"A Christmas Carol" - AFRS (1943) - Part 2

If you got a chance to listen to Basil Rathbone as Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1943 AFRS recording of "A Christmas Carol," you might have experienced a bit of déjà vu.

After the AFRS (Armed Forces Radio Service) announcer introduces the show, we hear the very familiar (to me anyway) tones of Harlow Wilcox setting the scene.

My first thought is that sounds a lot like the 1942 Columbia Records recording. As Harlow talks some more and we hear a music sting then Basil Rathbone and Elliot Lewis (as Fred), I know this is that recording!

That's actually not much of a surprise, as the AFRS did a great job of assembling programs from various sources for service personnel who were starved for entertainment from home and this record set is of the highest quality, as good as if not better than a radio broadcast.

The recording had been released by Columbia just a year before. I wonder if any of the soldiers had heard the records before going in the service and recognized them as the source of the AFRS show. In any event, I'm sure everyone enjoyed it.

To round out the program, we hear the great Metropolitan Opera star Richard Crooks sing Schubert's "Ave Maria." The announcer says, "Richard Crooks joins the orchestra to sing for you..." but I'm fairly certain that they used this record from 1939:

Whatever the source, it's a lovely recording.

Richard Crooks was well-known at the time among certain radio listeners for his singing on "The Voice of Firestone," the long-running radio series featuring classical music.

I think the general perception of WWII soldiers and sailors in a musical sense is that they were jitterbugging big band fans. And while the big bands were the top musical stars of the day, there were also a lot of classical music fans who were in the service.

I'm sure there were listeners who were thrilled to hear some "real" music as part of this special AFRS Christmas program!

So, a solid Christmas program assembled by the AFRS. Not entirely unlike how they repurposed an episode of Lionel Barrymore's "Mayor of the Town" radio series into the Christmas episode of "The Globe Theater" AFRS series.

Fun fact: "The Globe Theater" host Herbert Marshall was a member of the London Scottish Regiment of the British Army during World War I and at various times the regiment also included future Scrooges Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman and Claude Rains!