his ways by otherworldly creatures.

The first edition of 6,000 sold out by Christmas Eve.

"Marley's Ghost," handcolored illustration by John Leech from the 1843 First Edition of A Christmas Carol

An immediate sensation, five unauthorized productions had been mounted on stage in London by February 5. By the following Christmas, the same pattern of success had crossed the Atlantic to New York City. As years passed, The Carol spread; pirated editions were printed; it was musicalized; and as early as 1901, made into a British silent film by W.R. Booth.

An early film version of Dicken's ghostly Christmas tale.

As an amateur actor himself, when later he again found himself short of cash, Dickens trod the boards with public readings of his own works. A special adaptation of A Christmas Carol was always one of the biggest crowd-pleasers.

Indeed, when another medium was born, radio, Carol would become a holiday staple. Even now, when radio drama is a shade of what it was in its heyday, adaptations of The Carol are aired along with evergreen Yule musical classics like Handel’s “Messiah” and Irving Berlin’s ”White Christmas.”

In the early days of civilian radio, entertainment consisted largely of musical acts, speeches or monologues by single performers and occasional short sketches. But early on, performers realized that longer, fully-cast dramatic pieces could be successful in the medium. Dickens’ masterpiece was an ideal choice for them: a great story, already beloved by the public. Being in the public domain it was also fee-free!

The first documented presentation of The Carol seems to have been on December 22nd, 1922, by pioneer station WEAF in New York, and likely the simpler type of broadcast mentioned earlier – a 30-minute reading by Charles Mills, with music. Presentations over the following two years on stations WRC, WGY, WOAW, WOR, and the U.S.’s first commercially licensed station, Pittsburgh’s KDKA, seem to have been similar in scope, perhaps using Dickens’ own trimmed-for-public-reading text.

On Christmas Eve of 1924, Chicago’s WMAQ Players performed The Carol in the first known instance of a multi-cast dramatization for broadcast. And in 1926, the mini-network of WFBL, WGY and WMAK broadcast a production by the Boar's Head Dramatic Society of Syracuse, N.Y.

Another step forward was taken on Christmas Eve of 1928, when WOR, the first station to carry programming from William Paley’s fledgling Columbia Broadcasting System, aired with sister station WMAL a TWO-HOUR dramatization of the story with music, and the 120 minutes granted Dickens’ rich tale real room to express itself. "The CBS" (as some called it then) Carol-ed again regularly over the following years by way of NYC station WABC.

In 1931, NBC postponed their weekly visit to Baker Street, as Richard Gordon put aside his usual radio guise of Sherlock Holmes to become Ebenezer Scrooge, and Leigh Lovel’s Dr. Watson told a tale not from Doyle but Dickens, as adapted by writer/co-creator Edith Meiser. (She, like many others, would revisit the story in later years.)

Then, in 1934, CBS hired the man who was thought of as the definitive Ebenezer Scrooge throughout Depression- and World War II-era America.

“It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”

On the afternoon of Christmas Day 1934, CBS presented a variety special featuring such talents as Victor Young’s orchestra, opera star Madame Schumann-Heink and comedienne Bea Lillie. The program originated simultaneously via phone lines from studios in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles – and from L.A., Lionel Barrymore, stage and movie star (The Devil Doll, Mark of the Vampire) gave his very first performance as Ebenezer Scrooge.


Barrymore was a hit, and CBS signed him to a five-year contract in the part. (But it was only the beginning of a run in the role that grew to cover nearly two decades!) Campbell's Soup sponsored Barrymore and company annually. Unfortunately, twice he had to step away from the microphone as Scrooge.

When Christmas Eve rolled around in 1936, Lionel's ailing wife Irene Fenwick passed away, and his brother John went on mic for him. This program does not appear to exist in recorded form. (It's a pity--John idolized his older brother, and in his 1937 Streamlined Shakespeare broadcast of “Twelfth Night” imitated him lovingly and well; he likely did that in this case, too.)

Orson Welles.

In 1938, Orson Welles and his program Mercury Theatre on the Air panicked much of America on Halloween night with his faux news-bulletin version of “War Of The Worlds.” Seeing a public relations bonanza, Campbell's Soup picked up that series as well. So for Christmas of that year, they planned to offer two gifts in one package: Campbell Playhouse (the renamed Mercury Theatre on the Air), with Orson Welles as producer, would present Lionel Barrymore in “A Christmas Carol.”

But the real-life off-stage plot, like Campbell's soups, thickened over time.

Tomorrow: Success becomes a double-edged sword for Barrymore's radio role-playing.

Join Craig on the RADIO ONCE MORE webcast Friday, December 3rd at 9pm, to discuss the Carol's history, and to hear his own and Barrymore's productions of the story, as well as excerpts from several others.

Elegy

This winter I find myself kept indoors more than usual for this time of year, and so I have been looking at old books I've collected but not really read.

The poem below comes from a 1937 hardback anthology I have titled "Three TONY'S SCRAPBOOKS", a gathering of tidbits of philosophy, poetry, humor and trivia by folksy Depression-era radio personality Tony Wons. It collects three previous volumes that sold well. You can learn more about Tony Wons from a 1932 TIME magazine article that is archived here.

I can find no information on the author of the poem, Leonard Snyder, who most likely wasn't an acclaimed writer in any genre. Ordinary fans of the radio show sent in their thoughts and writings, and Wons used them sometimes. Perhaps Snyder was one of them.

I've chosen images found on the net (credited below) to illustrate the poem. It's a simple poem, reminiscent of Poe but without his brilliance. Still, I liked it and share it here.
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ELEGY

I have looked at dead men's eyes

Whose awful majesty

Held nothing, yet I saw therein

An endless mystery.



A dead man's lips are pale and cold

And changeless as of stone,

And yet they strangely seem to say

To find peace...go alone.

--Leonard Snyder

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Related: Johnny Metro's great freaky-geeky blog Midnite Media recently posted the words to the an old dark English ballad titled "The Unquiet Grave." Read it here.

Top image: Statuary closeup found at Flickr account of Sandman1973.

Image second from top: Plasticized, skinned body from the BODIES exhibition--Picture source here.

Image, bottom left: Mexican mummy, picture source here.

Image, bottom right: Detail of statuary photo found at Flickr account of martins.nunomiguel

The Department of Mad Science

Seen at the NPR website, from the program Talk of the Nation:

"What happens when scientific research borders on science fiction? Michael Belfiore, author of the new book The Department of Mad Scientists, talks about the bizarre projects happening behind the scenes at DARPA — the secretive research arm of the Department of Defense."

Hear an interview with Belfiore about things like robot cars and insects, and other oddities from a secret section of the military intelligence establishment here.

Buy the book at this page of Barnes and Noble's website.

Christopher Lee on the radio!

Not long ago, I turned on the radio and Christopher Lee was hosting a show called Mystery Theater . I was thrilled to hear his magnificent baritone on a local AM station! Nice to know the icon's still working.

Lee introduces old time radio programs. According to its website, Mystery Theater "features the greatest mystery, detective and science-fiction programming radio has to offer." Fun stuff!

Occasionally, old horror shows are aired. Last night I heard Lee introduce an episode of Suspense called "The Beast Must Die." Wonderful to have ghosts--voices from the past--emanating from the car speakers while out taking a late night ride.

At the website, you can hear past episodes or find out what radio station in your area runs the program. So check it out and make time to turn down the lights as you listen to Mystery Theater.

Live radio interview with the Drunken Severed Head April 12th!

That's right! Internet radio has reached moral and aesthetic rock
bottom, as YOURS TRULY will be a guest on "The NEW Live Show" at
CULT RADIO A-GO-GO on April 12th! In case you want to hear the almost certain disaster that will result-- or if you want to cure your insomnia-- go to this link on Saturday, April 12th at 8:30 p.m. PDT (That's 7:30 p.m AKDT, 9:30 p.m. MDT, 10:30 CDT, 11:30 p.m. EDT, and Sunday April 13th 3:30 UTC/GMT.)

Hosted by Terry and Tiffany Dufoe, Cult Radio A-Go-Go is a 24/7 cult genre internet radio station. CRAGG programming can be heard on both dial-up and broadband, so tune in!

Recommended ear entertainment for Christmas!

Recommended by the drunken severed head is this new radio production by Quicksilver Theater:

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

(A Ghost Story for Christmas)

by Charles Dickens

Directed by Jay Stern (THE CHANGELING), and adapted by

Producer Craig Wichman (THE DEVIL YOU KNOW)

Featuring Craig Wichman, Anthony Cinelli, John Prave, Ghislaine Nichols, Deborah Barta, Joseph Franchini, Jodi Botelho, Elizabeth Stull, and Tony Scheinman

Music by TONY AWARD winner Mark Hollmann
Sound Effects by Clyde Baldo and The Cast
Engineering by David Nolan

"...A Scrooge for all seasons..." - Paul Davis, author of

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF EBENEZER SCROOGE

(NOTE! All times given are LOCAL!)

KPR (Kansas) STREAMING
Sunday, December 23rd, 8pm CST

KMUN-KTCB (Oregon) STREAMING

Sunday, December 23, 7pm PST

KUHF (Texas) STREAMING
Christmas Eve, 3pm CST

KUOW (Washington) STREAMING
Christmas Eve, 8pm PST

KDUR (Colorado) STREAMING
Christmas Eve, 8pm MST

WVRU (Virginia) STREAMING
Christmas Eve, 8pm EST

WMNF (Florida) STREAMING
Christmas Eve, 10:30pm EST (Part 2)

KUND (North Dakota) STREAMING

Christmas Day, 3pm and 7pm CST

KZYX-KYZZ (California) STREAMING

(Time ?)

WCAI-WNAN (Massachusetts) STREAMING

(Time ?)

KWSO (Oregon)
Christmas Eve, 10pm and Christmas Day, 7pm PST

"(Quicksilver's) work is GREAT, not just good" - Bill Owen, co-author of

THE GREAT AMERICAN BROADCAST

For Hallowe'en: A recommended earful of Frankenstein

Perhaps you've seen this notice at the Frankensteinia blog, but I'm happily spreading the news that the best audio version of "Frankenstein" will be streaming this Thursday, October 11, at 1:00 PM* on Greater Portland Community Radio. Go to http://www.wmpg.org/ and click “Listen” on the menu at the top of the page. Part 2 will be streaming next week, on October 18.

Mr. Craig Wichman's portrayal of the Monster is the best one I've never seen! Seriously, it is the finest audio presentation of Mary Shelley's story I have ever heard...well, sober, anyway.

Okay, really seriously: Listen to it! My best advice for using your spare time on those dates!





*The post above has had the broadcast time information changed; it was previously incorrectly listed as "1:30 p.m.".