LUX RADIO THEATER -- "MILDRED PIERCE" (6-14-54)

[@peedeel2077]

Loved the film with Joan Crawford and this radio version with Claire Trevor was brilliant too. Some good witty quips in here. "Veda's convinced me that alligators have the right idea...they devour their young."😄

[@whitneyburton3809]

I love all of these.

[@ItWILLbeWONDERFUL_THERE]

*"I didn't spoil me rotten, you did!"* Vicki Lawrence as Veda in Mildred Fierce. (Carol Burnett movie parody).

[@mistyrockwell3263]

😅 I'm from Port Angeles Washington. I never heard that story about the Germans visiting 😅

[@noshirm6285]

Zachary Scott sounds tired and slowed down here - and I would have loved to hear more from Eve Arden. 😃

[@angelsaltamontes7336]

It's a technical point i wasn't aware of till i realized "LUX" was NOT mentioned in this show's opening, that in a strict sense calls for this show to be properly identified as "HOLLYWOOD RADIO THEATER". As i'd not heard the name till now i looked for information & found it with the OTRCat people. *****Seems the show here & (many) others like it are troops-only transcriptions provided by the then Armed Forces Radio & Television Service (today's Armed Forces Network) to allow soldiers & dependents worldwide to hear what the folks back home listened to. AFRTS had a requirement of non-commerciality, & while advertisements themselves were easily excised from broadcasts to be transcribed there were other instances in which products or other commercial entities were mentioned: as overall sponsors at one extreme; in embedded references in instances such as Jack Benny's pioneering integrated commercials. I'm going to read further to discover how AFRTS dealt with the more mingled instances of commercialism & whether the results mangled the original works; but in the case of the Lux Radio Theater evidently only the intro, exit & intermission breaks needed to be removed or redone with new, "public service" announcements put in their places. One tradition of the famous Lux format IS missing in the entry here though, & missing i'd imagine from any other such reiterations: the winning, if hokey, interviews by the Lux host (most wonderfully Cecil B. DeMille) with starlets whose names we'd never hear again who told how Lux had saved their unmentionables. The program here lacks these completely. *****As one who's always enjoyed old media at LEAST as much for the ads as the "editorial", i miss that part of the Lux Radio Theater as i've always known it & the program here is a vividly dull example that more is missing than just what's cut when either bluenoses or snobs won't let programmers name names of those who've made a show possible. The most vivid example of this is the modern, way-grown-up PBS way: no advertising, NOOOO! That would be crass! No advertising, indeed. Just bits at both ends of every program naming this or that (usually left-wing) foundation, "news" strategies targeting corporations because there's something inherently immoral about corporations---and frequent, feeling-endless fundraisers so listeners/viewers driven either by foolishness or guilt can send their own money to "help" fund more "noncommercial" programming. *****Give me C.B. chatting with a young actress whose nylons don't run, anytime. Of course the AFRTS edits were occasioned by a different, & benign, requirement & so i don't censure them. But everybody knew what was originally in the place of the PSA about how to shake hands, & i think soldier-boys far away might have welcomed the moment with the actress & the mere thought of her stockings. *****Thanks as always, DVP, for posting this version of a classic story that in celluloid is one of the basic bitch-flicks of its time.

[@DVPOldTimeRadio]

Since it is *exactly* the same as a "LUX" presentation (including every note of the intro theme), I decided to label this as a "Lux" program. Why on Earth they even had a "Hollywood Radio Theater", which mirrored "Lux" exactly, I have no idea. Seems mighty strange to me.

[@angelsaltamontes7336]

David Von Pein's Old-Time Radio Channel Right as always, DVP, but as some old someone must have said there's not much stranger than Hollywood. I wouldn't be surprised if the "creators" of "Hollywood Radio Theater" were the ones behind all the phone numbers that begin with "555". Thanks always for the programs you bring us, & your good nature in responding to a nitpick about something created by nitpickers for nitpickers!

[@hyramesshiramess1035]

I love Crawford, but Trevor was great. I miss Eve Arden most. Her part was cut to nothing. Too bad! Mildred Pierce never ceases to fascinate, but I can't say why. It's a PREPOSTEROUS story. Never could understand why "Mildred" was so devoted to that stinking brat of hers. The explanation given here (Kay's untimely death) was not in the movie, because the neurotic doting parent pattern was established while little Kay was still alive there.

[@danielstanwyck2812]

Me, too - Arden is one of the best and Trevor is more liked by me than Crawford was. Easily. Much revised script, just as the book was different from the movie.

[@jubalcalif9100]

@@danielstanwyck2812 Well said and well put ! For instance, in the movie Mildred only slaps teenaged Veda. In James M Cain's original novel Veda gets a severe over the knee spanking from her irate mom. The radio version certainly was different from the film ! But I realize they had to make cuts due to time constrictions, as they had to do with all these radio adaptions of various feature films. This program was an hour long but often feature films were sometimes presented in a half hour radio format !!