Category Archives: adaptations

Warming up with June Bride

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Bob Stepno

Here two radio adaptations of a snow-flaky romantic comedy called “June Bride,” about a magazine team trying to get a wedding feature written in a midwestern winter so that it will be set in type to greet spring readers. The … Continue reading →

Posted in 1940s, 1950s, adaptations, comedy, editors, foreign correspondents, magazines, romance, women | Leave a comment

Newspaper stories behind a September Song

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Bob Stepno

Knickerbocker Holiday (Theater Guild on the Air, Dec. 1945). The hit song remained, but the “journalist” character disappeared in the radio adaptation of the musical “Knickerbocker Holiday” — one of many films that were presented in radio versions. The radio … Continue reading →

Posted in 1940s, adaptations, free speech, historical figures, movies, New York City, tabloids | Leave a comment

Theater critic as storyteller, plot device & investigator

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Bob Stepno

What do the movies “All About Eve” (1950) and “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944) have in common that is relevant to this blog, other than their popularity with radio producers who adapted them for broadcast? There are no corpses or … Continue reading →

Posted in 1940s, 1950s, adaptations, columnists, critics, movies | Leave a comment

Reporter, actress, find love in “Next Time…”

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Bob Stepno

Next Time We Love, a 1936 “struggling marriage” melodrama with a young James Stewart as a reporter and Margaret Sullavan as his aspiring actress wife, was adapted for radio repeatedly, including versions with Stewart and the very different Jimmy Cagney as … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, adaptations, foreign correspondents, marriages, reporters | Leave a comment

Lime with a twist: Violets, Violence and Recycled Radio

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Bob Stepno

Here’s a special case of radio recycling, another Orson Welles’ script from “The Lives of Harry Lime,” turned into a “Europe Confidential” journalist-hero script a few years later, part of a pattern I began writing about some months ago. This … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s, adaptations, Drama, ethics, Europe, foreign correspondents, Orson Welles | Leave a comment

Cheesecake and pickles at State Fair

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Bob Stepno

Did you hear the one about the big-city reporter and the farmer’s daughter? It was called “State Fair,” as a novel, a Broadway hit, a movie, a stage musical and two more movies. On the radio, the whole theatrical Lockhart … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s, adaptations, movies, romance | Leave a comment

Add a reporter, shift hemispheres; seeking the truth in rewrite

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Bob Stepno

I dropped a few of the Internet Archive’s “The Lives of Harry Lime” episodes onto my MP3 player to listen to on drives or walks in the park… and stumbled on another case of script-recycling, presumably by Harry Alan Towers, … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s, adaptations, detectives, foreign correspondents | Leave a comment

Radioplays and women in journalism

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Bob Stepno

Happy International Women’s Day! For some crime-solving by a non-fictional woman journalist, see last year’s International Women’s Day episode of JHeroes. This year, we’ll start with fiction and get back to reality — including women war correspondents —  before the … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, 1940s, 19th century, adaptations, cavalcade, GreenHornet, historical figures, Lois Lane, true stories, women, World War II | Leave a comment

Reporters aren’t always heroes: Ask Laura

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Bob Stepno

Despite the title of this blog, not all newspapermen (or women) in radio’s popular culture portrayals were heroes, although I think they were generally played more favorably on radio than in Hollywood movies. But I’ve just added a 45th title … Continue reading →

Posted in 1940s, adaptations, columnists, crime, detectives, Drama, movies, romance | Leave a comment

An as-told-to tale of blackmail

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Bob Stepno

The best rewrite of a “Lives of Harry Lime” episode that I’ve heard so far, transformed into a “Europe Confidential” episode with the addition of a journalist narrator, is this tale of political blackmail in which a racketeer anti-hero comes … Continue reading →

Posted in 1950s, adaptations, Drama, Europe, foreign correspondents, Orson Welles | Leave a comment