Abraham Lincoln

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

i read in an orson welles book that out of a few radio shows, during the playing times, abraham lincoln was the least captivating.

captivating. it was the story of a war, slavery, and the shooting of a president for cryin' out loud. what did the people want to do jump up and down like a clown, or go mad like they did when they heard the war of the worlds.

to me, it's not very captivating, either. what it is, is a very good story of abraham lincoln. i had no interest whatsoever when i was in school. im still wondering how i even graduated. if they had made a book out of orson welles describing every single solitary thing in history, i would have been interested.

and understood it as well.

[Michael]

I thought it was marvelous. Good performances by all and an interesting script. It says in the intro that it was based on a play--but I've been unable to find it.

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

i got mine from radio spirits. its in the set titled "the genius of orson welles" as well as the jack benny shows, information please and a few more

the web site is mediabay.com
but i think you'll find the title in the catalog. i did some searches, and they didn't come up. i guess they only show the sales.

the only thing i got out of that set that i didn't approve of, was the war of the worlds and dracula recordings.
oh, man
whoever recorded those had better get back to doing a better job. they sounded awful.
sound better the way i have them now

[Le Chiffre]

THE GENIUS OF ORSON WELLES is a good radio set that provides a fine cross section of Welles' radio career, although Welles substituting for Jack Benny hardly represents his "genius". But then, I guess you could say his range and versatility was a large part of that genius.

I think ABRAHAM LINCOLN is one of the better of the Mercury's First Person Singular shows. It's based on a play by British writer John Drinkwater and was a huge hit in England in 1918 before coming to Broadway in 1919. Interesting to see such an important figure in American history from a British perspective. The show contrasts in many ways with Gore Vidal's historical novel LINCOLN, which is how I first learned of the more complex character of the man. Instead of showing Lincoln as a sacred icon, as the Drinkwater does to some extent, the Vidal book showed him as a master politician able to outwit those members of his cabinet who sought to undermine his authority in order to make a shameful peace with The South. Vidal's book later became a fine TV movie with Sam Waterston as Lincoln and Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Lincoln.

Incidently, LINCOLN is part of a great seven-book series of Vidal's, which traces almost the entire history of the U.S. (The series order is BURR, LINCOLN, 1876, EMPIRE, HOLLYWOOD, WASHINGTON D.C. and THE GOLDEN AGE). It's tremendous reading and, in my opinion, seems heavily inspired by Welles, especially CITIZEN KANE. In fact, Hearst is one of the leading characters in both EMPIRE and HOLLYWOOD.

[jaime marzol]

..................

the genius of ow is an excellent radio show set. i love Information Please. welles hooks every questions, and offers answers that the judges had not thought of. he was quick, witty, and gracious.

and i also really like the jack benny shows he did.

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

i have that set too.

on information please, when it was the subject of housekeepers, on the pickwick papers, orson was chosen, but said "i can't think of her name" i think, he being funny.

i also kind of wonder, if the guy who said, at the beginning of the show, that he was going to buy bonds if orson missed a question, really did buy any bonds?

bye now!

p.s. there are 7 wonders, or more, in the world. i think orson is the 1st, and there are the other seven or orson is number 8.
i don't know.. not sure.

[jaime marzol]

........................

did you know the guy that sang OH DANNY BOY, and all those terrible sentimental songs on the jack benny show is the same guy that sang that sentimental song in ford's THE INFORMER? with ford's penchant for setimentality i'm not surprised.

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

in the scene where stewart and lincoln are together, after the leave of mr. jennings, lincoln asked "mr. hay" if any members were in the house.

when hay announced the enter of the men into the room he mentioned only 3 names.

i'm trying to figure out, and haven't yet as you can see, how there could have been 8 votes in the voting when there were only 5 men in the room.

mr. hay announced mr. hook, mr. welles and another can't remember which.

but when came time to vote, 5 voted for immediate withdrawal, and 3 voted for sending men and provisions.

bye now!

[jaime marzol]

..................
3 of them voted twice

i have voted twice myself many times.

[Welles Fan]

I bought the "Genius of Orson Welles" set largely for the Jack Benny shows! I love the way that Orson, whenever he makes an entrance, whether in the studio or a malt shop always says "Good evening, my name is Orson Welles". He always did a good job in radio comedy of spoofing his own pompous image. Also love the repartee with Phil Harris. I have not ever played the Lincoln show but you guys have got me curious about it now. I just assumed it would be a bore.

mteal: I've only read Burr out of that list of Vidal novels. I knew Lincoln and 1876 were related, but did not know that the whole thing made up a sort of "Cavalcade of America". Sounds interesting.

[jaime marzol]

...................

in those jack benny shows, welles' take the money and run attitude with radio didn't come without a bigger price, he was introduced with thunder claps, other actors pretended to be affraid of him, a wind-bag sounding secretary would arrive and spray the mic before the master made his entrance, he was portrayed as a difficult genius, etc.

i find most of his radio dramas impossible to sit through. they might have been great for pre-tv audiences, but difficult today.

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

have you heard the jack benny where orson is trying to teach jack how to be a dramatist by being a character in hunchback of notre dame?

kept making all these loud noises. said the word ain't, but when jack said it, orson got angry and that it was permitable in sending the word ain't in a telegram.

if ya ain't got it, i know someone who does.

bye now!

[Le Chiffre]

Jaime,
You're right that some of Welles' hour-long radio dramas are hard to sit thru, and I wonder how much Welles put of himself into them, especially the Campbell Playhouse shows. It seems that once the Mercury got a sponsor, they were obligated to make that sponsor happy, which likely meant less creative control for Welles, and less emotional involvement as well. After the Campbell Playhouse, Welles rarely worked in the hour-long format again, preferring 30-minute and 15-minute programs, many that I think are more interesting then most of the Campbell shows. Still, there are some gems among those hour programs, and I find them easier to get into when I put them in a walkman and go walking or jogging on a bike path or something. That's why I like to have them on cassette.

Welles Fan,
Yes, Vidal's series forms a warts-and-all Cavalcade of America, focusing not so much on historical events themselves, but on the political scheming behind those events that, growing up in the American public school system, I don't remember ever being told about. In fact, I'd say I learned more from reading Vidal's books then from 12 years of history classes in public school. Like Citizen Kane, these books also shine a light on the growing power of mass media to mythologize and trivialize historical events, to make the people easy prey for demagogues and manipulators of public opinion. That's why Hearst is such a significant character in both EMPIRE and HOLLYWOOD.

[Wich2]

A more recent member, catching up these interesting threads...

I must admit that for this Lincoln lover, amatuer Lincoln scholar, and sometime Lincoln portrayer, this is one of my least favorite Mercurys.

The Drinkwater source is itself an odd duck, very stagey and talky; those are NOT the strengths of the real Audio Drama artform that Welles and others were perfecting at this time. The grafting in of more speech material only makes this worse.

And as far as Orson's voice here: yes, the actor was from the Midwest, and he brings some of that understanding to the performance (here, and as cited above, also in later recordings of Lincoln's speeches.) But though it was somewhat in vogue then to give the 16th President a deep, stentorian voice -

- that is a dramatically shallow, and worse, a totally historically inaccurate choice.

Abe, out of Kaintucky, Indiany, and "Egypt" (Southern Illinois), had a very strong "Western" accent, presented in a reedy, high-pitched timbre. And pretentious and formal, he never was.

Best,
-Craig

[tonyw]

This is the "realist" argument. One would prefer the dramatic tones of Orson rather than the type of diction that he used for Rodrigo in OTHELLO. It would give "majesty" to a figure he revered.