"Stars Over Hollywood" (December 22, 1951) - Part 3

A few words about the cast and crew of the "Stars Over Hollywood" broadcast of "A Christmas Carol" from December 22, 1951 starring Edmund Gwenn as both Charles Dickens and Ebenezer Scrooge.

I think he's really good in both roles. His Dickens as narrator sounds so friendly and his Scrooge is suitably Scroogey until the end.

Edmund Gwenn will always be best remembered for his Oscar winning role as Kris Kringle in the 1947 movie "Miracle on 34the Street." That's a movie that's still revived more than most movies from the 1940s.

D.A. Jerome Cowan grills Edmund Gwenn while judge Gene Lockhart looks on.

A fun note is that the judge at Kris Kringle's hearing is played by Gene Lockhart, who had played Bob Cratchit in the 1938 movie version of "A Christmas Carol" from MGM!

Eric Snowden on "Leave it to Beaver" in 1957.

The Bob Cratchit we have on this "Stars Over Hollywood" show is, I think Eric Snowden. He's credited by the announcer at the end and it sounds like him as Bob.

The interesting thing is that he had played that same role on Ronald Colman's 1941 recording of "A Christmas Carol" Decca Records! He also played Bob on Colman's 1949 "Favorite Story" radio broadcast.

Things get a bit more intriguing when we learn that the director of this 1951 "Stars Over Hollywood" episode is Hans Conreid, better known as an actor. Hans had played the Ghost of Christmas Past on the Ronald Colman record, so both he and Eric Snowden were on that project. Did Hans remember Eric from that and recommend him for this job? Hmmm...

Things get further entangled as Jay Novello is also credited on this show. He had played Bob Cratchit on Basil Rathbone's recording of "A Christmas Carol" for Columbia Records in 1942!

Edmund Gwenn collects his Oscar along with Loretta Young, Ronald Colman and Celeste Holm.

While we're throwing around connections, when Edmund Gwenn won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for 1947, the Best Actor winner was Ronald Colman!

OK, my head's officially spinning now!

"The Mayor of the Town" (December 23, 1943) - Part 2

The 1943 broadcast of "The Mayor of the Town" featuring Lionel Barrymore's annual turn as Scrooge in an adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" is pretty fun!

I think it's really cool that he was able to keep the tradition going by using his own show. Listening audiences of the time must have really looked forward to hearing their favorite Scrooge each year.

Incidentally, I see this show often listed as just "Mayor of the Town," but the actual title seems to be "The Mayor of the Town," as that's how it tends to be announced.

This particular program features Frank Martin as the announcer and narrator. It sounds to me like he might also be playing Fred, but I'm not sure, as I'm not overly familiar with Mr. Martin's voice.

The announcer on "The Mayor of the Town" was sometimes (usually) Harlow Wilcox, whose voice I'm very familiar with. He's not on this episode, but he did provide the narration on Basil Rathbone's 1942 recording of "A Christmas Carol."

Hans Conreid makes Rita Hayworth do the old hand-to-forehead!

A voice on this show that I definitely recognize is that of Hans Conreid, who plays Marley's Ghost in a rather theatrical manner. You can detect a touch of Snidely Whiplash there! I think he's great!

To show that everything comes back around, Hans had played the Ghost of Christmas Past on Ronald Colman's recording of "A Christmas Carol" in 1941!

Lionel Barrymore's costar on "The Mayor of the Town" was Agnes Moorehead, who played his housekeeper. I think she may be playing Mrs. Cratchit here.

Agnes Moorehead was a terrific radio actress, best-known in that medium for her awesome performance on the "Sorry, Wrong Number" episode of "Suspense," first presented in 1943 and revisited several more times.

She worked a lot with Orson Welles, even appearing as Margo Lane opposite his Lamont Cranston on "The Shadow" radio series in 1937/38. She did not appear in either of "The Campbell Playhouse" versions of "A Christmas Carol" with Welles, however, but did get a good role as the title character's mother in "Citizen Kane" (1941)!

Of course, Ms. Moorehead eventually found her most famous role as Endora, mother of Samantha on the "Bewitched" TV series in the 1960s. Her TV husband, Maurice Evans, had a small role in the 1935 "Scrooge" with Sir Seymour Hicks. See, it all comes back to "A Christmas Carol" somehow!

After all this, I hope Agnes Moorehead actually was in this episode!

In any event, this AFRS version of "The Mayor of the Town" doesn't indicate who the other cast members in the episode were, but a good job was done by all!

Next, we'll discuss the plot points of this adaptation.

In the meantime, here's a bonus episode of "The Mayor of the Town" in its usual format. My editor picked this one because it features a bunch of cats!

Enjoy!

Part 1:

Part 2: