Suds Before Soddies     

Norman Macdonnell took over production and direction 
of the Lux Radio Theatre during a span of 14 shows 
from June 1, 1953 to August 31, 1953. 
Although this period still bore the Lux name--it was called 
the Lux Summer There--it was essentially a summer replacement. 
(In AFRS recordings, it is called the Hollywood Radio Theatre.) 
Parley Baer did the narration, and CBS actors familiar from Gunsmoke 
supported stars like Joseph Cotten, Anne Baxter, and Fred McMurray. 
John Meston did one adaptation, 
and Kathleen Hite contributed three original stories. 



THE FALL OF MAGGIE PHILLIPS 

Kathleen Hite's entry into the 'spinster trying to break out 
of her humdrum life before it's too late' genre, 
its main character being the stereotypical librarian, no less. 
One you get beyond the opening lines--"The fall of Maggie Phillips 
began in the spring. But it's doubtful anyone in Fremontville 
noticed its beginning"--there's neither surface nor depth to this drama, 
and it's not helped by Dorothy McGuire's lack of voice. 
At 35 years old, Maggie breaks rank from the hometown 
hierachy of the precious and pretentious, 
and stoops to enter a car oil essay contest 
that will send its winner to Paris. 
It makes sense that Hite would sympathize with Maggie, 
and may want to take her somewhere, if only nowhere, 
but not that she would dead-end the story into the already done. 
For a while, it looks like the Harlequinesque hunk 'Heller' Hawkins 
might elude the conventional, but Hite betrays her own story 
with the dime romance cliche that the rough Stanley-type 
toughie-randy mechanic--"He's not our sort, you know," 
Maggie's forever dull boyfriend Cecil points out--is really... 
a smart, sensitive, poetic man after all. 
Yipes! Was this originally meant as an episode of Romance? 
Remember this aired on June 22, 1953, and it will make sense 
why it has less substance than a summer dress. 
Kathleen Hite was perfectly capable of writing pieces that conformed 
to formula--there are the eleven episodes 
of The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, if one needs examples-- 
containing every essential element of the show, and nothing of her. 
Best to treat The Fall of Maggie Phillips as harmless semi-fun, 
and wait six weeks for Romance to a Degree. 



ROMANCE TO A DEGREE 

Why is it best to come to Romance to a Degree from Gunsmoke? 
So you can catch all the references. 
This episode of the Lux Summer Theatre aired on August 3, 1953, 
when Kathleen Hite's relationship with CBS radio was several years old. 
Hite playfully drops a number of words and phrases which are obviously intended 
to be in-jokes with her CBS pals, e.g. escape, Kansas, Princess Theatre, 
reconquer the West, and perhaps she was already thinking of Empire; 
the clearest one is a reference to a 'talent scout' named 'Meston,' 
who lured one of the main characters from her home town of Hooker OK 
by promising to make her a movie star. 
It's tempting to take this story as autobiographical in some way, 
that William Spring Smith and Jenny Stewart both represent Hite to a degree, 
and that indeed Hite had been waylaid & misled to a Hollywood hack job 
from what could have been a perfectly peaceful lifetime tenure 
in some farmland academe. 
At CBS, Hite was surrounded by a crowd of excellent writers, 
radio pros who could turn out a solid script ten times faster 
than 'superior' movie & tv writers; 
but anyone familiar with the works of the CBS writers, 
especially on Gunsmoke, can sense that it was Hite 
who had the spark to be a dramatist who could go all the way, 
had she not gotten involved with radio and television. 
Be this story autobiographical or not, it is a sprightly comedy effervescing 
with Hite's talent with words. She had the touch to say heavy things 
and make them light as air; much is said here, but it all floats by 
like the substance in cotton candy. 
Old friends John Dehner, Ben Wright, Vivi Janis, and Barney Phillips 
are present, and of course director Norman Macdonnell. 
Anyone with a crush on Eleanore Tanin's voice will be surprised 
by two actors with voices almost exactly resembling hers: 
Shirley Mitchell and commercial spokewoman Frances Scully. 



October 25, 2005 



Copyright © 2005-2011 E. A. Villafranca, Jr.  
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