The Great Moments From Great Plays Radio Program

Background

Throughout the World War II years, NBC and CBS, the two great network giants of the era, were engaged in a pitched battle for market share. The rivalry throughout the 1940s was marked by numerous 'me-too' programming duels between the two. Principal rivals in news, sports, comedy and drama, primarily, the two went at it hammer and tong throughout the era. One would mount a popular situation comedy, the other would counter with an equally popular comedy format. The battle often seemed most heated with their various 'serious' dramatic programming of the era.

Great Moments from Great Plays is a classic case in point. NBC had long undertaken their flagship, sustaining Great Plays anthology beginning in the Spring of 1938. NBC's Great Plays was entering its fifth successful season when CBS mounted its Great Moments from Great Plays. The recent controversy in broadcast Radio had been over the amount of rehearsal time alloted to the classic plays that both networks had aired over the previous twelve years. The criticism long leveled at both networks was regarding the polish and virtuosity displayed in the Stage Play anthologies of the previous twelve years. Both networks admitted that, at best, one in twenty of those various anthologies had been budgeted with both the money and rehearsal time necessary to do the classics justice.

It was a valid criticism. The prevailing wisdom of the era was that at least six to seven hours of rehearsal was required to produce a faithful adaptation of the classics for the Radio format. NBC had been the first of the two network giants to take the criticism to heart. But NBC was also traditionally the most frugal of the two major broadcasters. Extra rehearsal time translated directly into higher talent costs. In the case of sustained programming, that additional cost was borne by the network itself.

Given that few sponsors of the 1940s stepped forward to foot the bill for such additional expense in a quality program, the more prestigious drama anthologies of the era continued to be funded by the networks themselves.

The criticism continued unabated throughout the 1940s. Great Plays had been an expensive undertaking by NBC. Great Moments from Great Plays, by contrast approached the quality issue by offering, not an entire play, but the 'greatest moments' from the plays offered.

Great Moments from Great Plays debuts with a novel approach

The format here is the key. Acknowledging the talent expense of devoting sufficient rehearsal time to the classic plays of the era, CBS chose instead to promote the very best of a specific play--its 'great moments.' It was an interesting approach. Had CBS mounted the series as a sustained production, it's quite possible that it would have found far greater success than it eventually did. Once Philip Morris signed on to sponsor--and underwrite--the production, it became clear to all parties that simply excising the 'great moments' from the proposed plays wouldn't be enough to meet Philip Morris' target bottom line.

Employing primarily CBS staff artists, adapters, music and direction, CBS and Philip Morris managed to shave down the costs even further. In the end, the anthology produced yet another series with great potential in concept, but with a disappointing popular and critical result in the end. This should not be taken as a reflection on the performers selected for these plays. Alan Reed in particular, performed in at least four of the excerpted plays mounted during the series. A classically trained actor with an extraordinary range, he was an ideal actor to participate in what amounted to an ensemble repertory for the series.

And indeed, as is so often repeated in the Theatre, 'the play's the thing' after all. But in the end, it would appear that CBS' reach exceeded its grasp, for no more than financial reasons. Many of the plays mounted were indeed some of the classic contemporary Stage successes of the era. The majority of the plays mounted were critically acclaimed, but not necessarily enduringly popular classics. Compound that situation by further reducing the presentation to only its 'greatest moments' and the appeal is reduced even further.

One might well have imagined a concept by which the greatest living performers of some great plays would perform in their greatest scenes or moments from those plays. The rehearsal time could have been understandably reduced to better budget the talent costs, and the end result would have been truly remarkable Radio for approximately the cost of what CBS and Philip Morris had budgeted in the end.

And indeed, the above cited concept did eventually translate into Mutual's Great Scenes From Great Plays in 1948. But in the case of the Mutual production, the Episcopal Church underwrote the production and employed its own Episcopal Actors' Guild for the talent. The result was what Great Moments from Great Plays should have been, but never was.

Alas the basis of the back and forth between the exponentially growing Radio network giants of the era and their talent was simply a reflection of the inexorable corporatization of America in general. The more the corporate networks made, the more profit they sought. The more profit they sought, the more they trimmed their budgets. The more they trimmed their budgets, the less they paid their performers. It was the beginning of the end for Radio and the performers, technicians, writers and producers could see the writing on the wall.

There are, for now, only two known exemplars of Great Moments from Great Plays in circulation: our own digitized Of Mice and Men and a circulating recording of Dead End. We can only hope that more exemplars eventually surface.

As a postscript it's worth noting that the series' announcer, Charles O'Connor (not Carroll O'Connor as widely misreported) passed away at the age of 31 a year after his work on Great Moments from Great Plays. Charles O'Connor first hired on to CBS as a staff announcer in 1931--at the time, the youngest staff announcer CBS had ever hired.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

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