BBC R4: Double Jeopardy, a dramatization about Double Indemnity

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Radio Times - Afternoon Play - Double JeopardyBBC Radio 4The Radio Times has a picked a new play set to air on February 4th, 2010 in BBC Radio 4’s Afternoon Play slot. It’ll be a curious dramatization of the real life collaboration between Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler while working on the screen adaptation of James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity!

This will be part of a series of BBC Radio dramatisations of all Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novels. Toby Stephens will be playing Philip Marlowe throughout (see more details at the bottom of this post).

BBC Radio 4 - Double Jeopardy by Stephen WyattDouble Jeopardy
By Stephen Wyatt; Directed by Claire Grove; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – Approx. 1 Hour [RADIO DRAMA]
In 1944 Raymond Chandler (Patrick Stewart) and Billy Wilder (Adrian Scarborough) work on a screen adaptation of James M. Cain’s novel Double Indemnity. Billy Wilder is a 36-year-old German Jewish émigré just making his name as a director and Raymond Chandler is a reformed alcoholic with a developing reputation as a novelist – but absolutely no experience of writing for the movies.

Other Raymond Chandler treats airing on BBC Radio 4 include:

Feature: A Coat, A Hat and A Gun
11.30am-noon, Thursday 3 February 2011
Harriett Gilbert presents a reappraisal of the life and legacy of the man from Upper Norwood who invented the private investigator as we know him. “I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.” Philip Marlowe has become the archetypal American detective anti-hero, yet his creator was educated at English public school, took the Civil Service exam and started a career in the Admiralty. With contributions from writer Sarah Dunant, Professor John Sutherland, David Thomson, and David Fine. Producer Rebecca Stratford.

Saturday Play: The Big Sleep
Saturday 5 February 2011, 2.30-4.00pm
Philip Marlowe (Toby Stephens) becomes entangled with the Sternwood family – respectable sister with gambling addiction (Kelly Burke), younger sister with drink/drug problem (Leah Brotherhead) and an attendant cast of colourful underworld figures. Robin Brooks; director Claire Grove.

Saturday Play: The Lady In The Lake
Saturday 12 February 2011, 2.30-4.00pm
Derace Kingsley (Sam Dale), a wealthy businessman, hires Philip Marlowe to find his estranged wife Crystal. Kingsley fears that rich, reckless Crystal may have got herself into a scandal and the last place she was known to have been was a resort called Little Fawn Lake. Dramatised by Stephen Wyatt; director Claire Grove.

Saturday Play: Farewell My Lovely
Saturday 19 February 2011, 2.30-4.00pm
When Philip Marlowe sees a huge, loudly dressed man casually throwing a bouncer out onto the the pavement as he goes into a bar, he knows it’s time to walk away, so he follows him inside. The big guy is Moose Molloy (Richard Ridings), recently released from an eight-year prison sentence and now on the hunt for his old sweetheart, a red-haired nightclub singer named Velma Valento. Marlowe follows a trail which includes a stick-up, blackmail, an irresistible blonde, a psychic, drugs and murder, and it leads him all the way to the top of a corrupt state of California. Dramatised by Robin Brooks; director Mary Peate.

Saturday Play: Playback
Saturday 26 February 2.30-3.30pm
Philip Marlowe is hired to tail the mysterious Betty Mayfield (Sarah Goldberg) all the way to the seaside town of Esmerelda, without knowing why or the identity of his employer. It’s not long before he realises that he’s not the only one on the trail, and that he too is being watched. Director Sasha Yevtushenko; producer Claire Grove.

And coming up later in 2011: The Long Goodbye, The High Window, The Little Sister, and Poodle Springs.

[Thanks Roy!]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler in conversation

Aural Noir: Online Audio

There’s a fascinating conversation between Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming available over on BBC Archives. It was first broadcast on the BBC “Third Program” on July 10th, 1958. In it the two famed authors, and friends, discuss each others novels in depth. But before you head on over there, consider this |MP3| first. It is a repeat broadcast, from 1988, that includes an informative introduction that the BBC Archives version lacks.

BBC Archives - Ian Fleming and Raymond Chandler

Here’s the official BBC Archives description:

Fleming and Chandler talk about protagonists James Bond and Philip Marlowe in this conversation between two masters of their genre. They discuss heroes and villains, the relationship between author and character and the differences between the English and American thriller. Fleming contrasts the domestic ‘tea and muffins’ school of detective story with the American private eye tradition and Chandler guides Fleming through the modus operandi of a mafia hit while marvelling at the speed with which his fellow author turns out the latest Bond adventure.

[via the Miskatonic Rara-Avis site and BBC Archives]

Posted by Jesse Willis

Escape: David Dodge’s Plunder Of The Sun

Aural Noir: Online Audio

Here’s another David Dodge radio drama, Plunder of the Sun, produced in the USA this time, and much older (having been produced the same year the novel came out). This time the setting is South America, rather than Cote D’Azur. Hard Case Crime has the reprint, but there’s currently no audiobook edition. Here’s the premise:

Al Colby, a “tough-guy adventurer” and private investigator, accepts a job from a South American antiques dealer. The dealer wants an ancient relic smuggled into Peru. Colby’s assignment is to carry the piece aboard an American ship sailing from the Chlean port of Valparaíso to Callao, in Peru. But the dealer has a serious heart condition and is soon found dead aboard the ship. What is the mysterious corded object that Colby carries? And how does it connect to the Incan empire? Who is the ruthless antagonist who wants it? A perilous journey across Lake Titicaca in Bolivia is all that stands between Colby and a lost Incan treasure of incalculable value!

EscapeEscape – Plunder Of The Sun
Based on the novel by David Dodge; Adapted by John Dunke; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3|* Approx. 30 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS Radio
Broadcast: November 8, 1949
Based on the novel, first published in 1949.

*there’s a minute or so missing from the MP3 (it’s been accidently replaced with a minute or so from some other radio drama)

Produced and directed by William N. Robson

Cast:
Paul Frees …. Al Colby
Gerald Mohr …. Jefferson
Lucille Meredith …. Ana Luz
Harry Bartell
Charlie Lung
Tony Barrett

DELL Books - Plunder Of The Sun by David Dodge - Mapback Map

DELL Books - Plunder Of The Sun by David Dodge

Hard Case Crime - Plunder Of The Sun by David Dodge

The 1953 film version, starring Glenn Ford, moves the action from South America to Mexico, and turns Incan treasure into Aztec treasure.

[via Escape-Suspense.com and David-Dodge.com]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BBCR4 + RA.cc: To Catch A Thief

Aural Noir: Online Audio

To Catch A Thief

First published in the December 1951 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, To Catch A Thief is the romantic tale of an ex-American jewel thief living in retirement on the French Riviera.

Randal S. Brandt, who penned the introduction to the recently published Bruin Books paperbook edition, points out that the novel was inspired by real life events!

If any of this is ringing any bells it’s probably a recognize of To Catch A Thief‘s more famous incarnation, the 1955 film staring Carey Grant and Grace Kelly.

With the very first line of the novel our wily protagonist, John Robie, is on the run – the police think he’s returned to his old profession, cat burglary, and the maquisards (his old comrades in the French Resistance) are under suspicion too – Robie’s only option is to track down the real cat burglar before the police can catch up with him! This will of course mean a disguise, regular visits to the casinos of Monte Carlo and endless days spent in the company of gorgeous young women. C’est la vie.

Dell 658 - To Catch A Thief by David Dodge

This is all apropos of a terrific new radio dramatization of To Catch A Thief recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4. I cottoned on to it on a recent visit RadioArchive.cc (where you can get it too!).

BBC Radio 4 / Saturday PlayRadioArchives.ccTo Catch A Thief
Based on the novel by David Dodge; Adapted by Jean Buchanan; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – Approx. 1 Hour [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 / Saturday Play
Broadcast: January 8, 2011
Source: RadioArchive.cc
David Dodge’s novel is a fast-paced, entertaining page-turner that was subsequently turned into a memorable film by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Now, Jean Buchanan’s dramatisation brings it to radio. American John Robie is living quietly in the South of France, trying to put his career as a notorious jewel thief behind him. However, when a series of huge jewel thefts begins on the Riviera, targeting rich Americans, the police immediately suspect he’s returned to his old ways. To prove his innocence, and trap the real thief, Robie must resort to subterfuge. But his plans go awry when the daughter of one of the rich American tourists takes rather too close an interest in him – and his past.

Cast:
John Robie……….Jeff Harding
Francie Stevens……Jennifer Lee Jellicorse
Mrs. Stevens………..Laura Brook
Paul……………Alun Raglan
Bellini……….Simon Armstrong
Danielle……….Aurelie Amblard
French Extras……….Martin Sorrell

Director: Sara Davies

To Catch A Thief - a Vanity Fair recreation

And, if you’re up for more on David Dodge and To Catch A Thief, be sure to check out Randal S. Brandt’s wonderful tribute site!

Posted by Jesse Willis

FREE LISTENS REVIEW: The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Review

The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs

SourceLibriVox (zipped mp3’s)
Length: 3 hr, 49 min
Reader: Ralph Snelson

The book: Set during World War I, this adventure novel starts with the sinking of an Allied ship by a German U-boat. Bowen Tyler, his dog, and the beautiful Miss Lys La Rue are rescued by a British tug, then captured by the same U-boat. Through a series of prisoner revolts, double-crosses and sabotage, the U-boat ends up at an uncharted island near Antarctica. Here, they are attacked by dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts.

Sounds like a good, old-fashioned adventure, right? Well, it is for the first two-thirds of the book. The final third consists of Burroughs dragging his characters to an unsatisfying conclusion. As in The Lost World, I expect some amount of pseudoscience in these types of early science fiction adventures, but Burroughs’ mystical version of evolution on the island severely strained my suspended believability. Perhaps the narrative is more fully resolved in the sequels, but after finishing, I felt cheated rather than wanting to know more.

Rating: 6 / 10

The reader: Snelson has a deep voice with an American Southern accent. His reading and recording quality are amateur, but satisfactory. His characters have distinctive, but not silly, voices. Snelson’s matter-of-fact narrating tone doesn’t add much to the story, but neither does he ruin the novel by trying to over-embellish the action.

Posted by Seth

WYSO: Dangerous Women – a dramatization of the life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the American suffragette movement

SFFaudio Online Audio

Jerry Kenney of WYSO (Yellow Springs, Ohio) contacted me back in Novmeber 2010. He wanted me to check out their latest radio drama, a historical biography piece entitled Dangerous Women. He described it like this:

“[Dangerous Women is] the story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the early suffragettes [in the United States]. While not technically sci-fi or fantasy, it is the ‘Spirit’ of Stanton who drives the play forward. I also see that you list “history” among your listening pleasures. We are a public radio station in Yellow Springs, Ohio and produced the play with a local theatre group. This is our third project and I’d be interested in any feed back you might have. We aired the program locally last week and have had a good response from listeners. Links to our other historical dramas can be found there as well. Again, any feedback you have would be most welcome.”

And here’s my feedback:

Dangerous Women‘s sweeping rendering is both an informative summary of the reasons for women’s suffrage and the story of how the laws regarding it came to be. I can’t imagine that the U.S. congress and senate would ever approve such an amendment today – let alone a three-fourths of fifty states!

The script is uniformly excellent, being both a well organized historical lesson and compelling biography. The production, likewise, is seamless and solid. Much of the acting feels rather stiff, but none of it actually undermines the production. As to the history itself, I was surprised by the many parallels between the Canadian and British suffrage movements, with which I was already familiar. Perhaps women’s suffrage, the world over, can only be like this – opposed by men (and some women), something gradually achieved – and not the end point of making gender equality.

If you’re interested in historical drama, Dangerous Women is a great place to start!

WYSODangerous Women
By Kay Reimers; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 1 Hour [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: WYSO
Broadcast: October 21, 2010
This original work by Yellow Springs playwright Kay Reimers, concerns the beginning and end of the nearly century long struggle to give women the right to vote. The play begins in 1920, during a special election held by the Tennessee state legislature to ratify the 19th amendment. In the tense hours leading up to the vote, as Reimers tells the story, the spirit of the first suffragette, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, reflects on the events of her life and struggle, which led to the first formal demand for women’s suffrage in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York. Giving women the right to vote was considered a threat to the established order and women were considered “dangerous” even to suggest it.

Cast:
Miriam Eckenrode as Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Howard Shook as Henry Stanton
Doug Hinkley as Judge Cady
Marcia Nowak as Susan B. Anthony
Troy Lindsey
Jason Sine
Gary Reimers
Sarah Strong
Flo Lorenz
Elizabeth Lutz
Rob Campbell

Crew:
Directed by Dan Davis
Produced by Jerry Kenney

Podcast feed: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wyso/.jukebox?action=viewPodcast&podcastId=19850

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis