Скачать или смотреть BW - EP118—006: Radio And The Gas Station—Gas Stations After WW2 & The Hitchhiker w/ Orson Welles

This episode was originally released 08/2021.

When Japan surrendered after the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Norman Corwin was tabbed by CBS to produce a piece on the victory. Corwin cast Orson Welles in the role of orator. The next month Welles began an ABC commentary series sponsored by Lear Radios.

In the fall of 1945 Welles began work on The Stranger, a film noir about a war crimes investigator who tracks a high-ranking Nazi to a New England town. It co-starred Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young.

Long car trips and moves to quiet towns were becoming commonplace for Americans. In 1946 there were an estimated 9 million AM car radios in use, and baby-boom families were moving to the suburbs in record numbers.

The rectangular box remained the primary American gas station form. Most postwar box stations were made of concrete. To distinguish themselves, owners and companies retrofitted stations with contemporary design trends.

After Frank Ulrich opened his station in Los Angeles, a number of other stations began to offer self serve. They were primarily in California, the Southwest and the Southeast, but the total number of these remained less than three thousand until the early 1970s.

Meanwhile, The Stranger was completed under budget, but within weeks, RKO backed out of a promised three-film deal. They felt the film wouldn’t make any money.

The Stranger cost just over a million dollars to make. Fifteen months after its release it had grossed more than three times that amount. It was the only film made by Welles to have been a bona fide box office success.

In the Spring of 1946 Welles was back in New York for a broadway rendition of Around the World in Eighty Days. It premiered on May 31st.

The next Friday—June 7th—at 10PM, Welles debuted a new CBS series: The Mercury Summer Theatre. It was sponsored by Pabst. On the Summer solstice, The Mercury adapted Lucille Fletcher’s “The Hitchhiker.”

Welles remained in New York the rest of the summer. Around The World in Eighty Days closed August 3rd. The Mercury Summer Theater went off the air on September 13th, and the final commentary aired on October 6th, 1946 on ABC.

It was the last time Orson Welles produced his own U.S. radio series. For more information on this portion of his career, tune into Breaking Walls episodes 104 and 141.

#oldtimeradio #oldtimeradioclassics #oldtimeradioshows #goldenageofradio #goldenageofhollywood #gasstation #gasstationhorror #americana #jeanhersholt #drchristian #oldtimeradiomysteries #otr #classicradiodrama #classicradio #radiodrama #audiodrama #audiodramas #gasstations #orsonwelles #hitchhiking #thestranger