tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-130495342010-07-29T14:22:41.297+01:00Keeping up with the out-of-date . . .Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.comBlogger727125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-20610240657124144202010-06-28T22:00:00.002+01:002010-06-29T20:18:38.430+01:00

“What do you think of a husband who has given a woman eight children and lived with [her] for twenty-four years and in front of his children denies that he is married to her?” No one hearing the question—an estimated twelve million Americans—could have been particularly interested in the response. It was the story that thrilled, the common, raw and true story that was 1438C, one of three cases

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-9442051545496612832010-06-25T22:57:00.013+01:002010-06-26T12:09:42.540+01:00

”Whatever your own political views in the matter may be . . .” Diplomatic, cautious and propitiatory, those are hardly words you would expect to hear coming from the close-miked mouth of crooner Rudy Vallee, one of the 1930s most popular—and insipid—radio personalities. After all, Vallee was not emceeing America’s Town Meeting of the Air; his chief ambassadorial function was to promote

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-76483056074537925682010-06-22T23:44:00.038+01:002010-07-02T01:05:51.911+01:00

While not entirely lacking in fancy or imagination, I generally avoid speculating about roads not taken, avoid taking in prospects retrospectively by asking “What if . . . ?” What if I had never gone to America? What if I had not left again some fifteen years later? What if what I had left had not been a country whose majority had just re-elected George W. Bush? While I would not go so far or

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-601956217924773032010-06-14T23:43:00.021+01:002010-06-15T13:36:03.442+01:00

“42 Men Killed Every Week,” the headline read. Those who had already heard as much on the radio would likely have felt the impact of this crime wave; but, unless they were pining for the likes of Rudy Vallee, they would have relished it as well. Religious leaders, child psychologists, and a few popular entertainers aside, hardly anyone would have been the least bit alarmed. After all, the

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-38736552840714004982010-06-11T20:20:00.017+01:002010-07-01T21:10:32.981+01:00

Announcer Graham McNamee called it the “most terrific broadcast [he] ever took part in.” He was referring to NBC’s on-the-spot coverage of Colonel Charles L. Lindbergh’s return from France to the United States on this day, 11 June, in 1927. It certainly was a technical achievement worthy of “this new world hero, this new ambassador of America to all other countries,” as McNamee heralded the “

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-65911402494010520402010-06-10T22:22:00.017+01:002010-06-15T21:12:07.741+01:00

“You’re sorry?” That was the rather pitiful catchphrase devised for a certain “lovable lady of stage, screen, and radio”—Miss Charlotte Greenwood, who, having done well for herself on stage and screen, added “radio” to her resume in June 1944, when the Charlotte Greenwood Program was first broadcast over NBC’s Blue network as a summer replacement for Bob Hope. Actually, Greenwood had been Mrs.

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-55393161657368459792010-06-08T22:00:00.004+01:002010-06-09T19:30:53.388+01:00

“As you know, in many countries in Europe the people are only permitted to hear what their government wishes them to hear through government controlled radio stations.” With that reason to be grateful for being an American, uttered on 8 June 1941, veteran announcer Graham McNamee introduced listeners who might have tuned in to Behind the Mike to hear the “sound effect of the week” or learn how

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-42217213041556748312010-06-07T19:32:00.026+01:002010-06-07T23:33:01.427+01:00

I am often too lost in whatever thoughts go through that absent mind of mine to take note of what goes on in the world or who among the world’s notables have departed it of late. Else I am too slow to gather those thoughts in time for anything approaching timely. Enter fellow web journalists Ivan Shreve, on whom you can depend for the latest in great names to have joined the parade of late

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-14441734472162915462010-06-01T22:00:00.006+01:002010-07-01T19:23:55.655+01:00

It wasn’t just the “usual gang of crumbs” gathering at Duffy’s Tavern that evening. Otherwise, Archie would not have replaced the “Watch Your Hats and Coats” sign with one saying “Maintain Scrutiny of Thy Chapeaux and Hats.” Nor would Mrs. Duffy, who wasn’t exactly an authority on high classical authors, have been dusting off the Dostoyevsky, which Archie struggled to classify as animal,

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-28329038186151999322010-05-31T16:48:00.009+01:002010-05-31T22:15:57.434+01:00

It’s one of those days. I am reaching into my box of memorabilia, building paper bridges between the now and then. As I turn away from this little blue box—and from the scanner that transforms a printed image into a digital one—my eye catches another image, a framed poster on the wall of my study. And, once again, I become carried away, absorbed in the thoughts these two collector’s items—one

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-65877767563532559332010-05-30T23:34:00.011+01:002010-06-15T21:07:48.505+01:00

I don’t often indulge in morning afterthoughts. I might—and frequently do—revise what I said (or, rather, how I said it); but I generally just take time, and one time only, to say my piece instead of doling it out piecemeal. Unlike the producers of much of the (un)popular culture I go on about here, I don’t make a virtue of saying “As I was saying” or make my fortune, say, by milking the cash

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-49728431563156686792010-05-29T13:19:00.005+01:002010-05-29T20:29:38.744+01:00

“What is the future of the radio business in the United States? Is it to be like the telephone, the automobile, or the phonograph business, a thing that will rise suddenly to almost universal acceptance by the public and support great manufacturing plants?” These aspects of the “Commercial Side of Radio” were mooted back in May 1922, when they were raised in the first issue of Radio Broadcast.

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-68103766138753200492010-05-28T09:39:00.007+01:002010-05-29T01:18:33.360+01:00

Both BBC Radio 4 and 7 are in the thick of a J. B. Priestley festival, a spate of programs ranging from serial dramatizations of early novels (The Good Companions and Bright Day) and adaptations of key plays (Time and the Conways and An Inspector Calls), to readings from his travelogue English Journey and a documentary about the writer’s troubled radio days. Now, I don’t know just what might be

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-6398279288274737862010-05-27T20:00:00.019+01:002010-05-28T23:29:17.804+01:00

This week marks the 70th anniversary of “Operation Dynamo,” an ad hoc rescue mission involving small civilian ships coming to the aid of French and British soldiers who had been forced into retreat at Dunkerque during the for Allied troops disastrous Battle of Dunkirk. The operation, which became known as “The Miracle of the Little Ships,” was recreated today as more than sixty British vessels,

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-65796493654677217842010-05-26T21:44:00.021+01:002010-06-15T21:07:48.507+01:00

Folks flicking through the May 25-30 issue of Radio-Movie Guide back in 1941 were told about a “New Song Sensation,” a novelty number written by Ted McMichael (of the Merry Macs), Jack Owens and Leo V. Killion. The identification of the tunesmiths aside, this was probably no news at all to America’s avid dial twisters. Published only a few weeks earlier, the “Sensation” in question had already

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-28875998140320121452010-05-10T17:10:00.019+01:002010-05-27T22:15:55.112+01:00

When I heard of the passing of Lena Horne, the words “You Were Wonderful” came immediately to mind. Expressive of enthusiasm and regret, they sound fit for a tribute. However, by placing the emphasis on the first word, we may temper our applause—or the patronising cheers of others—with a note of reproach, implying that while Horne’s performances were marvellous, indeed, the system in which she

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-38985457131637971422010-05-03T22:44:00.032+01:002010-05-27T22:10:04.536+01:00

Today, American journalist and radio playwright Norman Corwin turns 100. Whether that makes him the oldest living writer to have had a career in radio I leave it to fact-checkers and record book keepers to determine. I do know that, seventy years ago, he was already the best. Oldest. Best. Why not dispense with superlatives? Corwin has been set apart for too long. Instead, an appreciation

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-45174782318818595942010-04-24T22:00:00.012+01:002010-05-27T22:17:53.937+01:00

I might as well come right out with it, dissentient, fractious and uncharitable as it may sound. I don’t like Alan Bennett—popular British playwright, memoirist, and frequent reciter of his own words—whose latest work for the stage, The Habit of Art, was beamed from London’s National Theatre into movie houses around the world this month. He irritates me. Why, then, did I number among the

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-77714116837767082762010-04-20T22:00:00.005+01:002010-05-27T22:17:53.940+01:00

I am taking the passing ash cloud as an occasion to dust off my collection of Cinegrams, a late-1930s to early 1940s series of British movie programs I recently set out to acquire. Immemorabilia, you might call them. Not quite first-rate souvenirs of, for the most part, less-than-classic films like The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel, or worse. These cheaply printed ephemera were

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-13602719779354858942010-03-26T13:09:00.002Z2010-05-27T22:17:53.951+01:00

"What is there to say about what one loves except: I love it, and to keep on saying it?" Roland Barthes famously remarked. Sometimes, getting to the stage of saying even that much requires quite a bit of effort; and sometimes you don’t get to say it at all. Love may be where you find it, but it may also be the very act of discovery. The objective rather than the object. The pursuit whose

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-15091597319888607352010-02-24T22:00:00.012Z2010-05-27T22:27:35.522+01:00

“Education comes more easily through the ear than through the eye,” H. V. Kaltenborn declared back in 1926. He had to believe that, or needed to convince others of it, at least. After all, the newspaper editor had embarked on a new career that was entirely dependent on the public’s ability to listen and learn when he, as early as 1921, first stepped behind a microphone to throw his disembodied

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-59442287986538854782010-01-15T22:00:00.011Z2010-05-27T22:24:55.902+01:00

It doesn’t happen often that, after watching a 21-century movie based on a 21-century novel, I walk straight into the nearest bookstore to get my hands on a shiny paperback copy of the original, the initial publication of which escaped me as a matter of course. Come to think of it, this never happened before; and that it did happen in the case of Me and Orson Welles has a lot to do with the fact

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-22715638589383402682009-12-22T21:50:00.004Z2010-05-27T22:17:53.960+01:00

“There's no family uniting instinct, anyhow; it's habit and sentiment and material convenience hold families together after adolescence. There's always friction, conflict, unwilling concessions. Always!” Growing up in a familial household whose microclimate was marked by the extremes of hot-temperedness and bone-chilling calculation, I amassed enough empirical evidence to convince me that this

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-17684718749386316542009-12-02T22:00:00.001Z2010-05-27T22:17:53.962+01:00

I am not inclined to manual labor. If I lift a finger, it is likely to come down on what isn’t grammatically up to scratch or else to add a few scrapes to my scalp as I take some rambling bull by the inkhorn. There has been a little more of that going on lately—teaching and editing—and, my furrowed pate notwithstanding, I am heartily glad of it. Yet as much as I relish being back in the game

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049534.post-79300649690477052102009-11-23T11:14:00.024Z2010-05-27T22:24:55.904+01:00

The Darwin bicentenary is drawing to a close. Throughout the year, exhibitions were staged all over Britain to commemorate the achievements of the scientist and the controversy his theories wrought; numerous plays and documentaries were presented on stage, screen and radio, including a new production of Inherit the Wind (1955), currently on at the Old Vic. I was hoping to catch up with it when

Harry Heuserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06516327808775454066noreply@blogger.com11