By: Barry I. Grauman

Barry I. Grauman — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:22:13 +0000

More “obscure B-movies” fill W2XBS’ schedule, as usual: “Anything For A Thrill” (Conn Pictures, 1937) featured young Frankie Darro as the “kid brother” of a veteran newsreel cameraman [Kane Richmond] who wants to follow in his footsteps…little did anyone know that, within 25 years, theatrical newsreels would be rendered “obsolete” by TV news coverage. “Frontier Scout” was a typical 1938 “B-western” [from independent "Franklyn Warner Productions"] starring George Houston in his interpretation of “Wild Bill Hickok” (by the ’50s, kids knew just ONE “Wild Bill”, watching Guy Madison’s weekly TV portrayal, and/or listening to the separate Mutual radio edition three afternoons a week from 1951 through ‘54). “Battle Of Greed”, from Crescent Pictures in 1937, had Tom Keene as a lawyer involved with uncovering crooked silver claims- and the crooked judge protecting the dirty owlhoots filing them, in Virginia City. You can imagine how those early TV audiences ate these movies up the way their kids would over a decade later, over hundreds of local stations. And, of course, the schedule of filmed presentations wouldn’t be complete without at least ONE Van Beuren ‘Aesop’s Fable’, “Red Riding Hood” (1931). Lowell Thomas is still “simulcasting” his nightly NBC radio news and commentary program at 6:45, with an actual “Sunoco” gas pump globe and cans of their motor oil on the side of his desk while speaking into his NBC microphone, with hardly ANY visual aids accompanying his news items. As for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, keep in mind there was only ONE TV camera (possibly two) present at that April 25th performance, so home viewers got to see a small “taste” of what went on in all three rings, and reactions from the crowd in attendance. Still, it must have been fascinating to those hundreds of people watching….

Comments on: W2XBS Schedule, Week of April 21st, 1940

By: Barry I. Grauman