KSRO & Alfred Hitchcock

It's always fun to catch a bit of an actual radio broadcast in an old film. In modern films for copyright reasons it virtually never happens. There are facsimiles of radio everywhere but actual radio broadcasts live or recorded are very rare. But in the 1943 Alfred Hitchcock directed, Universal Pictures film, Shadow of a Doubt is a confirmed cameo by KSRO.

The original script began as a 9-page short story ‘Uncle Charlie,’ by Gordon McDonnell. With input from Hitchcock, Thornton Wilder wrote  the original draft of the screen play. Screen writer Sally Benson added some comedic elements, and Actress Patricia Collinge wrote at least one scene which is not credited. You can read a iffy transcription here.

It's also worth noting that Alfred Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville was credited as co-writer but her specific contributions remain unclear. The full scope of her contribution to Hitchcock's oeuvre is already known to be vast. She often re-wrote both the dialog and scenes in his film scripts. She had been a screen writer and editor at Twickenham Film Studios and then the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation. So it's clear she was quite capable. But it would have been better if her work had been clearly credited. More here.

In May 1937, KSRO first signed on at 1310 Mhz. The station was founded by Ernest L. Finley, who was also owner of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat newspaper. When he died in 1942, the ownership of the station later passed to Finley's wife Ruth. She was owner of the station when the station appeared in the film Shadow of a Doubt.

Interestingly the KSRO reference does not appear in the August 10th, 1942 draft of the script. Instead it describes an add for Martin's Floor Wax which quotes Edgar Guest. There is no specific connection there though Guest did have a radio show on WJR from 1931 until 1942. The only link being that both radio stations were NBC affiliates. He may have been syndicated on KSRO, but I have been totally unable to confirm that. Below is the original appearance of the scene in the script, scene 367 :

In scene 369, Uncle Charlie also changes the station to a "symphonic broadcast" and this dialogs and both those scenes do appear in the final cut as do other parts of the scene though not in the same form. The scene is interspersed with cuts to the character Emmy suffocating from car exhaust in the garage. They do not appear in the script, and have no dialog except for Emmy coughing.  Probably to heighten the tension, the dialog was somewhat expanded.

MRS NEWTON
Charles, are you all ready? Joe, are you?

JOE
Wait a minute! I've got to get my overcoat.

MRS NEWTON
Please, dear. Hurry!

UNCLE CHARLIE
Take your time, Emmy. They can't start till I get there. It's getting chilly in here.

(RADIO ANNOUNCER)
KSRO, Santa Rosa, with studios in Vallejo and Santa Rosa, California. KSRO now brings you...

UNCLE CHARLIE
May as well have a little music while we wait.

(RADIO ANNOUNCER)
...news agency in the world. Oregon State Police pressed their search today for five...

UNCLE CHARLIE
(Changes Station to Orchestra)

MRS. NEWTON
Oh! Does it have to be so loud?

The movie was shot on location in Santa Rosa, CA which is probably how the KSRO ended up replacing Edgar Guest. I've never found a direct connection between any of the actors or writers and KSRO, or even Santa Rosa. The appearance of the call sign twice in those few seconds of audio and the plot tie-in confirms that it was not live, but planned for the film. The book Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco describes the moment:

"The use of KSRO was an authentic local touch. It would have been very common for households in Sonoma county to be listening to KSRO because the station was the first and only Sonoma county-based radio station in the early 1940s. All other signals received in Sonoma county were from San Francisco. KSRO was founded in 1936, and had studios in Santa Rosa and Vallejo. It featured symphony music, opera, and local news, and was well suited for the middle-class Newtons."

Despite the factual errors:, (KSRO was neither the first nor founded in 1937) the context is spot on. The radio announcer is not specifically credited. But Bill Bates is listed in the cast without a role. There was a well-known radio announcer in Modesto named Bill Bates, who was at KNX, KGFH, KWBS, KLS, and actually founded KTRB in 1933. But that's probably a coincidence.

IN 1944 the film was nominated for Best Writing. In 1991, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". More here.

WJR Bans Jive

First things first. When anyone writes that a radio station "banned" a song, they're usually referring to an era when DJs had some sway over programming and an owner intervened to prohibit the play of one song. Today no such freedom exists to be abridged in the first place. This was earlier than the numerous rock n' roll bans of the 1950s. This ban started with the 1937 Maxine Sullivan & The Claude Thornhill Orchestra released a swing version of “Loch Lomond” on Vocalion records (Matrix 2147 / 3654) the B-side was "I'm Coming Virginia."




750 WJR-AM in Detroit banned Maxine Sullivan's swinging of classics back in the mid-1930s. The station owner, G.A. Richards hated jive and hot jazz. Richards was the owner of Goodwill Stations" and was also president of Pontiac Automobiles for southern Michigan. (He also owned the Detroit Lions from 1934 to 1939.)  He said "In our opinion, hot jive music which usually emphasizes suggestive lyrics, arouses degenerate instincts and emotions."  GM Leo Fitzpatrick called her song blasphemy and said "they'll be swinging Nearer My God To Thee next." Time Magazine covered the story as well

"Last week Leo Fitzpatrick, doughty Celtic manager of Detroit's WJR and radio adviser to Father Coughlin switched off Tommy Dorsey's band right in the middle of their swing. The trouble was they were swinging Loch Lomond. Said Manager Fitzpatrick: "It is a sacrilege to make a swing version of a tune sacred to a lot of Scotsmen." Cleveland's WGAR and Beverly Hill's KMPC nodded their heads, pursed their lips and proclaimed a ban on swing versions of eleven old songs, including Comin' Thro' the Rye."

This was a big deal. Life magazine gave Maxine a full page picture and teeny tiny text at the bottom below the title "Negro Girl Swings A Scottish Tune And Blows Up A Radio Storm."  She had taken the song "Loch Lommond" and made it into a vocal jazz number. It caught on with the college crowd and sold over 50,000 records. She re-recorded it in 1955 as a "modern" jazz number and it sold all over again. Her music continues to be classic. G.A. Richards died in 1951, and in 1964, Goodwill Stations was sold to Capital Cities Communications. That company was later bought by ABC and  in turn merged with Walt Disney. They still haven't played anything interesting in over 70 years.

George A. Richards

Much has been written about the pro-fascist, antisemite radio preacher Father Coughlin. (prior post here.) Very little has been written about the man that put him on the radio. The comparisons between Coughlin  and Bill O'Reilly and/or Glenn Beck while sometimes thoughtful, really don't do justice to the vitriolic candor of Coughlin. Today it's unthinkable, but even back then Coughlin's brand of explicit racism was considered unseemly.  Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly et al. rate as merely fear-mongers when compared to Coughlin—who was a genuine hate-monger. But it is sometimes forgotten that there was a money-man behind it all: George A. Richards. If you compare Glenn Beck to Coughlin, you must also compare George A. Richards to Roger Ailes.

 In 1926 WJR-AM was purchased by George A. Richards and associates from the two shareholding companies: Jewett Radio and Phonograph Company and the Detroit Free Press. (Those associates were Leo Fitzpatrick, John Patt, P. M. Thomas and M. R. Mitchell.)  Richards was the president of Pontiac Automobiles for Southern Michigan. He relocated the station  to a street-level studio in his showroom on the Cass Avenue side of the General Motors Building in Detroit. At the time it was still a time-share with WCX-AM. Richards put an end to that in 1929 with an offer to buy them out. and even increased power to 10,000 watts in 1932. He called it the "Goodwill Station."  It wasn't meant to be ironic, but it was.

Set on expansion, he bought WFJC-AM in 1930 from William F. Jones. The station had been founded in 1924 in Cleveland by Stanley Broz as WDBK-AM. It had been moved to Akron in 1927 by Jones who changed the calls to WFJC. Richards moved it back to Cleveland and rechristened it with his own initials WGAR-AM. It signed on in Cleveland December 15, 1930 as a part of the Goodwill Station group.

In June of 1934, Beverly Hills Broadcasting went belly up. It's assets were bought up by the Pacific Southwest Discount Corporation and the sold to in  1936 to Beverly Hills Broadcasting Corporation. Beverly Hills Broadcasting sold one of those assets, KMPC-AM to George A. Richards. It too became a part of the Goodwill Station group.Richards now had stations in Cleveland, Detroit and Los Angeles. But with exposure comes scrutiny. The antisemitism that was considered "acceptable" prior to WWII became associated with the Nazis, and became unacceptable. Richards didn't budge. His radio stations espoused his beliefs. George A. Richards hated Jews, unions, blacks, communists and possibly most of all...President Roosevelt.

It began to unravel in 1948. A cadre of his own former employees complained to the FCC about his authoritarian tactics. In 1949, Jewish civic organizations began petitioning to revoke The licenses of George A. Richard's stations. The National Community Relations Advisory Council (NCRAC) specifically went after him. They were a coordinating body of eight national Jewish organizations. Richards, savvy as ever, tried to dodge a bullet and transfer control to a trustee board of his own selection. The opinion of NCRAC was that transferring the control from Richards, to the puppets of Richards, was no change at all. More here.

In response, the FCC released a report titled Report on Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees. It took a dim view of such monomania. The FCC began hearings to consider suspending Richards's licenses. Lawyers argued that he had not acted in the public interest. The FCC took testimony from 177 witnesses, the minutes are some 3.5 million words in length. Richards spent millions defending himself. Before a decision could be reached, he died on May 25th 1951. Printers Ink wrote that it was of a "heart condition." His widow began selling off the stations within just a few years. These events set the stage that allowed the Fairness Doctrine to come into existence, something that Richards would have despised.

Radio Music Lessons

I think I have at last found a confirmed "first" radio music lesson. Joe Maddy is an arcane and obscure character in radio. In the text "Joe Maddy of Interlochen" I found the following passage:

"Joe started giving music lessons by radio from Ann Arbor. Nineteen hundred thirty-one was a time long before educational programs on radio and television came into vogue. The University's Director of Broadcasting had first asked Joe to give lessons in music appreciation."

In 1928 he began the National Music Camp in Interlochen Michigan. There, in 1932, Joe began teaching music classes by radio. By 1936 Joe was doing five shows a week. Four of these were from WJR at the University of Michigan over Station in Detroit. The fifth was at WMAQ in Chicago. His WMAQ gig continued for 3 years on the NBC Blue Network. Hundreds of thousands of people were listening and learning.

Then James Caesar Petrillo stomped all over it. Petrillo was the head of the American Federation of musicians. Petrillo threatened to organize a strike of all NBC musicians if the program continued. Joe knew Petrillo from his days as the head of the Chicago musicians Union. It was no idle threat. Joe of course had king-size balls and put together his own orchestra of students and scabs. He threatened to tell the world about Petrillo's maneuvers and his friends all counseled him to stand down.

Joe took even odds on the broadcast and steered clear of the loaded topic. Instead he tried to negotiate peace through the Louisville AFM. Petrillo intervened and at a closed door meeting Joe Maddy'd proposals for conduct which while initially well-received got a verdict of inaction. Ultimately NBC picked up the union tab. Eventually The FCC and the Department of Justice got involved, but just the same Joe and James would be at war for 14 years. More here.

Petrillo went after Joe because his orchestra, even though hosted by a school, made a profit. The justice department disagreed and said they fit the definition of a a non-profit educational institution. Petrillo was so pissed he extended the ban to all non-coms. He was way past winning the war. he had fixated on this single battle with Joe. Whatever greater goals Petrillo had set out with.. he had lost sight of them. Senate hearings began. Joe circulated pamphlets accusing Petrillo of being a fiat dictator. More here.

A bill was written by Senator Vandenbergn protecting the rights of the non-commercial license. The the Lea Act, then the Lea Act passed a legal challenge. then they had to go to the supreme court. Petrillo was furious. He kicked Joe out of the union. He banned AFM musicians from teaching at the school in Interlochen where Joe's program resided. It was a phyrric victory. the overt abuses of power unmade himself. Eventually the day came when Petrillo himself had to take the stand and defend his actions. The Supreme court upheld the Lea Act. In July of 1947 Petrillo finally consented to the law and lifted the ban.

1948, Maddy went to NBC seeking to resume the program but was rebuffed. Mutual Broadcasting had to such qualms. But after only a week Mutual backed out. Petrillo was still out there and Joe was still on the Union blackball list. In 1963 Maddy fully realized the dream when His School at Interlochen founded Interlochen Public Radio. WIAA 88.7 FM is still on the air today.

Maddy died in 1966. The National Music Camp is now known as the Interlochen Center for the Arts. He is audible by voice on a CD released by the Center in a farewell from May 11th 1937.

Jack Paar Uncensored

Jack Parr is best known for his tenure as the host of the Tonight Show. He did a short run guest-hosting the Jack Benny Radio program in 1946 and NBC thought he was their man. They offered him a job as host of the Tonight Show in 1957. Like every other host of that program, he'd done his time in radioland.

Even though it was Quiz shows that made his career and paved his transition into Television Paar scorned them repeatedly. Paar thought more highly of comedy than trivia. He wrote in the autobiography I Kid You Not:

"I couldn't compete with the big quizzes, passing out loot with the abandon of a dying tycoon with a guilty conscience. What concerned me more, though, was that the big money quiz shows began killing off some of the few good comedy shows."

Paar was born in Canton, Ohio in 1918. The broadcasting industry as we know it didn't even exist. His first job in radio was at WIBM-AM in Jackson Michigan. WIBM signed on in 1927. Paar's part-time gig as an announcer wasn't until 1934. He was 16, and they paid him $3 a week to do a news program called The Town Crier. He was fired for getting snarky on air. Paar moved on to WIRE-AM in 1935. He had a short tenure there and at a number of other stations including WJR-AM, WGAR-AM, WKBN-AM, and WBEN-AM.

He got to Cleveland in 1938 to start work at 1220 WGAR-AM. He was the youngest announcer in the CBS network. The station was based in the Statler Hotel. In the basement of the Statler was Otto's Grotto a genuine rock n' roll club which would gain much fame later on. It was on Paar's shift that Orson Welles radio play "War of the World's first aired. Paar fielded the panicked calls and chose to take it off air. His PD ordered it to resume. Paar has to assure people that the world was not coming to an end. He stayed on for 4 more years. He then went to WBEN in Buffalo but was drafted after only two years. After returning from WWII he got his big break filling in on the Jack Benny Radio program. But that wasn't a shoe-in. NBC had a plan and it wasn't for a steady gig. In 1950 he was the emcee of "Take It Or Leave It" another radio game show replacing Eddie Cantor. He worked simultaneously as a substitute on The Breakfast Club filling for Don McNeill. RKO cut him and he ended up on unemployment.

he did another quiz show for CBS called "Bank on the Stars". In 1952 he got his own TV game show "Up to Paar". That was followed by his own variety show "The Jack Paar Show" in 1953, and strangely replaced Walter Cronkite on the CBS morning show in 1954. They canceled that on him too. But it was all well in the end as he took over the Tonight Show in 1957.

Father Charles Coughlin

A catholic priest and pro-fascist voice. It's always struck me as strange and unpredictable, the political voices that are silenced and the ones that are not. When communists and socialists managed to get into media, the government ran amuck in a decade long witch hunt. But fascists... hey that's ok! Never mind that it was the fascists not communists or socialists that marched millions of jews into ovens...

Anyway what brings me to Coughlin is a study by the Indiana University's Journalism dept. they took a modern day talking head Bill O'Reilly and compared his programming (style not content) and compared to the old nazi-sympathizer. Obviously, comparing anyone mano-a-mano to a nazi is pretty partisan, but it makes for interesting reading. O'Reilly is not known to be a nazi, but maybe he's a fascist sympathizer. More here.

FACT: The researchers found that O'Reilly called a person or a group a derogatory name an average of once per 6.8 seconds, during his opening editorials. That's where the similarities began and what led me to consider that Billy-boy's not busking with an original stage show there.

Charles Edward Coughlin was born way back in 1891 in Canada. (who'd have thunk it .. a canadian fascist?) He was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience, as more than forty million tuned to his weekly broadcasts during the 1930s. He began his radio broadcasts in 1926 at WJR-AM. His regular sermons didnt' innure him to management, by 1931 the CBS radio network dropped his free airtime. He was forced to raise money to create his own national network. But he was a natural, he soon had millions of listeners.

He became a political moover and shaker in his own right. In the 1932 elections he was a strong Franklin Roosevelt supporter and after the big win, also a New Deal proponent. But by 1934 his relationship with Frankie soured. his rhetoric was so venomous that the presidne t sent Joe Kennedy and Attourney general Frank Murphy to cool him out. But no dice. Charlie cranked up the pressure. They also tried to get the future Pope Pius XII to calm him down, to no avail.

Father Charles Coughlin had a stong set of confliciting values (like O'Reilly). He said in 1935 "I have dedicated my life to fight against the heinous rottenness of modern capitalism because it robs the laborer of this world's goods. But blow for blow I shall strike against Communism, because it robs us of the next world's happiness." So he hates modern capitalism and communism? so he's in favor of socialism? nope. In his bile spitting at Roosevelt he often accused Roosevelt of "leaning toward international socialism." Was he in favor of monarchy? He seems to have hated everyone. Did I mention he hated jews? Third Reich Books sells a CD of his broadcasts: here.

But he was an isolationist and appealed to that then growing segment of the U.S. He took them and his core Irish Catholics to found a political party in 1936. The Union Party, nominated William Lemke for President. Coughlin promised to retire if Lemke did not get 9 million votes Lemke garnered less than 1 million (still impressive) Coughlin did stop broadcasting for almost a whole year. Did I mention he was a fan of Huey Long?

In 1938 while Nazis ran amuck killing german Jews with impunity Coughlin's broadcasts and speeches became more antisemetic than ever. After Kristallnacht, Coughlin somhow rationalized blaming the Jewish victims. he actuall said that "Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted." New York City had no tolerance for that bullshit and his show got the axe at WXYZ-AM, WINS-AM and WMCA-AM. His show remained on daytimer WHBI-AM in Newark. In 1942 new bishop of Detroit ordered Coughlin to stop his loud-mouth political yammering and return to his duties as a parish priest. Coughlin went back home and wrote anti-communist flyers on the side until he died in 1979.