AS RECENTLY SHOWN, MY SIRIUSXM “RADIO CLASSICS” listening habits occasionally lead to additional Internet sleuthing. This time around, it’s a 1944 Suspense! presentation of The Dark Tower, a radio melodrama based on a 1933 stage play of the same name. In Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow, the sleuthing will reveal personages ranging from Edward G. Robinson and Mary Astor, to Orson Welles and Hans Conried, and even to a guy named Richard Nixon and his gal named Thelma.
Faux Dark Towers. To avoid confusion with other presentations of the same name, let’s begin by citing the ones I don’t have in mind. For example, one Google choice leads to Wikipedia‘s “The Dark Tower is a 1943 British thriller film directed by John Harlow starring Ben Lyon, Anne Crawford, David Ferrar, and Herbert Lom. The film marked Herbert Lom’s first major film role.”
I recall Lom as the beleaguered Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in The Pink Panther flicks.
Not my Dark Tower.
This particular one has a circus theme with a hypnotized trapeze artiste. Though Wikipedia says it’s based on The Dark Tower I have in mind, I cannot imagine anything in common.
Google also comes up with The Dark Tower as a 2017 American neo-Western science fantasy loosely based on Stephen King’s novel series of the same name.
Not even close. And no wonder A.I. comes up with misunderstandings from time to time.
My The Dark Tower. Properly prompted, Wikipedia describes the one I have in mind: “The Dark Tower is a mystery drama by George S. Kaufman and Alexander Woollcott, first produced in 1933.”
Kaufman was an American playwright, theater director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. My favorite Kaufman line is in response to an agent’s query, “How do I get our leading lady’s name in the Times?” Kaufman: “Shoot her.”
Wikipedia notes that Woollcott was an American drama critic and commentator for The New Yorker, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, an occasional actor and playwright, and a prominent radio personality.
It continues, “Woollcott was one of the most quoted men of his generation. Among Woollcott’s classics is his description of the Los Angeles area as ‘Seven suburbs in search of a city’—a quip often attributed to his friend Dorothy Parker. Describing The New Yorker editor Harold Ross, he said: ‘He looks like a dishonest Abe Lincoln.’ ”
Their Melodrama, a Success. Percy Hammond of the Herald-Tribune wrote, “ ‘The Dark Tower’ is a smooth, witty, proficient and intelligent melodrama.” Arthur Pollack said in the Brooklyn Eagle, “It is a merry and prankish play written with infinitely more grace than most mystery melodramas. It ought to have a happy life.”
Image from ebay.com.
The play surely had legs. Tomorrow in Part 2, it’ll get renamed at the flicks then keep its original one on radio’s Suspense! And let’s not forget that guy named Nixon. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024