Bop Talk  

          On their grand college tour of Paris, 
two 24-year-old college students resolve to 'live'—  
i.e. live loose with the local lotharios.  
Or, 'two Romanticists from Elmwood Springs, Wisconsin' 
shake hands (to) 'vivre' it up with Louis Jourdan types.  
          This is a delightful (and alas much too short) light comedy 
by Kathleen Hite.  Gunsmokers Norman Macdonnell, Antony Ellis, etc 
and Hite had hit their Romance stride by this time, 
confident enough to ply and fly their own thing 
instead of doing sigh-ey replicas of old Romance episodes.  
          Jeanne Bates is at her best, delivering on the delivery 
and knowing just how to heighten Hite's humor.  
It's refreshing to hear radio writer and actor 
purposely mangle a foreign language, 
instead of radio's ham actors and 'dialect experts' 
mangling pronunciation and accent inadvertently.  
Bates and Mitchell, about a decade older 
than the characters they play, 
act the age and hit the notes and tones 
of 1950s 24-year-olds right on target.  
          Want to hear an innocent comedy version 
of The Valley of the Dolls?  
          This is it.  
          Amazing how Hite can convey observations and insights 
about young women of the age and their sexuality, 
without resorting to boobs, booze, and big hair.  
          But wait—nudity wasn't allowed on radio in the 1950s!  



August 11, 2011 



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