The Milwaukee Journal – Feb 4,
11940
“It seems,” he says, “that all
these Hollywood people live on top of cliffs and mountains. And when you go
calling it’s no cinch. When Mrs. Walter Huston was on the program recently I
took the supporting cast and drove all the way up to her home—6,000 feet above
sea level on the ‘Rim of the World drive,’ one of the most breath taking, heart
fluttering journeys you can imagine.
“In half an hour you leave the
orange groves and are up in the ice and snow. They’ve got a home like a feudal
castle. Just imagine this tremendous redwood house, with a vast living room
three stories high, and a stone fireplace large enough to roast an ox. Well, I
toted my portable recording outfit all the way up there and we had a really
good rehearsal because everyone was rested.
“I’m getting so that I can’t
produce a play unless I’m sitting on the edge of a cliff.”
Several month ago, after a
whirlwind season in New York, Arch Oboler and his wife, Eleanor, packed up and
went to Hollywood, saying. “We’ll be back in a few weeks.” But with cliff
dwelling and all that, the weeks are stretching into months. Meanwhile, Samuel
Goldwyn, one of the cliff dwellers, has hired Arch to take a fling at writing
celluloid drama. He is writing an American version of a foreign picture. “I
took the job,” said Arch,” because it was my kind of a psychological story.”
By the end of March, 1940, Arch Oboler’s plays, heard Saturdays at 7 p. m., over WTMJ, will have rounded out
their first year on NBC. Although he came to this job after a promising five
year prelude as a radio writer from Chicago, he has established himself as
radio’s foremost artistry of his writing and direction. A review of Oboler’s
achievement in the past year is a key to his present envied position.
He began the present series with a
gripping piece called “The Ugliest Man in the World,” conceived by him during a
tete-a-tete with Boris Karloff, the horror man. What would you think of a man
so ugly that even his mother could not love him? Through that man’s stream of
consciousness, Oboler revealed the ugliest man’s intimate sensitive life.
AS SOON as Oboler stuck the
keynote of his new enterprise, drama hungry fans sprang to attention. It was a
great play, but could he repeat it?
Oboler soared out of his
metaphysical mist with “Crazytown,” an examination of the European hodgepodge
through the eyes of visitors from space. Then he blazed a trail with “The
Immortal Gentleman” and the “Engulfed Cathedral.” For scientific discussion and
speculation he presented “Dark World,” “The Truth,” “The Laughing Man,” “Baby”
and “Steel.”
The high light of Oboler’s second
quarter was “The Lonely Heart,” starring Nazimova; it was a full hour’s drama
based on the immortal friendship and love that Mme. von Meck, a brilliant
Russian housewife, had for the composer Tchaikovsky. It was suggested to Oboler
by Nazimova, who once had played in Tchaikovsky’s orchestra in czarist
Petrograd. The NBC symphony provided the background music for Nazimova and her
supporters. The pitch of excitement during the orchestra rehearsal preceding
the actual Obler danced was so great that Nazimova and Oboler danced a waltz in
the studio. It put them in the right.
The basis of Oboler’s playwriting
for NBC is usually a simple idea, no matter how titanic and complex the subject
may appear on the surface. He toys with dynamic issues. When you probe his
dramas you do not always discover a “quest.” This Oboler drama philosophy
crystallized in “The Truth,” which treats an agitating question: “Is the universe
a great soulless machine, or is it a thought in the mind of God?” Where did he
get this idea? Not from the Bible, but from a hearing of Sibelius’ folklore
music in “En Suga.”
Obloer’s excursions into whimsical
fantasy, his realistic yet supernatural treatments, his subtle attack in the
emotions-all this has won him a fabulous reputation among the foremost
interpreters of drama.
<The Obolers at home—Arch and
his wife, Eleanor>
NOBODY challenges the statement
that today Arch Oboler is more pursued by actors than Flo Ziegfeld or David
Belasco or D. W. Griffith in their palmist days. Not only radio actors, but
some of Hollywood’s biggest box office attractions and Broadway’s headliners
have expressed desire, Willingness and anxiety for Oboler roles.
The Original Mr. Oboler does not
hold a great reputation against an actor, not even if that actor has been
working in Hollywood at astronomical figures. Most of them want a fling at an
Oboler part “for the fun of it,” which means that they work for him at minimum
rates. Notwithstanding such flattery and the cleverest wiles of agents, Oboler
picks whomever he thinks is right for the part.
“Something wonderful has happened
in Hollywood since my last visit hero two years ago,” he reports. “Hollywood
has discovered radio! ‘Hell’s bells.’ You say, haven’t Hollywood stars been
radio guesting for a long time?”
“What I mean,” explains Oboler, “is
that he stars are discovering that radio is an important medium in itself and,
as such, is deserving of great effort.”
“Two years ago, when I did some
plays out here, Walter Huston and Bette Davis were the only two people I found
willing to work hard on a radio performance. Now, all Hollywood is crying for
all the direction they can get to beat this very difficult medium.”
“I haven’t used more picture
people because after a week’s work at the movie lots they are generally worn
out, and try as they might, they can’t deliver a good performance. The only way
I’ve been able to get a passably good performance out of movie folk is to make
their rehearsals full of fun.”
“I find that if I hold the
preliminary rehearsal at my own or somebody else’s home, we get much better
results. By the way, that’s how I happened to mix with Hollywood cliff
dwellers. Not only do the Walter Hustons live in the clouds, but also Gale
Sondergaard and her husband live on top of a mountain. We rehearsed at Gale’s
mountain retreat. She had just finished playing the ‘cat’ in Shirley Temple’s—or
was it Maeterlink’s?-“Blue Bird” and in spite of being dog tired she did a very
effective job on the air.”
“I HAVEN’T found Hollywood fold at
all temperamental. I believe they realize that I approach radio with respect. Talking
with Boris Karloff one day, we discovered that an actor would have to play to a
thousand people a night, seven nights a week for 10 years in order to reach as
many people as would be reached in one half-hour broadcast!
“My adaptation of ‘Johnny Got His
Gun’ is now under way. As you know. Jimmy Cagney has been cast in the role of
Joe Bonham, deaf, dumb, blind, and limbless . . . I suppose you’re wondering
how I will manage to broadcast a deaf and dumb character. Wait and see!”
There are all sorts of theories to
explain Oboler’s mass appeal. The mail response to his Saturday night programs
comes from laborers, housewives, merchants, professional men, and actors great
and small. One of the most devoted group of listeners is on the coast,
stronghold of moviedom.
Some of his best plays have
featured relatively unknown actors. His private theory is that the radio
audience has matured to the point where movie names do not dazzle. Walter Huston’s
theory is that one reason so many people follow Oboler is because he does not
attempt to lure listeners with a “stupendous, colossal star” who is guaranteed
to deliver a “stupendous, colossal performance.” Arch Oboler’s broadcasts begin
with a minimum of fanfare. The announcements, if any, come at the very end.
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