Mach 30, 1940: "Believe It Or Not"

Mar. 30, 1940

“BELIEVE IT OR NOT”

(A Review)

“BELIEVE IT OR NOT.” With Robert L. Ripley, Linda Lee and the orchestra of B. A. Rolfe.

Friday, Columbia Broadcasting System 10:30 p.m. EST, 9:30 p.m. CST, 7:30 p.m. PST Sponsored by Nehi Corp. for Royal Crown Cola, produced by Balten, Barton. Durstine and Osborn, Inc., New York, originates in New York CBS studios. Show reviewed was heard on March 8

DEFINITELY tempoed for the ice-gripped winter trade was this program of Ripley’s “Believe It or Not.” And its music, as well as its two dramatized unbelievables, had to do with tropical islands in sun-kissed seas.

The Rolfe orchestra started the torrid program with a hot little number called “Holy Smoke.” followed by the first of the Ripley dramatizations. It was the story of how a French warship, in 1859, had been sent to subjugate a native island in the South Seas and, on the shoals off the very island, was shipwrecked, its sailors captured and sentenced to death by the native court.

However, the French captain caught the eye of the native queen with a tiny music-box, won her love and freedom for his crew by marrying her. Because the tune the music-box played was an old French tune, “Honeymoon.” And because he and the queen decided to stay on a perpetual honeymoon there on the tropical paradise, they renamed the island “Honeymoon” or –in the native language- Tahiti.

Again, the Rolfe organization kept tune with the program by playing “Bluebirds in the Moonlight.” After which Ripley dramatized the story of Honeymoon Island, an island off the coast of Florida which has been purchased by a wealthy man who once spent a honeymoon there. This man –Clinton Washburn- has now given the island as a haven for honeymooners, without charge. Washburn and a St. Louis couple, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Felton, who are en route to the island for a two-week honeymoon, were guests of Ripley.

Miss Linda Lee then continued to maintain the atmospheric qualities of the program by singing – and very nicely- “Faithful Forever.”

The show is nicely written, carefully produced and perhaps a little slower in tempo than the old Ripley show, but it is entertaining and the commercial announcements are nicely and tastefully insinuated in a “Believe It or Not” technique.

-F. C., Jr.

Ripley's Believe It Or Not: "Echo Man"

Compliments of Old Time Radio

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