Private Lives

[Wellesnet]

On 21 April 1939, Orson Welles's production of Noel Coward's "Private Lives" was broadcast on "The Campbell Playhouse," CBS-Radio.

Wiki: "Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for each other. Its second act love scene was nearly censored in Britain as too risqué."

Too bad this broadcast is not available in better sound, because it's one of Welles's best radio performances. He and Gertrude Lawrence have great on-air chemistry. Paul Heyer, author of "The Medium and the Magician", the only published Welles book devoted mainly to the radio career, said this program was better than the 1931 film of Coward's play.

[Le Chiffre]

That chemistry between Welles and Lawrence comes across even better at the Lilly website, which is not great quality, but it's the best I've heard this program sound.
https://orsonwelles.indiana.edu/items/s ... 631%2C3202

I've never seen the play, but if I'm not mistaken, there is no French Hotel Manager (played in the radio version by Edgar Barrier), so that character may be a Welles invention.

[Terry]

Lawrence with Noel Coward in a key scene. Compare and contrast. Is this from a radio broadcast?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oxzQ3CsWYI

[Le Chiffre]

I don't know. Might be a commercially released Lp. It sounds great, and Coward and Lawrence have great chemistry too, of course. Those songs are not in the radio version.

Here's something else interesting on Youtube. Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in a 30-minute 1940 radio play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YwaaZZHYDw

And of course, there's also the Welles/Lawrence CP version too, in execrable sound quality, which will give you an idea of the upgrade at the Lilly site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgwKexfdKiY

[Wich2]

Lawrence with Noel Coward in a key scene. Compare and contrast. Is this from a radio broadcast?

Just about sure it's from an RCA Victor disc. (Likely originally 78, not 33)

Such a great play; did a scene from it (that one, I think...) years ago.
-Craig

[Terry]

Did Welles add the business about the Rajah of Rukh, or is that in the original Coward play? His tour of The Green Goddess was about three months away, so it seems a little early (and vague) for a teaser. He'd done the Archer play on Campbell's two months previously.

[NoFake]

I don't have a copy of the Archer play at hand, but a search found no mention of the Rajah of Rukh in it, tho he's the first character mentioned in Wiki's description of the 1923 film:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green ... (1923_film)

[Terry]

I don't see Rukh in Coward's play of Private Lives, but there was a film version of it prior to Welles' radio adaption, so maybe Rukh was mentioned in the film first? I'm just surprised to hear Welles' character from Green Goddess mentioned in Private Lives.

Regarding Green Goddess, I thought it was some sarcastic version of Lost Horizon, but it turns out Goddess predates Horizon by almost a decade.

[NoFake]

I don't see Rukh in Coward's play of Private Lives, but there was a film version of it prior to Welles' radio adaption, so maybe Rukh was mentioned in the film first?

I'm guessing that's the 1923 film I linked to. You're probably right, Terry, that the Rukh character was created for the film version. It certainly wouldn't be the first time a Hollywood screenwriter, generally at the direction of the studio bosses, "adapted" a novel to make it (supposedly) more cinematic—or, to be more precise (honest?), to make it more appealing to a wider audience, and thereby more successful (i.e., profitable).