Monthly Featured Broadcasts

[Store Hadji]

November 2008

There seems to be some sort of election going on, so this month we offer three looks at Democracy in America.

First up is a patriotic primer to our Democratic Republic from The Campbell Playhouse:

The Things We Have (aka American Cavalcade)

Next is a satire of the first female president, not so remote a possibility here in the 21st century, from The Orson Welles Radio Almanac:

Guest Ann Sothern

And finally, a political parable of messianic proportions from 1969:

The Begatting of a President - Part One
The Begatting of a Prseident - Part Two

In the immortal words of Vaughn Meader, "vote for the Democrat of your choice, but vote!"

[Store Hadji]

And as a tag onto the 70th Anniversary of War of the Worlds, here is Welles' account as told in 1955:

Orson Welles' Sketchbook

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, Hadji, for your Wellsian political gifts on this celebratory evening.

Glenn

[Store Hadji]

Three versions of Around the World in 80 Days for January. The Mercury Summer Theatre version features the cast and Cole Porter score from Welles' Broadway musical version:

The Mercury Theatre on the Air: (CBS)
Around the World in Eighty Days (10-23-38)

This Is My Best: (CBS)
Around the World in Eighty Days (11-21-44)

Mercury Summer Theatre: (CBS)
Around the World (6-7-46) (original cast with Cole Porter score)


http://museumoforsonwelles.blogspot.com/


Terry

[Glenn Anders]

I'm amazed by the work you've done on The Museum of Orson Welles, Hadji. Not quite "the perfect collection, " but getting there. And that wonderfully screwy picture of Welles as a kind of Fu Man Chu with the dancing girls is worth the price of admission.

Happy New Year to you.

Glenn

[evenswr]

I'm amazed by the work you've done on The Museum of Orson Welles, Hadji. Not quite "the perfect collection, " but getting there.

I agree!

One bad link I notice:

The "1980 Leslie Megahey (interview portions only)" link brings you to the "Filming Othello" audio MP3s.

[Alan Brody]

Thanks for those programs, Store Hadji. I had never heard the “This Is My Best” version of Around the World before. I love that part at the end when Welles does the Cresta Blanca commercial himself, usurping the duties of the announcer, John McIntire. Would that be the same John McIntire that married Jeannette Nolan, and whose “son”, Tim McIntire, we discussed recently on this board as having had a suspicious resemblance to Welles? Usurping duties indeed.

[Glenn Anders]

The very man, Alan.

Both John McIntire and Jeanette Nolan would have met Orson Welles when they were in their 20's, in the year 1935, on "The March of Time" radio program (a parody of which, "News on the March," is featured in CITIZEN KANE). McIntire and Nolan soon married. For several years, Welles and Nolan did voices for contemporary historical characters on the show, and McIntire was a featured announcer. Both McIntire and Nolan had important parts in Welles' Salt Lake City production of Macbeth, and Nolan carried over into her debut role Lady Macbeth in his movie of the play in 1948. About the same time McIntire began a long career as a character actor in Movies and Television, often teamed with his wife.

What truth there is in the discussion of Tim McIntire, born in 1944, is hard to say. John McIntire as well as Jeanette Nolan, like Welles, began in Radio, where the style of time required them to reduce their vocal pitch by as much as a full octave. McIntire and Nolan might very well have passed that technique onto their son without any genetic help from Orson Welles. And, after all, they were married for 56 years.

Glenn

[Store Hadji]

One bad link I notice:

The "1980 Leslie Megahey (interview portions only)" link brings you to the "Filming Othello" audio MP3s.

Fixed. Thanks for the heads-up.

Terry

[Alan Brody]

Thanks Glenn, I didn't know McIntire was in the SLC Macbeth. According to Callow II, he played the Holy Father, the part played by Alan Napier in the film.

[Store Hadji]

Thanks to Jeff's great generosity, I'll be unveiling extremely rare Welles radio programs on the Museum page from now til the end of the year.

The first is already posted, the "trial record" of an episode of Ceiling Unlimited which I'd never heard before:

Flying Fortress

Sounds to me like Benny Herrmann music in it, though I thought Lud Gluskin was Orson's band leader from 1942 to 1944. Could be Lud conducting a Herrmann score, I suppose.

[Alan Brody]

That's excellent sound quality for that show. A welcome addition!

[Glenn Anders]

Agreed, Alan.

Thank you, Terry. The scores for the Ceiling Unlimited programs may have drawn on Herrmann's Air Symphony. Some of the poetic narrative seems like it.

I am reminded how confidently "together" and familiar with the tasks of the War we appeared back then. Colin P. Kelly and Alexander the Swoose (which Kay Kayser had a song about, and was my father's nickname for me) were household names. The names of military heroes from the "wars on terror" are really pretty much unknown. We truck out them out every once in while, "honoring the brave dead," or selling some country western song, and quickly pass on. It will be years, if ever, before terms from these "wars" like Flying Fortress, Jeeps, snafu, etc., in World War II become commonplace.

Glenn

[Alan Brody]

I think there's definitely a little snatch of Hermann's Ambersons score in there, towards the beginning. The whole Ambersons debacle had happened only a year before, and Hermann liked to recycle bits of his work in other projects. I'm sure a lot of composers work that way. Might as well, if it works. The Ceiling Unlimited shows are also reminiscent of Marc Blitzstien's Airborne Symphony as well. There's a good recording of that from the 70's featuring Leonard Bernstein conducting and Welles narrating.

http://www.amazon.com/Leonard-Bernstein ... 90&sr=8-14

[Glenn Anders]

I beg your pardon, Alan. I was thinking of Blitzstein's Airborne Symphony. [The old brain is going fast.] Still, it is amazing to this day how many major musical composers and musicians Welles either employed or was associated with: Aaron Copeland, Virgil Thompson, Paul Bowles, Marc Blitzstein, and of course, Bernard Herrmann among Modern American Composers of the time, alone.

Glenn