Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

In 1948 author Graham Greene was in Vienna getting a tour of the city, its back alleys, less-reputable nightclubs, and even its sewers. He was also introduced by actress Elizabeth Montagu to Peter Smolka, the central European correspondent for The Times. Greene was working on a novella that would become a screenplay called The Third Man. Greene sold the film rights to producers Alexander Korda and David O’Selznick.

In the story a man named Holly Martins comes to Vienna to accept a job with his friend Harry Lime, only to learn that Lime has died. Martins is a writer. He’s told Lime was killed by a car while crossing the street.

​​At Lime's funeral, Martins meets two British Royal Military Police: Sergeant Paine, a fan of Martins' books, and Major Calloway. Martins thinks the death is suspicious, so he stays in Vienna to investigate the matter.

Orson Welles was cast as Lime with longtime Mercury Theater friend Joseph Cotton cast as Martins. Principal photography began in Vienna in early November of 1948 and lasted for six weeks. The rest was done around London and completed by March of 1949.

Then-unknown composer Anton Karas was hired to create the musical score, performing it on a zither.

The film was released in the UK in September of 1949, quickly becoming that year’s most popular.

When released in the U.S. audiences loved it. Time wrote that the film was "crammed with cinematic plums that would do Hitchcock proud—ingenious twists and turns of plot, subtle detail, full-bodied bit characters, atmospheric backgrounds that become an intrinsic part of the story, a deft commingling of the sinister with the ludicrous, the casual with the bizarre.”

At the 1951 Academy Awards, the film took home the award for Best Black and White Cinematography, while at the British equivalent, it won for Best British Film.

In the meantime Welles and Tyrone Power made The Black Rose in 1950, directed by Henry Hathaway. Welles played Mongolian warrior Bayan of the Hundred Eyes. Hathaway, who liked Welles, later said the casting was poor, with Welles purposely outwitting people during shooting.

While in England making The Third Man, Orson Welles became acquainted with Harry Alan Towers. Towers was a thirty-year-old radio producer whose company, Towers of London, was heavily into syndicated productions in British, American, Australian, and Canadian markets. His anthology series Secrets of Scotland Yard had proven that there was a lucrative market for high-end entertainment and, in Welles, he saw a personality and a talent that could quickly make his production company a leading one.

Towers and Greene had the same literary agent. Finding out that Greene hadn’t sold Harry Lime’s character rights when he sold the screenplay, Towers quickly bought the rights to the character with plans to put a syndicated radio series into production.

Welles signed with Towers to produce The Adventures of Harry Lime. They were prequel stories showcasing some of the more good-hearted things Harry Lime was supposed to have done.

Only sixteen of the episodes were acquired and broadcast by the BBC. It was the first time that the BBC broadcast episodes of a dramatic series that it did not produce. The full fifty-five episodes were syndicated to radio stations in the U.S.

Welles is credited as the author of ten scripts, including the first episode, “Too Many Crooks” which aired on August 3rd, 1951. The fifth episode was called, “Voodoo,” something Orson Welles had a lot of experience with, dating back to his time in South America during World War II.

In 1947, wanting to bring Macbeth to film, Welles teamed with producer Charles K. Feldman to convince Herbert Yates, President of Republic Pictures, to finance.

Welles guaranteed to deliver Macbeth on a budget of seven-hundred thousand dollars. When some members of Republic’s board expressed misgivings on the project, Welles agreed to personally pay any amount over the initial ask.

He brought in Irish actor Dan O'Herlihy as Macduff, and cast former child star Roddy McDowall as Malcolm. To cast Lady Macbeth, Welles visited longtime friend and radio legend Jeanette Nolan. The two had known each other since the 1930s in New York. Nolan and her husband, fellow actor John McIntire, were excited to work with Orson.

Welles made several changes to Shakespeare's original, like adding significance to the witches. They were played by two other Hollywood radio legends: Peggy Webber, and Lurene Tuttle.

Welles expressed frustrations with wardrobes and the tight schedule. He had the cast pre-record all their dialogue. Locations were leftover sets from westerns normally made at Republic. The entire production was done in twenty-three days in July of 1947. In September, Welles signed on to star in Gregory Ratoff’s Black Magic. Shooting would take place in Rome. He wouldn’t return until 1948.

Republic initially trumpeted the film as an important work, entering it in the 1948 Venice Film Festival. It was abruptly withdrawn after poor comparisons with Lawrence Olivier's version of Hamlet, also being screened. LIFE Magazine gave the film a terrible review in October of 1948, saying that Welles’ days as the “boy wonder” were long over.

When he returned from Europe in the Spring, Welles cut twenty minutes from the film at Republic's request and recorded narration to cover some gaps. But when finally released, it too was called a disaster.

In July of 1948 Welles signed on to co-star with Tyrone Power in the Italian film, Prince of Foxes. The film would be released in December of 1949. Welles’ last appearance in the 1940s on American radio was in a pre-recorded segment on Mail Call over the Armed Forces Radio Service, on October 13th, 1948.

Now thirty-three years old, Orson Welles had enough of Hollywood. He was in deep debt and needed to move to Europe, full-time. His first main stop would be in Vienna, to star with Joseph Cotton in a new film called The Third Man.

In Breaking Walls episode 140, we examine the under-appreciated radio career of the one and only Humphrey Bogart.

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Highlights:

• The Broadway Kid

• Lux Presents Hollywood

• High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon

• Bogie with Hope, Benny, and Vallée

• Casablanca

• Suspense, Lauren Bacall, and Command Performance

• Staying at Home for More Radio

• HUAC

• Fatherhood and Bold Venture

• The African Queen and The Academy Award

• The Final Years

• Looking Ahead to July and Orson Welles

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The reading material for today’s episode was:

• Lauren Bacall By Myself — By Lauren Bacall

• Humphrey Bogart — By Alan G. Barbour

• On The Air — By John Dunning

• Bogart: A Life in Hollywood — By Jeffrey Meyers

• Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

• Bogart — By A.M. Sperber & Eric Lax

As well as articles from:

• The Chicago Sun-Times

• The New York Times

• Variety

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On the interview front:

• Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall spoke with Edward R. Murrow in 1954

• Humphrey Bogart and John Huston spoke to George Fisher

• Humphrey Bogart also spoke to Ed Sullivan

• Morton Fine spoke with Dan Haefele for SPERDVAC in 1988

• Howard Duff and William Spier spoke to Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Here these interviews at GoldenAge-WTIC.org

• Lurene Tuttle spoke to Chuck Schaden. Here this chat at SpeakingOfRadio.com

• Ingrid Bergman spoke to the CBC

• William Holden spoke to Dick Cavett

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Manhattan Serenade — By Richard Alden

• As Time Goes By — By Herman Hupfeld

• Danse Macabre — By Camille Saint-Saëns

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A special thank you to Ted Davenport, Jerry Haendiges, and Gordon Skene.

For Ted go to RadioMemories.com, for Jerry, visit OTRSite.com, and for Gordon, please go to PastDaily.com.

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Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Phil Erickson

Jessica Hanna

Perri Harper

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

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WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

That brings our look at Humphrey Bogart’s life and career to a close.

Next time on Breaking Walls? Well… next time we head to Europe to follow someone who got out of dodge, just in time for HUAC.

On Wednesday March 12th, 1952 at 9:30PM eastern time, Bogie and Bacall guest-starred on Bing Crosby’s CBS Chesterfield Show.

Two days later, Bogart’s next film, Deadline – U.S.A premiered in New York City. Bogie plays Ed Hutcheson, a newspaper editor who exposes a gangster's crimes, while also trying to reconcile with his ex-wife. His performance was well-received.

Bogart and Bacall’s appearance on The Bing Crosby Show pulled a rating of 9.1.

On August 23rd, 1952 Lauren Bacall gave birth to their second child, a daughter, Leslie Howard Bogart, named in honor of actor Leslie Howard who got Bogart his first major film role in The Petrified Forest.

The next day Bogart spoke to George Fisher about the experience. Both were soon back working as Bogart made Battle Circus and Bacall made How To Marry a Millionaire.

Bogart’s next big role and final Academy Award nomination came in an adaptation of Herman Wouk’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1951 novel, The Caine Mutiny. Bogart plays Captain Queeg.

In 1954 Bogart starred opposite Audrey Hepburn and the just-heard William Holden in Billy Wilder’s Sabrina. Bogart and Holden are brothers — Linus and David Larabee, competing for the love of Sabrina Fairchild.

Bogart agreed to it on a handshake with Wilder, although the script wasn’t finished. It was not a happy set. Bogart didn’t get along with Holden nor Hepburn, and didn’t like Wilder’s hands-on approach. There were also numerous last-minute script changes. Bogart later said “I got sick and tired of who gets Sabrina.” But the film proved to be a hit. The New York Times particularly praised Bogart's performance.

In the mid-1950s Bogart and Bacall’s social circle began to be jokingly known as the "Holmby Hills Rat Pack." The original members included Frank Sinatra, pack master; Judy Garland, first vice-president; Sid Luft, Judy’s husband, the cage master; agent Swifty Lazar, recording secretary; novelist Nathaniel Benchley pack historian; and Bacall, den mother.

Bogart simultaneously made The Barefoot Contessa opposite Rita Hayworth and Sinatra’s ex-wife Ava Gardner. Then in 1955 he made We’re No Angels, The Left Hand of God, and The Desperate Hours.

Just before Christmas in 1955, Bogart was honored with a roast at the Friar’s Club. But by then Bogart’s persistent cough and difficulty eating became too serious to ignore. He went for a battery of tests in January of 1956. The results were bleak: He had esophageal cancer.

He still managed to make his final film, The Harder They Fall opposite Rod Steiger. Bogart plays a newspaper man turned boxing PR writer, bent on exposing the corruption he sees. Critics gave the film, and his performance, especially considering his condition glowing reviews. This is the last scene Humphrey Bogart ever did in any film.

On March 1st, 1956 Humphrey Bogart had surgery to remove his esophagus, two lymph nodes and a rib. It was unsuccessful. Chemotherapy followed. He had another surgery in November. Although he became too weak to walk up and down stairs, he joked despite the pain: "Put me in the dumbwaiter and I'll ride down to the first floor in style.

Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy visited him on January 13th, 1957. In a later interview, Hepburn said:

Spence patted him on the shoulder and said, "Goodnight, Bogie." Bogie turned his eyes to Spence very quietly and with a sweet smile covered Spence's hand with his own and said, "Goodbye, Spence." Spence's heart stood still. He understood.

Bogart lapsed into a coma and died the following day, January 14th, 1957, twenty days after his fifty-seventh birthday. At the time of his death he weighed only eighty pounds.

His funeral was held at All Saints Episcopal Church. It seemed like all of Hollywood came to mourn his passing. Spencer Tracy was to give the eulogy, but he was too moved to do so. John Huston spoke instead.

In 1951 Humphrey Bogart once again partnered with John Huston on an adaptation of C. S. Forester’s 1935 novel The African Queen.

Bogart plays the rough-and-ready Canadian mechanic Charlie Allnut, whose coarse behavior is barely tolerated by Katharine Hepburn’s Rose Sayer and her brother, Robert Morley’s Reverend Samuel Sayer.

The film takes place in German East Africa in August 1914 as Charlie is hired to take the Sayers and their goods to be delivered on his small steamboat, The African Queen.

When Charlie warns the Sayers that war has broken out between Germany and Britain, they choose to remain in Kungdu, only to witness German colonial troops burn down the village and press villagers into service. When Samuel protests, he’s struck by a soldier and soon becomes delirious with fever, dying shortly afterward. Charlie helps Rose bury her brother and escape in the African Queen.

Much of the film was shot on location in Uganda and the Congo in Africa. This was unusual for the time. The cast and crew endured sickness from the food, water, and hot conditions. Bogart later joked that he and Huston were the only members of the cast and crew who escaped illness, which he credited to having drunk whiskey on location rather than the water.

The African Queen premiered on December 26th, 1951 at the Fox Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills the day after Christmas and the day after Bogart’s fifty-first birthday.

The African Queen debuted just in time to qualify for the 1952 Academy Awards, which turned out to be of utmost significance for Humphrey Bogart. Promising friends that if he won his speech would break the convention of thanking everyone in sight, he was instead modest and subdued.

The kid from Manhattan that disappointed his parents and never took an acting lesson in his life was, at that moment, the best lead actor of the year. Bogart himself considered his role in The African Queen his finest performance.

On January 6th, 1949 Lauren Bacall gave birth to their first child, Stephen Humphrey Bogart, named in honor of his character in To Have and Have Not.

Meanwhile Bogart made Knock on Any Door and Tokyo Joe for his Santana Productions company. Both were moderately panned by critics. In 1950 he made Chain Lightning for Warner Brothers and In A Lonely Place for Santana.

In A Lonely Place sees Bogart star as Dixon Steele, a troubled, violence-prone screenwriter suspected of murder. Gloria Grahame co-stars as Laurel Gray, his neighbor who soon falls for Dix.

The film is considered among Bogart’s best and perhaps a character with personality traits most like the real man. It was among a trio of films released that year, along with Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve, which comment on the dark side of Hollywood. Simultaneously, Bogart and Bacall looked for a vehicle on radio for their talents.

Santana Productions partnered with the Frederic W. Ziv Company to develop a series called Bold Venture. It would be written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin, who famously wrote for Broadway is My Beat and Crime Classics.

Bogart had long interest in starring in his own series, but had resisted due to the constraints of live radio. By 1950, due to widespread transcription, that was no longer an issue. He could do the show in takes and have music and sound effects added later. Three or four shows a week could be done, leaving Bogart and Bacall free for the rest of the year.

Bogart plays Slate Shannon, hotel owner and owner of a boat called the "Bold Venture." Bacall, plays Sailor Duval, and Jester Hairson plays calypso singer King Moses. Shannon, based out of Havana, is always ready to rescue a friend in need or hunt down an enemy.

Seventy-eight thirty minute shows were produced. The first show aired on March 26th, 1951.

The Ziv Company distributed the series, putting up twelve-thousand dollars per episode. Bogart and Bacall were each paid four-thousand-dollars per show.

Four-hundred twenty-three stations bought the series, paying weekly fees to Ziv ranging from fifteen dollars for small stations to seven-hundred-fifty dollars for big ones. Newsweek noted that although the series was set in Havana, it could just have easily been in Casablanca.

While the series was first airing, the Bogarts were in Africa. Humphrey was set to star opposite Kathryn Hepburn in The African Queen.

In 1947 Humphrey Bogart signed a new Warner Brothers contract. It gave him limited script refusal and the right to form his own production company. He and Bacall soon made the thriller Dark Passage based on the 1946 novel of the same name by David Goodis. Critics gave the film, and Bogart’s performance mixed reviews, but generally praised Bacall and the cinematography.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, as NBC broadcast News of the World with Morgan Beatty, the United States was a country in transition.

World War two had created fundamental changes in society. While men of all races and creeds were overseas spilling the same colored blood, women had taken charge of the workforce. When veterans collected enough points for an honorable discharge, they returned home with different ideals, and what we’d now call PTSD.

As new cars, roads, and homes brought young families to the suburbs, racial discrimination came to the forefront in the face of the G.I. Bill, where a much higher percentage of white Americans were having their applications accepted.

Americans were organizing. In the year after VJ Day, more than five million struck for better wages and benefits. This debilitated key sectors of the economy and stifled production. Consumer goods were slow to appear on shelves and in showrooms, frustrating Americans who desperately wanted to purchase items they’d forsaken during the war.

It caused the largest inflation rise in the country’s modern history, and the Taft-Hartley Act, limiting the power of Labor Unions.

President Truman was seemingly at odds with Congress over every domestic policy and his approval rating sank to thirty-two percent.

The U.S. War Debt topped $240 Billion. Because the nation emerged as one of the world’s leaders, America was expected to have the largest hand in rebuilding Europe.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, news outlets reported that in order to stabilize Europe, Americans should be ready to resume sacrifices they made during the war. Not agreeing to do so could result in political enemies taking over the continent.

The changing world stoked people’s fears. Anti-communism was abound. On Monday November 24th, The House Committee on Un-American Activities declared a list of ten "unfriendly witnesses" who’d refused to answer questions about alleged communist influence in Hollywood.

Bogart, who’d been questioned and cleared the first time the committee came to Hollywood, organized the Committee for the First Amendment. He felt HUAC was abusing its power, harassing writers and actors, and went to Washington to state his case.

Bogart was later forced to recant to counter negative publicity. He wrote an article for Photoplay Magazine. Entitled “I’m No Communist,” he said, “the ten men cited for contempt by HUAC weren’t defended by us."

Part of the reason for the article was Head of Warner Brothers Jack Warner, who was the first person to volunteer testimony before HUAC in September of 1947.

Bogart’s next Warner Brothers film, The Treasure of The Sierra Madre, was to be written and directed by John Huston.

Huston and Bogart were liberal democrats, but they knew better than to commit career suicide. The film was critically praised, but ticket sales were lukewarm. It received four Oscar nominations, winning three — Best Supporting Actor for Walter Huston, and Best Director and Best Screenplay for John Huston.

It’s been long-held that Bogart should have been nominated as best actor, but his involvement against HUAC led to the snub. The Lux Radio Theatre adapted The Treasure of The Sierra Madre on April 18th, 1949.

Later in 1948 Bogart and Bacall made Key Largo with Edward G. Robinson, and Bogart formed Santana Productions. One of its early missions was to develop a radio series for the couple.

Bogart and Bacall moved into a white brick mansion in Holmby Hills, and he bought a fifty-five foot yacht called the Santana from Dick Powell, spending about thirty weekends each year on the water.

With World War II over, Bogart wanted to do more radio. On September 17th, 1945 he hosted an audition for a new mystery/thriller program called Humphrey Bogart Presents.

Meanwhile Bogart and Bacall were on screen together again in 1946, this time in an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novel, The Big Sleep.

During World War II, comedy, drama, news, and variety dominated the radio dial, but after the war, detective shows gained network popularity as programming shifted to smaller studios. They were considered a good deal for advertisers.

Although Bill Spier was entrenched at CBS, he still had ties with his old agency BBD&O, as well as with Lawrence White, Dashiel Hammett’s literary agent.

Both ABC and CBS wanted to bring The Adventures of Sam Spade to the air. Initially, everyone wanted Bogart to be the star.

Even with Bogart’s drawbacks, it was assumed no other actor could fill Spade’s shoes. Auditions were held in April of 1946. Enter Howard Duff. An audition was recorded on May 1st.

In June, Wildroot officially signed on as sponsor. Spade would make its debut in July over ABC’s airwaves. Not to be outdone, on July 2nd, CBS broadcast an episode of Academy Award adapting “The Maltese Falcon.” Humphrey Bogart reprised his role. We heard the opening portion earlier in this episode of Breaking Walls, here’s the close.

Meanwhile on October 14th, 1946 Bogart and Bacall reprised their roles from To Have and Have Not for The Lux Radio Theatre. The next January 5th, 1947, Bogart and Lauren Bacall were guests on The Jack Benny Program.

In 1943 and 1944 Bogart went on War effort tours with his third wife Mayo Methot, making trips to Italy and North Africa. He produced shorts for The American Red Cross effort and the Victory Bond drive. The relationship with Mayo was strained. She accused Bogart of having an affair with Ingrid Bergman during the filming of Casablanca. Bergman later remembered that Bogart barely spoke to her off camera, let alone had an affair.

Back stateside, Bogart was cast as Steve Morgan for an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not.

In casting "Slim" Browning, Howard Hawks’ wife Nancy Keith saw a Harper’s Bazaar cover that featured an eighteen year-old model and actress named Betty Joan Perske. Hawks immediately signed her to a contract. She’d soon change her name to Lauren Bacall.

Mayo Methot had long accused Bogart of affairs with all his co-stars, something he’d actually never done. When Bogie and Bacall met, he was attracted to her outspoken personality, poise, looks, and long, lean figure.

Bogart kept Bacall at ease during filming and their chemistry was apparent from the beginning, with their twenty-five year age difference creating a mentor-student acting dynamic.

At first Bogart made sure his meetings with her were discreet and brief. They wrote heart-felt letters and made sure to be publicly professional, while Bogart encouraged her to steal scenes, delighting Howard Hawks. But when Hawks realized there was more to their chemistry than friendship, he disapproved of the affair.

The film premiered on October 11th, 1944 while Bogart refused to stop seeing Bacall. His marriage to Mayo Methot was finally over. He filed for divorce in February of 1945.

The next month, Bogart appeared on the Thursday March 8th 1945 episode of Suspense in Bill Spier’s production of “Love’s Lovely Counterfeit” at 8PM eastern time. This episode had a rating of 13.6, winning its time slot against NBC’s Frank Morgan Show. Playing opposite Bogart was Lurene Tuttle.

Bogart and Lauren Bacall married in a small ceremony at the country home of Bogart's close friend, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, on May 21st, 1945.

On August 30th, the couple appeared with Frank Sinatra on Command Performance.