The March of Time

[Terry]

Here's the broadcast with Welles portraying Hitler, for those of you curious as to how accurate the News on the March pastiches from Kane and Fake were (though they were more a copy of the cinema newsreels than the radio version,) and who wonder what techniques or aesthetics Welles may have imported into his Mercury radio shows.

Where did I read that one of Welles' RKO proposals was a film of Mein Kampf, with Welles as Adolf? If that story is worth its sodium chloride, then maybe we now know what accent Welles would have used in the film.

http://www.box.net/shared/8xvxlrt6tf

[Glenn Anders]

Thanks, Hadji.

I've heard only four episodes of "The March of Time on the Air" since I used to listen with my father in the 1930's, and this one is easily the best in terms of audio quality.

I will leave it to others to judge how various techniques and content of the progams must have influenced Welles in Radio, Film, perhaps even on the Broadway Stage, but I think you've helped me make my case.

In terms of the specific content, it is quite amazing how far ahead of its day "The March of Time" was, and sadly, how little anything has changed, in some ways, as we look back toward the future.

Thank you again.

Does anyone else have any episodes of this program squirreled away?

Glenn Anders

[Terry]

Here ya go:

http://www.box.net/shared/9e010ekzp9
http://www.box.net/shared/ojbgb9v4vi
http://www.box.net/shared/pbajqod7h0
http://www.box.net/shared/q4jgv5e5dc
http://www.box.net/shared/ntop0ygj5v
http://www.box.net/shared/03s538if91
http://www.box.net/shared/6p2i2597ur

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, Hadji!

What a delight to hear Ted de Corsia (THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, THE NAKED CITY), using his normal voice, to play General Hugh S. Johnson, or Agnes Moorehead as the doomed union leader's wife, or (I think) Everett Sloane as a Western Union exec blundering into singing "I Love You Truly" to an Englishman over a Trans-Atlantic wire!

And is that Welles playing an Alabama Senator?

Your selections also give a rough chronological timeline over ten years of the program's existence, suggesting how it grew in sweep and confidence.

As you may know, "The Black Legion," one of The March of Time's early subjects, was turned into "The White Legion" for The Shadow series during the period in which Welles played the title character.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you . . . .

Glenn

[Terry]

Here's another, the first-ever broadcast of the show, from 1931.

http://www.box.net/shared/2euymtjsmb

[Glenn Anders]

Another thank you, Hadji!

It is interesting to me that this first episode of "The March of Time" has the themes that run through CITIZEN KANE, and also exotic anecdotes from far places.

The show gives the impression, at a distance, that "Big Bill" Thompson, won the mayorality of Chicago in 1931, but a la the premature party in CITIZEN KANE, the celebration recreated was for Thompson's primary victory in late February of that year. The last Republican elected mayor of Chicago to the present, and supported through several terms by crime boss Al Capone, he was defeated a little over a month later by Democratic reformer Anthony Cermak, whom Thompson is depicted deriding in a cleaned up version of one of his campaign songs.

William Randolph Hearst appears as a supporting player (along with Louisana's Huey Long and New York's Jimmy Walker), congratulating Thompson by phone from California.

[Cermak died two years later in an alleged attempted assassination of President Franklin Rossevelt. It has been speculated since that the assassin was actually a patsy for a gangland hit team whose target was actually Cermak]

Then, we go to New York City for the end of the New York World, which Joseph Pulitzer's heirs went to court to ensure.

Then, we skip to a ship leaving for Devil's Island, which sounds like something out of JOURNEY INTO FEAR, and then on to a melodramatic episode involving King Carol of Rumania personally freeing torture victims in his prisons.

And of course, it takes very little distance for this type of recreation to turn into parody, even satire. CITIZEN KANE did exactly that with "News on the March."

Glenn

[Wellesnet]

Good article about "The March of Time":
https://www.hboarchives.com/marchoftime ... reface.pdf

[Wellesnet]

According to the Wiki page on Welles's radio credits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Wel ... io_credits
Welles appeared on The March of Time 21 times, from March 22nd, 1935 to March 24, 1938. His last appearance featured him playing Leopold Stokowski.

Wiki:

(In early 1935) Paul Stewart sees Welles's lead performance in Archibald MacLeish's play Panic, recommends him to director Homer Fickett, and Welles auditions for and wins a place in The March of Time repertory company.

Welles performs a scene from Panic for a news report on the March 14–16 stage production; for another report he voices all five Dionne quintuplets.

The March of Time cast included future Mercury players such as Agnes Moorehead, Ted de Corsia, Orson Welles, Ray Collins, Paul Stewart, Will Geer, Alice Frost, Martin Gabel, Jeanette Nolan, and others.

"Welles contributed to the series intermittently from 1935 to 1938 … Little written documentation exists" (Museum of Broadcasting)[

[Dan_UK]

Are there any good recordings of these shows. All the mp3's I've found are worse than useless. A shame that something so old hasn't been preserved properly, save for those lucky enough to have access to any of the original discs.

[Terry]

Several episodes with Welles have turned up. I'd never run across most of these before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssi0PFB ... 2P&index=9

[Wich2]

A shame that something so old hasn't been preserved properly

Oy. Dan, you have no idea!

If anything, Classic Radio has more "losts"/and or "damageds" than Classic Film... Some grails:

- William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes

- Much of Rathbone's early/best " "

- Lionel Barrymore's first CHRISTMAS CAROL (in a near 20 yr. run)

- Brother John's subbing for " in " "

- Lon Chaney Jr. on INNER SANCTUM

Etc.

- Craig

[Wellesnet]

Great find, Terry!

04.17.1936
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssi0PFB ... P&index=10
Welles as Baron Pompeo Aluisi at 3:50, defending Mussolini and taunting the League of Nations
Austrian general and diplomat Vladimir von Gieslingen at 09:50, delivering the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia on July 25th, 1914.

05.11.1936
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOWLGY ... P&index=12
Welles as HL Menken, promoting his new book, The American Language at 04:50

05.12.1936
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UACYp2l ... P&index=13
Welles as Polish leader 12:00

05.13.36
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PJqHOh ... P&index=14
Welles as Doctor 10:00

[Dan_UK]

A shame that something so old hasn't been preserved properly

Oy. Dan, you have no idea!

...

That's not what I meant. I was talking about the ones that have survived. They survived all those years right up until the early days of the internet, but because the mp3's are garbage quality they're unlistenable. They survived all that time and failed at the final hurdle, and that's a shame.

Oh and did anyone grab those youtubes? Account terminated. I don't visit this place often enough.

[Wich2]

That's not what I meant. I was talking about the ones that have survived. They survived all those years right up until the early days of the internet, but because the mp3's are garbage quality they're unlistenable. They survived all that time and failed at the final hurdle, and that's a shame.

Thankfully, better original Discs, or Reel-To-Reel dubs, are still extant for many shows that suffered thus in years past. Folks like the project members of the SUSPENSE work that I posted about elsewhere, have had luck tracking them down.

Many of them earlier worked on restoring ABC's Theatre 5, and did wonders upgrading available audio on that important series ~

https://theaterfive.blogspot.com/

Best,
- Craig

[Le Chiffre]

Oh and did anyone grab those youtubes? Account terminated. I don't visit this place often enough.

Shit. I guess we blew that one.