BURLESQUE

[Le Chiffre]

Broadcast February 17, 1939

BURLESQUE is Welles’s affectionate tribute to Vaudeville, rapidly fading into history at the time of the broadcast, as he notes in his opening remarks. It was based on a 1927 play, co-written by Arthur Hopkins, who was the special guest that night, and who delivers a touching speech at the end of the broadcast about the original Broadway production, which starred Hal Skelly and Barbra Stanwyck. The story – essentially a love story - concerns a married Vaudeville couple, Skid and Bonnie, who as the old saying goes, can’t live with each other, can’t live without each other. Ray Collins gives his usual solid support as a dull but rich ranch owner who is smitten with Bonnie (amusing to hear Welles and Collins competing over a woman).

Orson Welles plays Skid, and although he’s a little out of his comfort zone as a low-rent vaudevillian, he delivers a nice, heartfelt, and convincing performance here. Of course, having the author in the studio watching probably put him on his best behavior. Alice Frost, one of the more unsung of the Mercury players, plays Bonnie, and her performance opposite Welles is strong and steady. Her most notable Mercury performance prior to this was as Fantine (the part recently played by Anne Hathaway) in the great 7-part LES MISERABLES from 1937 that helped launch Welles and the Mercury on the radio. She would later play Jane Eyre to Welles’s Rochester in the Mercury Summer Theatre version of 1946, written by Norman Corwin.

It’s been said that Welles’ artistic persona was a mix of highbrow elements learned from his mother (like Shakespeare and Classical Music), and lowbrow elements learned from his father, (like Vaudeville and Magic). Burlesque falls squarely into the realm of father influences, which is why Welles seems fully engaged with the material in a way that he wasn’t always during the Campbell Playhouse run. This probably had nostalgic value to him that was personal as well. As one Wellesnetter put it, Welles crafts a mesmerizing aural collage at the beginning of the show, another example of his artistic genius.

Burlesque was filmed as:
THE DANCE OF LIFE (1929 with Hal Skelly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M11o9ov0nYw
and remade twice:
SWING HIGH, SWING LOW (1937, with Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray)
WHEN MY BABY SMILES (1949, with Dan Daily and Betty Grable)

[Wellesnet]

That link no longer works, but Swing High, Swing Low is now available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krSkukBYs1E&t=2s
Fair to middlin' print, but watchable.
The film dispenses with the vaudeville aspect and makes Skid a trumpet player, but the story is essentially the same.

[Wich2]

Gang -

Radio Archives has some new Campbell's available - and I believe this one is not in the Lilly's collection?

https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/collections/show/3

Best,
- Craig

P.S. - Hope some of you can join us for Arthur & Orson tonight! Mr. W. has a fun barnstorming turn.