OTRAAwards

PDGazette

(5 stars; 1 reviews)

This is a collection of most of the Academy Award-winning films adapted to radio by Lux Theater between 1935 and 1955 when it sadly ceased production in America. The focus here is on awards given for best film, director, lead or supporting actor, or screenplay. Source of these files is Archive's Old-Time Radio section. Also included are other old-time radio production sources of future award winners -- NBC University Theater (Howards End, The Grapes of Wrath, et al), and appropriately, Academy Award Theater with a half-hour adaptation of Jezebel, starring 1938's Best Actress, Bette Davis. Emma Thompson would receive awards for starring in and adapting the screenplay of Howards End, in 1993. Bonus production is a 1948 Critic's Circle Theater Award presentation featuring the original Broadway cast (Jessica Tandy, Marlon Brando, and Kim Hunter) -- and scenes from -- A Streetcar Named Desire. Each of these adaptations features at least one of the original stars and an A-list substitute, such as the 1937 Best Director winner -- The Awful Truth -- with Cary Grant and featuring Claudette Colbert subbing for Irene Dunne. In the case of Mildred Pierce, Joan Crawford's good friend Rosalind Russell subs for her, tasked with reading lines with smarmy Zachary Scott. Sometimes the entire lead cast appears, as in All About Eve with Bette Davis, George Sanders, and Anne Baxter; Sunset Blvd with Gloria Swanson and William Holden, and The Philadelphia Story via Victory Theater (as Lux was known during part of WWII) with Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.

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