Ann Blyth on Radio: Three Performances

Ann Blyth appeared in 32 films over the course of a screen career that lasted 13 years.  She made possibly as many as 400 radio performances and appearances in her career, over a course of several decades.  Today we’ll talk about three of those performances, and about the peculiar sensation of sound and imagination that creates the so-called “theatre of the air.”

In the middle twentieth century, radio was the main entertainment vehicle, with access to far greater audience numbers than even the movie industry at its most popular.  Acting on radio required a different skill set than performing on stage, but it was like being on stage, especially for shows that were broadcast in front of a live audience. 

Radio required different acting than on screen, yet like film acting, it relied on the actors’ ability to emote and connect with an electronic device—in this case, a microphone instead of a motion picture camera—rather than to play to the audience, even if an audience was present.

As we’ve mentioned in this previous post on old time radio, and in this one on Ann Blyth’s appearance on the Studio One episode of “The Angelic Avengers,” some stars were more successful on radio than others, and some more prolific.  Ann, began her acting and singing career on radio when she was a child of six in New York City, had learned the ropes early on and by the time she was an adult, performed splendidly in a medium that required precise articulation, breath control, the ability to use accents, and most especially, the quality of intimacy with the listener that makes really fine old time radio performances so thrilling and appealing.

Our first show is a version of “State Fair” performed on General Electric Theater September 10, 1953.  This is the chestnut that had been made into a film three times over three decades, and popped up on radio from time to time.  Ann had performed in another version for the Hallmark Playhouse in 1948.

This script was adapted by one my favorite television writers, Kathleen Hite, and because of the half-hour time constraint, focuses on the problems of Ann’s character, Frake family daughter Margie and her experience at the state fair.

Tom Tully is her dad, Verna Felton is her mother, and features old radio and film standbys Sam Edwards, Joe Kerns, Dick Ryan, and Lamont Johnson.  Ken Carpenter is the announcer, who keeps reminding us how wonderful General Electric appliances are, and at one point Ann heartily agrees, as they contribute to “the ease of modern living.”  It seems we can get a standing freezer for $2.69 a week, plus a small down payment.

The show was performed before an audience, but then edited and prettied up before being broadcast on “transcription,” or recording.  There’s a lot of “fair” sounds to add and with some quick cutting, the show is well-produced.

Though radio shows, like stage and screen, were rehearsed beforehand, there is still an element akin to a “cold” reading because the actors are not playing to each other, not playing to the audience, not working with props, or costumes, or any of the usual devices that help them to get into character.  They must just stand before the mic and BE that character, only through their voice, yet performing in this situation is more physical than it seems. 

Listen to the mechanics of Ann’s expression of emotional turmoil: her irritability, her fight with her boyfriend, speaking her lines through tears, and later with her parents, sobbing on the car ride, sounding frustrated and brokenhearted.  We can’t see her, so she can’t rely on facial expressions, body movements, no trembling lip, hanky twisted in hands or dabbing at tears, no turning from the camera to hide the inability to manufacture tears behind heaving shoulders.  No glycerin drops in the eyes courtesy of the makeup man.

She’s got to sob, really.  Because the only thing that sounds like sobbing is sobbing.  She’s got to bring it up from the belly, and it’s got to be messy, nose-running, stomach-tightening sobs.  We have to HEAR her.  And then she’s got to be able to put on the brakes and stop it instantly because of the quick shifts in scene on radio. 

Ann also narrates the episode, voicing over scenes, in the interest of time constraint.  She tells us she is “full of feelings that I didn’t understand, that welled up quickly, soared and flew, and then slipped away into nothing.  Then I’d be all empty inside and lonely.”

The really fun scene is the roller coaster, where she meets the reporter who becomes her new love.  Listen to the roller coaster sounds, the carnival barker, the ratcheting of the cars on the cogs up the coaster slope, and then we can imagine, the car teeters for a moment at the top, then plummets, making us feel the lurching in our own stomachs.  Listen to her splendid, genuine screams, timed right at the moment of descent and the rush of speed.  The ride ends with their chuckling at the exhilaration, and her embarrassed giggle for having screamed.  Good radio sounds very natural, as if we are eavesdropping.

Listen to the episode here:

Or visit the Internet Archive website here and scroll down to "State Fair" where you can either listen or download to your computer.

Next, we have a darker mood and a sinister tale of SUSPENSE.  Suspense was a long-running program from 1942 to 1962 (its ending in September 1962, along with the final episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar would mark the end of the Golden Age of Radio), and featured the biggest Hollywood stars in top-notch scripts.  Harlow Wilcox is our pitchman for sponsor Autolite Spark Plugs.  I love that distinctive hollow two-note chime we hear as a show theme and feel in the pit of our stomachs.

Edmond O’Brien, with whom Ann starred in the film Another Part of the Forest (1948), discussed here, is the lead in “Muddy Track”, broadcast November 11, 1948.  He’s a mug down on his luck, and takes a job for a bookie.  He finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and ends up being a hunted fugitive.  Ann plays a damsel in distress…or is she?

This is a studio-produced show, with no live audience.  The intimacy is controlled, and every sound is intimate in this show, wonderfully evocative of mood and location.  The tinkling of glasses, a lazy plunking of a piano tells us we’re in a bar.  The sound of someone writing on a notepad in a heavy hand, scratching the pen across the paper.  All the soft sounds of life going on all around us that we usually do not notice in the din and cacophony of our world today, where attention deficit syndrome is as common a diagnosis as obesity, and as much a product of our society.

Edmond O’Brien’s resonant voice is made for radio, his cynicism, his worry, his panting panic as he narrates his actions.  He discovers a dead body, and then realizes he is being set up as a fall guy.

Ann’s first entrance is a sharp, gasp of terror when she discovers O’Brien in the compromising situation.  He pretends he is a cop investigating the murder, and he hustles her away to a hole-in-wall restaurant to question her.  She’s rattled, recovering from the shock, drinking a cup of tea he’s ordered for her.  Ann, still teary and upset, delivers her plot exposition while swallowing sips of liquid—again, the mechanics of acting before a microphone.

Later, when they are on the run together in a city park, in order to hide from a cop strolling by, they kiss each other quickly, pretending they are lovers.  The technique used here to illustrate the urgency of the situation—which then becomes a moment of true passion—is for Ann to say her line to the point her words become mingled into a kiss.  Though we next have O’Brien’s voice-over narration describing his feelings, it is not the explanation of the kissing that thrills the imagination; it is the actual muffled sound of the kiss interrupting the line and the following moments when we are allowed to hear them only breathing.

It’s like G-rated phone sex.

At the end of the episode, were are told Ann Blyth can now be seen in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, which we discussed here.  Have a listen to “Muddy Track”:

Or visit the Internet Archive website here and scroll down to "Muddy Track" to listen or download to your computer.

Finally, we have another mysterious outing in the popular “Shadow of a Doubt,” a version of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 film that was produced on radio by several different programs.  This one is from Hollywood Sound Stage, a Screen Guild Players incarnation that raised funds in support of the Motion Picture Relief Fund.  It was broadcast January 10, 1952.  (Ann Blyth had previously performed another version for Ford Theater in 1949 with Ray Milland.)

Here her co-star as the sinister Uncle Charlie is Jeff Chandler, another superb radio voice, and our favorite Mr. Boynton on Our Miss Brooks.


Ann is on almost the entire show. She narrates in a smooth, controlled voice, and she plays the intelligent niece whose hero-worshiping of her uncle melts into disillusionment and terror.

One fun aspect to the production is that she gets to hum “The Merry Widow Waltz” during the dishwashing scene.  While her mother and Jeff Chandler speak, we hear the clatter of plates in the background.  Ann’s lovely voice hums the waltz behind the other two actors, and she frequently interrupts herself to say her own lines, then back to the tune.

Later, in the moment where she trips on the broken wooden step, we hear a sickening thud, punctuated by her gasp and shriek, “Mother!”  It requires very quick and precise timing. 

In the final scene with the struggle on the moving train, we hear the rush of the increasing speed of the train, and her scream dies off in a kind of aural “fade to black”.

Listen to “Shadow of a Doubt” here:

Or visit the Internet Archive website  and scroll down to "Shadow of a Doubt" to listen or download to your computer.

I sometimes think in our fast-paced world of media, especially portable media, exploding all around us, that we really don’t listen enough, or listen well.  It’s hard when there are so many distractions, and much of what we see and hear in the media today is less entertaining than it is a mere distraction.

To be fully engaged, we need to be quiet sometimes, very still, and listen.  Sounds have textures, most especially the human voice.

Come back next Thursday when we cover a tale of two stage dramas:  Ann’s roles in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1950, and in Wait Until Dark in Chicago in 1967.

Publicity photo, credit unknown at this time.

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THANK YOU....to the following folks whose aid in gathering material for this series has been invaluable:  EBH; Kevin Deany of Kevin's Movie Corner; Gerry Szymski of Westmont Movie Classics, Westmont, Illinois; and Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.

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UPDATE:  This series on Ann Blyth is now a book - ANN BLYTH: ACTRESS. SINGER. STAR. -

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon, CreateSpace, and my Etsy shop: LynchTwinsPublishing.

 "Lynch’s book is organized and well-written – and has plenty of amusing observations – but when it comes to describing Blyth’s movies, Lynch’s writing sparkles." - Ruth Kerr, Silver Screenings

"Jacqueline T. Lynch creates a poignant and thoroughly-researched mosaic of memories of a fine, upstanding human being who also happens to be a legendary entertainer." - Deborah Thomas, Java's Journey

"One of the great strengths of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is that Lynch not only gives an excellent overview of Blyth's career -- she offers detailed analyses of each of Blyth's roles -- but she puts them in the context of the larger issues of the day."- Amanda Garrett, Old Hollywood Films

"Jacqueline's book will hopefully cause many more people to take a look at this multitalented woman whose career encompassed just about every possible aspect of 20th Century entertainment." - Laura Grieve, Laura's Miscellaneous Musings''

"Jacqueline T. Lynch’s Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is an extremely well researched undertaking that is a must for all Blyth fans." - Annette Bochenek, Hometowns to Hollywood

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. 
by Jacqueline T. Lynch

The first book on the career of actress Ann Blyth. Multitalented and remarkably versatile, Blyth began on radio as a child, appeared on Broadway at the age of twelve in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, and enjoyed a long and diverse career in films, theatre, television, and concerts. A sensitive dramatic actress, the youngest at the time to be nominated for her role in Mildred Pierce (1945), she also displayed a gift for comedy, and was especially endeared to fans for her expressive and exquisite lyric soprano, which was showcased in many film and stage musicals. Still a popular guest at film festivals, lovely Ms. Blyth remains a treasure of the Hollywood's golden age.

The eBook and paperback are available from Amazon and also available in eBook at:

Kobo

Barnes & Noble

Apple iBooks

 You can also order it from my Etsy shop. 

If you wish a signed copy, then email me at JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com and I'll get back to you with the details.

Now Playing - Cinderella - 1950

Walt Disney’s “Cinderella” (1950) is at the forefront of the long parade of Disney animated princesses. (Prince Charming’s singing voice, incidentally, is by Mike Douglas, popular talk show host in the 1960s and ‘70s. And Verna Felton, last seen here playing the sweet old lady neighbor in “Picnic”, voiced the Fairy Godmother.)

Cinderella’s emergence in 1950 perhaps also heralded the beginning of a much shorter parade of film princesses played by some of the1950s greatest actress icons. We’ll spend the next couple of weeks talking about Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Ingrid Bergman as 1950s princesses.

As we shall see, despite the wicked stepmother, the coach turning back into a pumpkin, and the lost shoe, Cinderella didn’t really have it so tough. Compared to what Hepburn, Kelly, and Bergman went through, “Cinderella” was really just kid stuff.

Picnic - 1955

“Picnic” (1955) takes place on Labor Day, in a Midwest small town. In the middle of the country, in the middle of the 1950s, we arrive at a point in the lives of the characters in this film when they are both looking back and looking forward. For most, it seems their prospects are as flat as the horizon.

William Holden plays Hal, an unrealistic dreamer and likable screw-up who arrives in town riding a boxcar, with little more than his father’s boots to his name. Holden is often judged by many as being too old to play this boyish character, and perhaps that is true. Already having successfully played more mature men of the world, one can sense in some scenes what might have been Mr. Holden’s discomfort at playing a man in his 20s with the emotional maturity of a teenager. But with a little makeup around the eyes, a little combing of his hair in bangs over a slightly receding hairline, Holden does fine showing us Hal’s loveable foolishness, his pathetic braggadocio, and brings a certain wistful pang of remorse to the inevitable harsh self-knowledge of his own failure. Perhaps a younger, less experienced actor would not have brought the enormous expression of regret we see in Hal’s face, a self knowledge that only time brings.

Besides, William Holden can heave the entire body of young Susan Strasberg over his head and carry her with one hand in a picnic race, and this is pretty impressive for a man in his late 30s.

Susan Strasberg shines as the brainiac teenager Millie, rebellious and restlessness, and deeply jealous of her pretty older sister, Madge, played by Kim Novak. “Madge is the pretty one!” Miss Strasberg wails, her teenage pain acute, with no one and nothing to comfort her.




I believe it was in this movie that director Joshua Logan said of Kim Novak that she “wears her beauty like a crown of thorns.” A pretty well-repeated comment of Kim Novak by now, and in this role, remarkably true. Miss Novak is the anxious beauty queen Madge, who is as equally jealous of her younger sister because of the younger girl’s roundly acknowledged intellect. Her geeky little sister is more confident, dares to be more brash, and is headed off to college. Madge is going nowhere. Her only hope for a happy future, at least according to her worried mother, played by Betty Field, is for her to marry the rich boy in town.

The rich boy, son of the town’s grain elevator company owner, is played by Cliff Robertson. No struggle for Madge to snag him, because he’s already after her. The problem is Madge. She’s deeply insecure about her much-proclaimed beauty, wanting instead to be appreciated for more than that. Her fear is that there isn’t much more to her. She’s not really in love with Robertson, and she, a girl who has grown up fatherless by the railroad tracks, feels out of place among his wealthy set. And then William Holden arrives in town.

There are a lot of interesting comparisons to make to “Peyton Place”, which we covered last time. Both reflect the turmoil of the individual’s fitting into a tight-knit, and often judgmental community. Both, though launching the plot off the sexual desires of the youth, also reflect the emotional crises of the older generations with poignancy.


Rosalind Russell plays the spinster schoolteacher who boards with Betty Field’s family, and plays her like a force of nature, occasionally chewing the scenery. Footloose and fancy free, she boasts of relationships she has broken off to keep her independence, but we soon learn the only man willing to keep company with her these days is the befuddled Arthur O’Connell, one of the terrific character actors of this era. He is a confirmed old bachelor who brings liquor to liven up the party, and contentedly comforts himself in his bachelor apartment with his 21-inch TV. I love how his tie is too short.

Their relationship is old, stale, but livens up after a climatic scene when Miss Russell paws Holden in a desperate cry for attention, and afterward she realizes tearfully, with repentance and in some panic that Mr. O’Connell is the only man left to her who will keep her from being alone. She begs him to save her from a life of spinsterhood.

One of the interesting differences in “Picnic” to “Peyton Place” is the role of the mother of the lead characters. Lana Turner is the mother who bore her child out of wedlock and afterward spends considerable energy keeping her teenaged daughter from any kind of intimate contact with any boy, who warns her of sex and accuses her of sex, but will not otherwise talk about it.

Betty Field in “Picnic”, however (in contrast to her own role in “Peyton Place” as the tragic figure so beaten by the circumstances of her life that she cannot comfort a brutalized daughter, only obsess over what the neighbors will think) practically throws Kim Novak at the rich boy. Field questions her daughter on how far she lets Cliff Robertson go on dates, not to warn her off intimacy before marriage, but to encourage it so that there will be a marriage. We can see Novak’s embarrassment with this discussion, and Betty Field’s determined desperation.

In both films we have the camera shots from high above, a point at which the characters can look down on the town and consider it. In “Peyton Place” it is Russ Tamblyn and Diane Varsi on the top of the mountain looking down upon the town. In “Picnic” it is William Holden and Cliff Robertson on the top of the grain elevator, a symbol of his family’s wealth and power, overlooking this Kansas town. Still, it is difficult to see the town even from this vantage, just as we might have to stand far back from a painting in a museum to really appreciate it. Some of these characters in both these movies will need to actually get out of town to see it for what it is.

The climatic scene in both films takes place at the Labor Day picnic, which is as fun to watch as it is useful for helping the plot to unfold. All the lead characters in “Picnic” participate in various games and races. In one race the ladies are told they need a male partner to compete in a rather servile-looking ring-toss game, and Rosalind Russell crows, “I’ve got a man!” to the defeated looks of the ladies who don’t.

The evening brings the final event of the day, the choosing of the festival queen, in this case “Neewollah”, which is Halloween spelled backwards. Kim Novak is floated down the river on a swan boat wearing a crown and cape while the townspeople pay homage in what might look silly to an outsider, but we are no longer outsiders here. We can smile at the foolish pageantry, and understand the need for it at the same time.

Mr. Holden is captivated at the sight of her, but mostly at what she represents, a grandeur he seeks for himself. We see Cliff Robertson now has a rival. In the next scenes over the course of the evening, a lot flip-flops and lives are changed forever. Relationships break off, new ones start, and Kim Novak, who has been eyeing Holden with fascination since she met him, now finds the guts to make the biggest decision of her life.

Probably the most interesting aspect in this film of what today might be considered rampant sexism, where the women are regarded, and regard themselves, as essentially worthless if they do not attract and keep a man, is the blatant exploitation of William Holden’s masculinity. He is ogled and pawed, his clothes are ripped from him by a desperate older woman. He is shirtless and leered at by the ladies and by the camera. He is Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe in his vulnerability as a sex object.

And he is miserable. Like Kim Novak. It’s a sweet idea that the comfort they seem to bring each, their mutual woes of not being appreciated for their inner worth, will make a bridge on which they can build a lasting romance. But the film carries with it an irresistible reality that maybe happily-ever-after is a matter of degree. When Mr. Holden all but demands Novak follow him when he must hurriedly leave town ahead of the police, we may wonder if he is ever going to grow up and stop thinking only about himself. We may suspect that Miss Novak is walking into as hopeless and unsatisfying a relationship as her parents’. But we don’t really know.

We don’t really know if Roz Russell and Arthur O’Connell are really going to make a life together in his bachelor apartment with his 21-inch television. She will quit teaching, which she wants very much to do, and will likely have to anyway as many teachers in many areas of the country were still required to be single at this time. They leave for they honeymoon, she ecstatic, he dazed.

We are left with Betty Field, the well-meaning and ambitious mother of two daughters as different as night and day, with different needs and different personalities. A woman who takes in borders to make ends meet, because her own marriage failed many years ago. We are left with the gentle older neighbor Miss Potts, played by Verna Felton, who cares for the demanding and unseen mother that requires all her energy, all her time. Just as in “Peyton Place”, the older generations are seen as having paid a price, and one of the most touching moments in the film is when Verna Felton and Betty Field sit pensively on a swing at the town picnic, the evening shadows lowering, and Felton confesses that just being able to watch Field’s daughters grow up from her vantage point of her own backyard made her lonely life easier.

This is a woman denied her own family possibly by the very responsibility of caring for her invalid mother. How poignant it is to show an elderly woman calling to an even older woman, “Yes, Mama, I’m coming,” with no resentment, only concern. Miss Felton has made peace with her life, even as she lives vicariously through everyone else’s. It is she who first welcomes Holden into their lives, fusses over him and makes him comfortable. He playfully calls her his girl. It is she who first notices the attraction between Holden and Novak, and she wistfully, with wonder and captivation, but without an ounce of Miss Russell’s jealousy, comments, “Aren’t they graceful?”

Though Kim Novak is warned by Betty Field that time is flying, and she is at the peak of her bloom and needs to pursue marriage with the rich boy while she is still desirable, we are reminded that in Field herself, and in young Susan Strasberg, and in Verna Felton, time is flying for every generation. It brings to mind the old poem about gathering rosebuds while ye may, and it applies to everyone: “To the Virgins, to make much of Time,” by Robert Herrick.

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he 's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he 's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Verna Felton would identify more with this than either of Betty Field’s girls. But they’ll understand in time, in their own ways, with their own regrets. This is what makes the film interesting, is that it doesn’t really end. The audience decides what the ending will be. Because it is Labor Day, the summer, at least, is ending, the movie showing us a race against time that is an allegory for the broader issues.

Below, have a look at the famous dance sequence with William Holden and Kim Novak at the picnic. Enjoy your Labor Day, and may the eventual evening shadows fall gently on you and yours.