Newsletter November 2022

Carl’s Corner

by Carl Amari

Hello everyone and Happy Fall! Here’s the Hollywood 360 newsletter, November 2022 / Vol. 19. As someone on our mailing list, you’ll receive the most current newsletter via email on the first day of every month. If you don’t receive it by the end of the first day of the month, check your spam folder as they often end up there. If it is not in your regular email box or in your spam folder, contact me at carlpamari@gmail.com and I’ll forward you a copy. The monthly Hollywood 360 newsletter contains articles from my team and the full month’s detailed schedule of classic radio shows that we will be airing on Hollywood 360. Each month I’ll provide an article on one of the classic radio shows we’ll present on Hollywood 360. This month, we’re airing a thrilling sci-fi story on Dimension X the week of November 12th, so here’s an article on this great series (photo is Norman Rose, host of Dimension X). Enjoy!v

CLASSIC ADVENTURES IN FUTURE TENSE
By Carl Amari and Martin Grams

Radio’s ‘Dimension X’ paved the way for TV’s science fictions shows

Airing on NBC in 1950 and 1951, Dimension X was one of the first serious science fiction anthologies on radio. Its high-quality dramatizations of gripping stories set the standard for future science fiction broadcasts on radio and television.

Through its adaptation of published work from authors such as Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Block (best known as the writer of Psycho) and Ray Bradbury, Dimension X offered a serious take on science fiction. Time travel, space exploration, alien invasion and their (not always positive) consequences for the human race were common themes. The top-quality productions featured atmospheric sound effects and where broadcast from the studios of NBC in New York.

Before Dimension X premiered on NBC radio in 1950, the world of science fiction may have been, for many people, synonymous with the juvenile comic-book adventures of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. However, under the production and direction of Van Woodward, Fred Weihe, and Edward King, and through an arrangement with Astounding Science Fiction magazine, Dimension X injected credibility into the genre and inspired a new generation of science fiction fanatics.

Dimension X was an in-house product of NBC and featured New York’s finest supporting actors including Arnold Moss, Santos Ortega, Joseph Julian, Ralph Bell, Mason Adams (he later played the managing editor Charlie Hume on Lou Grant), Raymond Edward Johnson and Wendell Holmes. The narrator was Norman Rose, who opened each show with: “Adventures in time and space … told in future tense… Dimension X!” Rose would later supply the voice of Juan Valdez, the fictional Colombian coffee farmer who appeared in television ads for the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Columbia.

Unable to sell the Dimension X to a sponsor (except for a brief spell under General Mills for 13 weeks), NBC decided to cancel the program. Today, fans of the genre regard Dimension X as inspiration, as well as instrumental in popularizing the work of its then youthful science fiction writers.

LEND ME YOUR EARS | THIS MONTH’S SONG: “Dueling Banjos” by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith RELEASED: 1972 (for the film Deliverance)

by Lisa Wolf

Click here to watch on YouTube. 

According to a 2014 obituary of Smith: The tune first reached a wide audience in 1963 when the Dillards bluegrass band played it with Andy Griffith on The Andy Griffith Show in the episode “Briscoe Declares for Aunt Bee.”

Dueling Banjos was written and recorded in 1955 as “Feuding Banjos” by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith. A group called The Dillards popularized the song in the mid ’60s on the folk circuit, and it was their version that the author James Dickey heard and thought would fit nicely in the film version of his novel Deliverance. The song became famous when it was used in the 1973 movie in a scene where a city guy from Atlanta trades licks with a young simpleton in the backwoods. The film version was performed by Eric Weissberg on 5-string banjo and Steve Mandell on acoustic guitar. Weissberg and Mandell were folk musicians from New York City, but their musical inspiration was the Bluegrass sound of Appalachia. 

Click here to view on YouTube. 

Recorded for the film by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell, the song was released under the title “Dueling Banjos.” It went to No. 1 on Billboard’s adult contemporary chart, No. 2 on its all-genre Hot 100 chart and No. 5 on the country chart.

Unfortunately, the 1972 version of the song was used in the film without composer Arthur Smith’s permission — and credited to Weissberg as the composer — leading Arthur to successfully sue the filmmakers, ultimately receiving songwriting credit as well as royalties.

Dueling Banjos has been featured in TV commercials and covered by musicians of every instrument. Dueling Banjos has become Dueling Harmonicas, Dueling Accordions and Dueling Guitars. The “banjo battle” has become a prominent rite of passage for young musicians.

The 50th Anniversary of TV’s M*A*S*H
Part 2

by Barry Richert

By 1976, M*A*S*H had become appointment viewing. The program had won numerous accolades, including People’s Choice Awards, Emmys, Peabody Awards, Golden Globes, Writers Guild of America Awards, the Humanitas Prize, and many others. Larry Gelbart, who adapted the show for television and wrote most of the scripts for the first four seasons, had helped make the series an unprecedented success. After the fourth season, however, Gelbart decided to leave, believing that he’d done his best work and his writing had become repetitive.

“There is a genuine loss when a fine mind like Larry Gelbart’s departs,” asserted creator/writer Gene Reynolds in The Complete Book of M*A*S*H by Suzy Kalter. “He’s one of the finest comedy writers of our time. When he walked away after being so devoted, it was hard. Losing him was a blow, but I think we did very well. The writers rose to the occasion.”

Many believe that, whether intentionally or not, Year Five of M*A*S*H was a transitional season, leading into the more drama-centric Years Six through Eleven. Producer Burt Metcalfe had a similar take on the series’ season breakdown: “Some people say that Years One through Five are similar and that Six through Eleven are of a different ilk, and they tend to call those later shows more sentimental. Others, myself among them, see Years One through Four being similar, Year Five separate, and then Six through Eleven different yet again.”

Year Five proved to be another turning point for the series, due to two episodes: “Margaret’s Engagement,” in which Margaret returns from Tokyo with the news that she is engaged to Lieutenant Colonel Donald Penobscott, and “Margaret’s Marriage,” the title of which speaks for itself. After “Margaret’s Engagement,” the once rigidly military—and decidedly libidinous—partnership of Frank Burns and Margaret Houlihan was no more, a fact that had an indelible impact on the characters.

MALIBU, CA – JUNE 18, The last episode of MASH .Goodbye, Farewell and Amen Goodbye, Farewell and Amen remained the most watched television broadcast in American history, Loretta Swit, Mike Farrell, Alan Alda, Harry Morgan, Jamie Farr, Allan Arbus Fox Ranch, June 18, 1984 at the Malibu Creek State Park in California ( Photo by Paul Harris/Getty Images )

Actor Larry Linville believed that was the beginning of the end for Frank Burns: “When Frank and Hot Lips were no longer a duet, I think there were structural problems…I think Hot Lips and Frank’s relationship was pivotal to the show. Once it dissolved, there were a goodly number of problems. Loretta wanted her own identity separate from Frank Burns. I’m not sure, but I think that’s what was involved and why changes had to be invoked.”

Linville decided it was time to leave: “My contract was up at the end of Year Five and I had the option to negotiate or take a walk. I felt I had done everything possible with the character, so I told them I was leaving. I’m not sorry I left…I was saturated with playing only Frank.”

Concurrent with Linville’s departure, there was once again a behind-the-scenes change brewing. Gene Reynolds decided to leave after a salary dispute with 20th Century Fox. “I remember Year Six vividly because it was the first year I produced M*A*S*H alone, and I was scared stiff,” Burt Metcalfe recalled. “The episodes are definitely different in Year Six. We didn’t want to try to imitate what had gone before. We couldn’t be the comic genius that Gelbart was. We had to find our own ground…Some people will say we got into sentimentality, but we had used many of our best guns comically.”

In the premiere of Year Six, Frank Burns’ disappearance is explained by way of his distress over Margaret’s marriage: convinced he’s found Margaret and her new husband, he is arrested for disturbing a brigadier general and his wife in a public bath in Tokyo. To fill the gap—and the bunk—left by Frank Burns’ departure, Dr. Charles Emerson Winchester III, played by David Ogden Stiers, is assigned to the 4077th. The imperious Winchester makes it clear he’s too good for “this hellhole,” immediately alienating Hawkeye and B.J. (who suggests, “Let’s avoid the rush and start hating him now.”). Winchester’s blustery arrogance was a stark contrast to the weaselly sniveling of Frank Burns, providing Hawkeye and B.J. with a more formidable tentmate to torment.

As the dust settled on the 4077’s various departures and arrivals, the series found a new groove, focusing on more character-driven stories. “The Winchester Tapes” in Year Six finds Charles recording a tape for his parents chronicling several incidents at the 4077, including Hawkeye and B.J.’s attempts to make him think he’s losing too much weight by swapping out his clothes. In “Comrade in Arms,” Hawkeye and Margaret are driving to another MASH unit when they get caught in military fire and their jeep stalls. Forced to spend the night in an abandoned hut, a barrage of shelling drives them into each other’s arms.

In Year Seven, “Point of View” was an innovative episode told through the eyes of a wounded soldier who is taken to the 4077 for treatment. That year saw several other developments, including the return of Colonel Flagg, a party held stateside by the families of the 4077, and, perhaps most poignantly, the divorce of Margaret from Lieutenant Colonel Donald Penobscott.

Year Eight is probably best remembered as the year Radar O’Reilly went home. Radar actor Gary Burghoff explained, “In the seventh year, I notified the producers that I would not be coming back. I felt the public deserved and would enjoy a conclusion to Radar’s involvement with the 4077, and I wanted to come back for a final show. The network disagreed at first. McLean Stevenson’s leaving had caused a big stir, so they didn’t want to make an issue of it…So I concluded the seventh year without a good-bye show. During hiatus, the network changed its mind and we negotiated for the two-parter that aired in Year Eight, ‘Good-bye Radar’.”

In the episode, Radar receives a wire from home reporting that his Uncle Ed has died. Colonel Potter recommends Radar go home on a hardship discharge since his mom wouldn’t be able to take care of the family farm alone. Radar is hesitant—he thinks he should stay, unconvinced that Klinger could ever learn the ropes of being company clerk. But Klinger proves himself capable by locating a much-needed generator for the camp, leading Radar to realize the 4077 can survive without him. His good-bye party is interrupted by an influx of wounded, so his final encounter with Hawkeye is an exchange of salutes through the window of the OR.

“Good-bye Radar” marked the last time a major character would depart the 4077. The show began what would turn out to be a four-year-long home stretch. In those final years, the 4077 battled Hemorrhagic Fever, Hawkeye wrote a letter to President Truman urging him to stop the war, Klinger saved Winchester’s life, Margaret was accused of being a Communist sympathizer, a nurse was killed by a mine after a date with Hawkeye, and Winchester saved the life of a soldier with a severe chest wound who needed an operation within 20 minutes or he’d be paralyzed (the episode was shown in real time with a clock in the corner of the screen).

In Year Eleven’s “As Time Goes By,” Margaret and Hawkeye clash on what items to include in a time capsule being buried at the 4077. The two ultimately find common ground in a collection of articles that represent the spirit of the camp, including a fishing fly made by Colonel Blake and Radar’s teddy bear. “As Time Goes By” was the last episode of M*A*S*H to be filmed, but it was not the last to air. That honor went to the two-and-a-half-hour series finale, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.”

“We knew M*A*S*H was coming to an end by Year Ten,” Burt Metcalfe maintained. “CBS kept asking us if we wanted to continue. Alan [Alda] pretty much spearheaded the situation. It was decided that Eleven would be the last year.” The series finale boasted a collection of eight writers, including Metcalfe and Alda. The episode’s plot features numerous storylines showing the effects of the ceasefire on the personnel of the 4077 and includes good-byes between characters that are equal parts hysterical and heartrending.

Directed by Alan Alda, the finale took 30 days to shoot between September and December of 1982. The long shoot was due to a fire that destroyed the M*A*S*H set that October, which made for a hectic schedule since the cast and crew were simultaneously filming the balance of the episodes for Year Eleven. Advertiser enthusiasm was so high for the finale that 30-second commercial blocks sold for more than some of the slots for that year’s Super Bowl.

“Goodbye, Farewell and Amen” aired on February 28, 1983, and was a massive television event. M*A*S*H watch-parties were held in homes all over the country, fans assembled in bars dressed in Army fatigues, and students in Alan Alda’s old Fordham University dorm even built a still and supplied libations during the episode. The finale ultimately attracted a total audience of 121.6 million viewers and made CBS $13.6 million. At this writing, it holds the record as the most-watched scripted episode of television in history. It capped off an eleven-year run that saw the series grow from a low-rated, small-screen reworking of a movie to a television institution with its own identity. 

The last word on M*A*S*H must, of course, come from Larry Gelbart, whose memoir Laughing Matters includes the following observation: “It is estimated that the vast store of M*A*S*H episodes to be rerun in syndication will keep the series around well into the twenty-first century…Thinking of the possibility of M*A*S*H playing so far into the future leads me to hope, paraphrasing Winston Churchill, that if America and its television audience should last a thousand years, people will say this was their finest half hour.”

CLARA BOW ON TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES

by Martin Grams

KILLER, COME BACK TO ME!: Ray Bradbury’s Entry Into Network Radio

by Karl Schadow

One of the most esteemed fiction writers of the 20th-Century, Ray Bradbury was best known for his accomplishments in the fantasy genre, most notably The Martian Chronicles. (Bradbury stressed that this subject was indeed fantasy and not science fiction.) This volume published in 1950 had many of its individual chapters transformed for radio performed on Dimension X, Escape and X Minus One. Despite the popularity of these ventures, none was the first network radio performance of a Bradbury tale.

He had also crafted numerous crime and horror stories during his career which were published in various pulp magazines including Weird Tales, Dime Mystery Magazine and Detective Tales. In the July 1944 issue of this latter periodical, “Killer, Come Back to Me!” was the highlight. Its adaptation performed on The Mollé Mystery Theatre, May 17, 1946 was the coast-to-coast radio audience’s introduction to Bradbury’s work.

Detective Tales July 1944

Originating from New York, the weekly, half-hour series had been on NBC since September of 1943 sponsored by Sterling Drug, Inc. which promoted various Mollé brand products. Frank Telford of the Young & Rubicam advertising agency was the show’s producer/director and who selected “the best in mystery fiction” to be presented each Friday evening. Stories were culled from a wide range of authors including Anna Catharine Green and Cornell Woolrich, among many others. The yarns were narrated by the equally factitious Geoffrey Barnes, (portrayed by Bernard Lenrow). Though Bradbury was the original author of “Killer, Come Back to Me,” he did not write the radio script. The etherwaves version was penned by Joseph Ruscoll. His previous successes as an airwaves scribe included original stories on The Columbia Workshop and adaptations for The Cavalcade of America. Noteworthy is that Ruscoll’s most famous creation, “The Creeper,” had made its debut on The Mollé Mystery Theatre, March 29, 1946.

As with all radio adaptations of previous published works, there was some liberty taken with the plot and characters. However, Ruscoll captured the hard-boiled theme of the weak, wannabe gunman Johnny Broghman, who comes under the influence of the scheming gun-moll, Julie Barnes. Richard Widmark co-starred as the novice hoodlum with Alice Reinheart as the femme fatale. Both the pulp and radio stories commence with Julie forcing her participation into Johnny’s solo bank heist as the getaway driver. They both escape the scene but Johnny had been shot in the leg during the holdup. Interestingly in the pulp version his treatment of the injury is never explained while in the radio iteration, a doctor (portrayed by Don Douglas) is summoned to remove the bullet, without anesthesia, as Julie insists that Johnny needs to endure some pain to toughen his physique. Julie was the lover of a former gangster, Ricky Wolfe, whose death known only to her, occurred during a previous gunbattle. She wishes to groom her new student in crime to fill this romantic void and instructs Johnny on how to perfect his nefarious techniques. This also includes moving Johnny into Ricky’s former gang as its new leader, as the resemblance between the two is quite remarkable.

Ray Bradbury

However, once Julie and Johnny reconvene with the gang in Los Angeles, not all of its members are convinced by the impersonation and Johnny, to prove himself to the others, shoots and kills the gang’s top henchman, Merritt. In both the pulp and radio rendition’s this is a fairly gruesome scene. Johnny throws away the Ricky disguise and exerts his authority on the rest of the group using his real identity.

 Unfortunately for Johnny, Julie has never accepted Ricky’s death and the relationship between the two sours quickly. Moreover, Julie does not want Johnny to collaborate with a gang led by Nick Vanning whose secretary, Franny, had been Julie’s previous rival for Ricky. This particular character (also played by Alice Reinheart) was introduced specifically in the radio script as another female voice andcompetition for Julie.

As in all radio shows, the crooks must meet their ultimate demise in the end. Julie’s dispatch is enacted in the same manner in both the radio and pulp stories, but Johnny’s brutal slaying is delivered by differing factions. Moreover, the pulp yarn has an additional shocker denouement. Readers are encouraged to seek out both accounts to learn their respective conclusions. The audio is readily available online and the pulp story has been recently reprinted in a 2020 compendium of Bradbury crime stories appropriately titled, Killer, Come Back to Me published in honor of the Centenary of the author’s birth.

Richard Widmark

In addition to his achievements in fantasy, Ray Bradbury should also be remembered for his excellent endeavors in crime fiction. Those having an interest in these activities may email this author at khschadow@gmail.com