From the mailbox and other goodies…

I’ve received a few nifty things in the mail of late, and I thought I would share—first off, my copy of Science Fiction on Radio: A Revised Look at 1950-1975 arrived yesterday. It’s co-written by our good friend, Jim Widner, and when I inquired if he had any more copies he informed me that he did but only a few—apparently his local public radio station snapped up a good many of them to use as premiums when pledge time came around. (You know, if my local NPR station offered goodies like that, I'd contribute more often.) So if you’re interested in grabbing a copy, here’s where you need to be.

I obtained a nice little eBay item the other day—a beautiful-looking lobby card for the 1946 Lum & Abner comedy Partners in Time.

I also got some sensational news that Universal will be releasing some of their classic film noirs on DVD on July 7, 2004—they will consist of The Big Clock (1948), Black Angel (1946), Criss Cross (1949), Double Indemnity (1944) and This Gun For Hire (1942). Of these films, only Double Indemnity has seen DVD action before—it was released by Image Entertainment in 1998 on a no-frills disc that has since gone out of print. I’m hoping that even though they’re priced to sell (Deep Discount DVD, my favorite place to buy DVDs, has them at $9.35 apiece) that they at least include some trailers on them—particularly the one for Big Clock, which features a Suspense radio show tie-in, showcasing star Ray Milland. MGM will be releasing a box set (they're also available separately) of some of the Monogram Charlie Chan films that same day: Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944), The Chinese Cat (1944), The Jade Mask (1945), Meeting at Midnight (1944), The Scarlet Clue (1945) and The Shanghai Cobra (1945). It would be nice if 20th Century-Fox followed suit, since they own the rights to the earlier and better Chan films, but after the Fox Movie Channel debacle some time back, it’s probably not likely.

Finally, I received my membership card from the Radio Enthusiasts of Puget Sound (warning: sound) and I've been informed that this and a Johnny Dollar-sized expense account will get me a cup of joe. It's a great organization, based in the Seattle area, and dedicated to keeping the spirit of old-time radio alive. They publish a newsletter, Air Check, and have a voluminous cassette rental library of 6000+ programs, so huge that if you want a printed catalog it’ll cost you ten clams or a CD-ROM is available for five. (It’s accessible via the net, so if you’re online, there’s no need to worry.) They also hold a convention every year that has been characterized by many as one of the finest and although I’ll be unable to attend it sounds as though this year will be a goody—a salute to the Mutual Broadcasting System, with recreations of shows like The Shadow, Superman, Let George Do It, Lum & Abner, The Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger and Quiet, Please on the menu.

Miscellaneous, Incorporated

Dan Hughes posted an addy on the OTR Digest which I read this morning that points to a report from his daughter Karen about the various going-ons and shenanigans at the Cincy OTR Convention this past weekend. (If you read it, and check out the pictures at Charlie Sommers’ website, it’s the next best thing to being there.)

I received a nice e-mail from Jack French, author of the new OTR reference book Private Eyelashes—which is a wonderful, eye-opening history of the female detectives and sleuths that populated the airwaves during the Golden Age of Radio. He thanked me for the kind words of praise that I had posted here and I wrote him back, offering a little more detailed admiration since I finally got an opportunity to sit down with it and enjoy it more thoroughly, as opposed to some earlier “skimming.” It is one heck of a page-turning read, meticulously detailed and infused with a sly, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor (nothing turns me off more than a dry, dusty, academic treatment, I can assure you). If you haven’t snatched up a copy of this book yet—and I have heard that it was the hit of Cincy, “selling like wildcakes,” as Ed Gardner once remarked on a Duffy’s Tavern episode—then you had best not let me know who you are because I will shame you relentlessly until you do.

The book is dedicated to his lovely wife Cathy, but Jack also thanks the various old-time radio historians/researchers who have devoted tireless effort to providing both modern-day and future OTR fans with the rich, detailed history of Radio’s Golden Age. (Among those mentioned: John Dunning, Jim Cox, Elizabeth McLeod, Jay Hickerson, Martin Grams, Jr. Thomas DeLong, Jim Harmon and Stewart Wright.) I would also lift a glass to these fine people as well; many of which have written books and articles that occupy essential space on shelves in my old-time radio library. (Let’s face it, without their contributions—this blog would pretty much be a big honkin' blank area, with a sign reading "Space For Rent.") Their work is the "nerve center" of old-time radio, and without them someone would be forced to pull the plug on its life-support system.

In e-mail correspondence, Martin once related an experience he once had at one of the OTR conventions in which a couple of individuals came by his table, picked up his book on Inner Sanctum, thumbed through it and then dismissed it with "all I need is an episode guide and I can get that off the web." In my opinion, that is very, very wrong—for me, learning about the history of these great programs provides the necessary fuel for my lifelong passion of The Hobby; it should, then, come as no surprise that whenever someone publishes a book that traces the origins and background of these series that I feast on it voraciously like buzzards on carrion.

So, please…as a favor to me, and Lord knows I don’t ask much…skate on over to Bear Manor Media and order a copy of this book. And speaking of the “prince among pandas,” check out this interesting article written about Bear Manor Media’s CEO, Ben Ohmart…

Mail call!

I’ve been such an industriously busy beaver the past few days (I’m hoping that the slow guest crawl at the hotel will free up some spare time) so I haven’t really been able to personalize a great many of these posts. But I did get a goodie or two in the mailbox recently, and I thought I would pass it along.

First off, the April issue of the SPERDVAC Radiogram has a wonderful article by Stewart Wright commemorating the greatness that was the late Harry Bartell. Extremely well-written, and worth checking out—but to do that, you must first answer three…no, hold on a second…you must first become a member. This site has all the details. I also read an interesting blurb in the newsletter regarding Penny Singleton’s passing last year—I was not aware that on this year’s Oscar telecast, Penny was noticeably absent from the salute to those great performers who have left this stage for better things. You star in 28 Blondie movie comedies, and you don’t even rate a mention at the Academy Awards®? Inexcusable! Fortunately, there’s this on the Internet…

Speaking of Blondie, Steve Kelez at Radio Showcase has a couple of Blondie broadcasts that are relatively new in circulation, and he’s offering a nice special this month to boot—if you buy five cassettes or CDs, you get two free. (Steve, I honestly had planned to grab those Blondies but the other night, while chatting online with friends, my chum Laura wickedly pointed me to a website where I could order movies like the original Scarface and King Kong on DVD. The siren song was just too powerful to resist.)

Next, I recently became a subscriber to Chuck Schaden’s Nostalgia Digest—and if anyone can come up with a reason why it took me so long to do so, I’d love to hear it. (I’m convinced that it’s because I’m an idiot, and I’m hoping someone else can argue me out of it.) I signed up for it in February, but since Chuck was taking some well-deserved R&R I didn’t get the first issue until now. This is a first-class magazine, folks, no question about it—and there's still hope for me yet, because I went for the two-year deal and I’m not sorry I did. The nice thing about the Digest is that it’s not just limited to OTR, but there are some great articles on the subject just the same; a simply splendid piece on actor fave Frank Lovejoy (Nightbeat) written by this blog’s Goodwill Ambassador, Jim Widner. There’s also an article on the comedy-soap opera Lorenzo Jones, which is excerpted from Jim Cox’s invaluable OTR reference The Great Radio Soap Operas. (I bought this book on sale and I didn’t think I would like it, because I’m not what one would call a big soap fan. This well-written book will make you a convert, it’s that good.) Articles on Louella Parsons, Clint Eastwood, Buddy Ebsen and Katharine Hepburn can also be found in latest Nostalgia Digest as well. (There’s even a program guide for Chuck’s longtime broadcast, Those Were the Days, which is streamed over the Internet for those of us out of the Chicago area.)

I also got my copy of Jack French’s Private Eyelashes, a book that is destined to become the definitive reference on the fabulous female detectives of old-time radio. (I was a little concerned when this book was getting here late; someone told me that Jack had about forty copies of it rooked from his local post office, and I feared that some postal worker/OTR fan had absconded with my copy at mine as well.) I haven’t had the necessary time to crack it open, although I did read the chapter on Sara Berner and her short-lived comedy/detective series, Sara’s Private Caper (there’s a great photo in there, a publicity shot of her as Mabel the telephone operator on The Jack Benny Program). (On the last page of this book are listed some past and future publications from Bear Manor Media, and I definitely plan to grab a copy of the book on The Life of Riley when it sees print.) So with that, we empty the mailbag—I’m going to try my darndest to keep up with things on the blog, but I should point out that I’ve received another assignment from Harlan Zinck at First Generation Radio Archives regarding a Premier Collection that will offered the first of May; if the blog goes blank sometime between now and then, you'll know why.