The Four Star Playhouse Radio Program

Background

Magazine story adaptations were a staple source for many of the drama anthologies throughout the Golden Age of Radio. The popular fiction magazines of the era such as McCall's, Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, and Colliers magazine were but a few reprsentative sources for much of the more popular fiction from the first half of the 20th Century. Many of the fictional characters popularized over Radio also came from the many popular pulp fiction magazines of the era.

Adapted for Radio, most of the short fiction stories from the magazines presented compelling dramatizations of the authors' work. Indeed, many of the authors popularized during the era found their way to Radio:

John P. Marquand's "Mr. Moto"
Rex Stout's "Nero Wolfe"
Agatha Christie's "Hercule Poirot"
Earl Derr Biggers' "Charlie Chan"
Erle Stanley Gardner's "Perry Mason"
George Harmon Coxe's "Crime Photographer"
Michael Arlen's "The Falcon"
Leslie Charteris' "The Saint"

Some popular Radio programs were comprised entirely of short stories from one magazine in particular, such as The Shadow, Redbook Drama, Radio Reader's Digest, or Love Story Magazine. Many other dramatic anthologies of the era also drew from fictional short stories from the magazines of the era. The stories were already proven, they were--by definition-- short enough to adapt for 30-minute Radio programs, and they were readily available at reasonable cost to the Radio producers of the era.

Four Star Playhouse premieres as a Summer series

NBC and Cosmopolitan magazine came to an agreement to showcase twelve of Cosmopolitan's short stories starring four of Film's rising stars of the era: Rosalind Russell, Loretta Young, Robert Cummings and Fred MacMurray. Dubbed, Four Star Playhouse, the repertory alternated leading roles between the four great actors of the era.

• Rosalind Russell premiered the series in Welcome to Our City
• Fred MacMurray starred in Another Day, Another Dollar Ninety-Eight
• Loretta Young starred in A Legend for Spring Brides
• Robert Cummings starred in Third Girl From The Right
• Rosalind Russell returned for From an Admirer
• Fred MacMurray starred in The Life and Death of George Wilson
• Robert Cummings returned for The Hunted
• Rosalind Russell returned for The Incredible Anna Lee
• Fred MacMurrary returned for Cory
• Robert Cummings returned for Surprise For The Professor
• Rosalind Russell returned for Paradise U.S.A.
• Loretta Young concluded the series with Once Upon a Horse

Rosalind Russell carried the majority of the programs with four appearances. Loretta Young, orginally scheduled for three appearances was unavailable for the first scheduled broadcast of Once Upon A Horse, so she ultimately appeared in only two of the series' programs. The adaptations for the series were masterfully handled by Milton Geiger. Warren Lewis directed the series and Dr. Albert Harris composed the theme and incidental music for the series.

Four Star Playhouse was part of NBC's "Parade of New Shows" campaign for 1949. But 1949 was also the year infamous for CBS and NBC poaching each others' biggest names and biggest shows. According to Billboard magazine, talent costs for the summer series averaged $8000 per program, about double the talent and production costs for the vast majority of the programming of the era. That was also a pretty high tab for a Summer replacement program for the era. NBC bore the investment, sans sponsor, hoping to hold onto the Sunday night spot for it's Fall premiere of The Adventures of Sam Spade over NBC, another poaching coup for the network.

By 1949 Sam Spade had become one of Radio's most popular feature programs. But as history would soon demonstrate, all was not champagne, strawberries and hair tonic with Sam Spade. Within a year The Adventures of Sam Spade ended abruptly over questions of political philosophy regarding author Dashiell Hammett and Sam Spade's star Howard Duff. Those issues had first surfaced during the CBS run, so it would appear that NBC's President, Niles Trammel, bought a pig in a poke from crafty CBS.

Four Star Playhouse, in spite of initially tepid reviews, succeeded in keeping the prime time Sunday night spot warm for Sam Spade. $8000 per installment bought NBC not only a great deal of talent, but a top-notch production. The surviving programs in current circulation are bright, clever, well directed and wonderfully well acted. The series was supported by West Coast actors Elliot Lewis, Lurene Tuttle, Will Wright, Herb Butterfield, Ken Christy, Willard Waterman, Betty Moran, Frank Nelson, Frank Lovejoy, Willam Conrad and Mary Jane Croft, just to name a few.

The concept of Four Star Playhouse didn't escape the attention of Dick Powell and his new Four Star Productions company. In 1952, Powell debuted his critically and popularly acclaimed Four Star Playhouse over Television. The series starred Powell, David Niven, Ida Lupino and Charles Boyer, the four principals of Four Star Productions, and garnered fourteen prime time Emmy nominations over its four-season run.

Four Star Playhouse didn't rise to the level of its Television successor, but nonetheless acquitted itself quite well for NBC. The programs are as entertaining and bright today as when first broadcast. They're a delightful addition to any vintage Radio collector's Radio drama collection.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

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