"Fountain of Youth" on YouTube!!!
by Alan Brody » Sat Aug 09, 2008 11:06 am
Tony, you're thinking of Green Thoughts, about a man-eating plant. Yes, it's a great story and would have made a great Wellesian short film.
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by Glenn Anders » Sat Aug 09, 2008 12:41 pm
No, actually Tony is right.
And amazingly not only did my mother tell me never to look at the New Moon behind glass but only in the clear night air (as I did the other evening from the veranda of a villa in the Napa hills near Francis Coppola's estate), but my mother's favorite play was "The Green Goddess." Archer's 1921 warhorse had been made famous by George Arliss, and he starred in a movie adaptation around 1930, but even before that, in 1923, WGY, Troy, New York, had produced one of the first American radio plays, adapted from the melodrama.
Welles took the play on the road in 1939, shooting a filmed prologue for it (now presumably lost). In fact, "The Green Goddess" was one of the first suggestions from RKO for Welles to fulfill his film contract. (One can imagine Welles having the idea of shooting that test footage as he would for the screening room setting of "The Newsreel" in CITIZEN KANE.)
Early in 1939 (February 10th), Welles' Mercury Campbell's Playhouse created a quite satisfactory radio version of "The Green Goddess," "fun" as keats says, with Madeleine Carroll and Ray Collins as a couple whose plane crashes in the Himalyas, and Welles himself as a kind of self-righteous, lascivious Indian Osama bin Laden. Whenever I listen to the play's mischievous twist ending, I think of Our Leader's bloody, feckless and conveniently unsuccessful hunt (so far) for the Evil One.
What an ironic laugh if the President's "B Team" might not, long ago have listened to the same version of "The Green Goddess" before they set in motion The Project for a New American Century!
You really must find the Campbell's Playhouse recording, Tony, in the Archive, and listen to it!
The property would have been ideal for 1958 TV, too, I would have thought, and I was sure someone would have produced it, when Welles did not, but strangely enough, I can find no record of "The Green Goddess" during that period.
Perhaps, I have just have not had enough time.
Hope this was helpful, Tony.
Glenn
And amazingly not only did my mother tell me never to look at the New Moon behind glass but only in the clear night air (as I did the other evening from the veranda of a villa in the Napa hills near Francis Coppola's estate), but my mother's favorite play was "The Green Goddess." Archer's 1921 warhorse had been made famous by George Arliss, and he starred in a movie adaptation around 1930, but even before that, in 1923, WGY, Troy, New York, had produced one of the first American radio plays, adapted from the melodrama.
Welles took the play on the road in 1939, shooting a filmed prologue for it (now presumably lost). In fact, "The Green Goddess" was one of the first suggestions from RKO for Welles to fulfill his film contract. (One can imagine Welles having the idea of shooting that test footage as he would for the screening room setting of "The Newsreel" in CITIZEN KANE.)
Early in 1939 (February 10th), Welles' Mercury Campbell's Playhouse created a quite satisfactory radio version of "The Green Goddess," "fun" as keats says, with Madeleine Carroll and Ray Collins as a couple whose plane crashes in the Himalyas, and Welles himself as a kind of self-righteous, lascivious Indian Osama bin Laden. Whenever I listen to the play's mischievous twist ending, I think of Our Leader's bloody, feckless and conveniently unsuccessful hunt (so far) for the Evil One.
What an ironic laugh if the President's "B Team" might not, long ago have listened to the same version of "The Green Goddess" before they set in motion The Project for a New American Century!
You really must find the Campbell's Playhouse recording, Tony, in the Archive, and listen to it!
The property would have been ideal for 1958 TV, too, I would have thought, and I was sure someone would have produced it, when Welles did not, but strangely enough, I can find no record of "The Green Goddess" during that period.
Perhaps, I have just have not had enough time.
Hope this was helpful, Tony.
Glenn
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