Category: History

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Lost and Found: A Blackpool Romance

Well, this is a story sure to give hope to all those who, like me, are prone to misplacing things. Things will show up . . . eventually. In my case, it all started with a set of house keys I buried in a sandbox. Then went my retainers, which disappeared into the trash before they could do much straightening. Nowadays, I am constantly fishing for my glasses, rarely in places where I could have sworn to have left them. So, when I learned today that an earring lost by Marlene Dietrich has been unearthed at last, I just had to pass on the good news. My thanks to James Robert Parish, author of The Paramount Pretties (one of my Christmas presents last year) and It’s Good to Be the King, a new Mel Brooks biography, for alerting me to the story. It goes something like this:

Back in 1934, the glamorous Blue Angel descended upon the spa town of Blackpool, England, where she mingled with the vacationing multitude—purely for the sake of publicity, no doubt—at the Pleasure Beach amusement park. As if to prove that she was almost down to earth, Dietrich took a ride on the Big Dipper, the park’s new wooden rollercoaster. That is pretty much what I did when I went there some seventy years later—except that, rain-drenched as I was, I looked about as glamorous as a pair of wet socks. I sure wasn’t wearing anything that I could not afford to lose. Experience had taught me as much.

Ms. Dietrich, on the other hand, couldn’t afford not to look her most fetching as the stepped into the coaster. She probably looked just as smart leaving the park, with just the one, her hat covering the denuded lobe. At any rate, the earring was missing. No mere bauble, it was dear enough to the future star of Golden Earrings—a romance not based on her Blackpool experience—that she later inquired about it in writing, albeit to no avail. Today, said pearl was dug up from the mud, of which there is plenty in Blackpool, a place so vulgar that it makes San Jose look like a haven of cultural refinement. That, at least, was my impression, not having had the thrill of encountering a star of Ms. Dietrich’s calibre (or any calibre, for that matter), however pleasant the company in which I travelled.

No doubt, the folks who run (or ran down) Blackpool are delighted at this find. It is as if Ms. Dietrich were giving an encore performance from the grave, once again lending allure and intrigue to that aptly named dump of a seaside resort. To me, there could not be a more poignant illustration of the decline of Western civilization than the picture presenting itself to the workers who found said piece of jewelry among false teeth, glass eyes, and a wig, objects not claimed to have been lost by the star. According to a spokesperson for Pleasure Beach, the pearl “appears to have withstood the test of time quite well.” The same can certainly not be said of the site of this dig.

One thing Marlene Dietrich never lost—aside from her place in Hollywood history and the items aforementioned—was her German accent. Nor have I, as you can plainly tell by listening to one of my old-time radio podcasts; but in Ms. Dietrich’s case, the accent was both an asset and an impediment, accounting in part for the many ups and more downs of her career before, during, and after the Second World War.

Just before the golden era of Hollywood and radio drama was up, the aging actress could once more exploit the exotics of her Teutonic timbre. Having to rethink her media exposure at a time when rollercoaster rides and appearances at popular spots like Blackpool were not enough to keep alive a film career that had very nearly run its course, the aging diva began to take full advantage of the magic of radio to star in two dramatic series of her own. Dietrich and the radio—there’s an idea for a future podcast. Now, where did I leave my iPod?

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"We will interrupt all programs": Radio Drops a Bombshell

It certainly threw a wrench into the well-oiled works of radio as a commercial enterprise. The attack on Pearl Harbor, that is. On this day, December 7, in 1941, American broadcasters had to find ways of accommodating the “word from our sponsor” to the considerably more “important message” that would alter—or end—the lives of people the world over. Comedians Edgar Bergen and Jack Benny were both on the air as scheduled that Sunday, entertaining the multitude with their commercially sponsored programs.

Both broadcasts were prefaced by the following announcements: “Ladies and gentlemen. We will interrupt all programs to give you latest news bulletins. Stay tuned to this station.”

The bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war on Japan and its allies marked an uneasy transition of American radio as a source of advertising to one of propaganda, of information and indoctrination. As US President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared in his public radio address on 9 December 1941, “free and rapid communication” needed to be restricted in wartime.

It was “not possible to receive full and speedy and accurate reports” from all theaters of war, since even in those “days of the marvels of the radio” it was “often impossible for the Commanders of various units to report their activities by radio at all, for the very simple reason that this information would become available to the enemy and would disclose their position and their plan of defense or attack.”

Still, the medium that had long fallen into the hands of corporations, had an obligation toward the American public it ostensibly served, a duty to operate in the “public interest” that it might have neglected over the years, notwithstanding the President’s occasional and popular Fireside Chats.

Necessary delays in reporting aside, Roosevelt vowed “not hide facts from the country” if such were known and the enemy would “not be aided by their disclosure.” He reminded “all newspapers and radio stations, “all those who reach the eyes and ears of the American people,” that they had a “most grave responsibility to the nation now and for the duration of this war.”

While “sudden” the “criminal attacks” were but the “climax of a decade of international immorality,” Roosevelt argued. From Japan’s invasion of Manchukuo, Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia, Hitler’s occupation of Austria and his invasion of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Russia; Italy’s attack on France and Greece, the Axis domination of the Balkans, and the Japanese attacks on Malaya and Thailand, to the bombing of Pearl Harbor—each occurring “without warning”—the events were “all of one pattern.”

America had “used” their awareness of that pattern “to great advantage. Knowing that the attack might reach us in all too short a time,” the US “immediately began greatly to increase” its “capacity to meet the demands of modern warfare.” The war, Roosevelt cautioned, would not only be “long” but “hard,” warning of shortages and a general cutting down on consumerism. He expressed himself confident that businesses and individuals alike would “cheerfully give up those material things that they are asked to give up,” and that they would “retain all those great spiritual things without which we cannot win through.”

Those who recall the attack on and fall of the World Trade Center towers might recall the sudden change in significance of a medium that could be relied upon for its mindless and commercials-riddled entertainment one day and then, suspending all advertising and most regular programs, engaged in an image blitz on a stunned audience that, having had so little introduction to the events leading up to them, regarded them as unprovoked, inexplicable, and without any historical connection to the dramatically altered present.

The image bombardment and the relative blackout of comprehensive world news by a largely irresponsible commercial medium did much to get Americans in the mood for the war that is still being waged and lost to this day. By comparison, the broadcasting day following the attack on Pearl Harbor proceeded pretty much according to schedule; it was only gradually that commercials made way for—or merged with—public announcements, that comedians told topical jokes and soap operas dealt with the realities of war. Before one can fully understand what it means never to forget, one has a lot of catching up to do with the world.

Having spread this “important message” about the imperative of keeping up with and following up on the allegedly out-of-date and the seemingly unrelated or tiresomely repetitive news of the world, the broadcastellan journal will go on a brief hiatus and won’t resume regular day-to-day postings until the beginning of 2007, aside from a few scattered reports of cultural events and reviews of seasonal radio and television offerings. If you have glanced at, read, perhaps even enjoyed, a few of the roughly two hundred essays shared here throughout the year, I encourage you to drop me a line.

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Riot Study: Hunting Catholics with Barnaby Rudge

Well, I would have been reading and writing today, had I not been caught up in upgrading my Blogger account and messing with my “classic” template while trying to take advantage of a few new features. With the exception of added labels, I ended up keeping things as they were, but I will probably tinker with the design over the weekend. Meanwhile, I just got back from the theater (an all-male production of Taming of the Shrew, which I am reviewing shortly). To remind all those of us blogging or shopping or hopping about town that it might be a “far, far better thing” to pick up one of his volumes, young Mr. Dickens has been installed here to usher in the festive season of fireside reading.

It is undoubtedly due to that sentimental ghost story A Christmas Carol and its countless re- or disincarnations that Dickens is so closely associated with December, the darkest month of the year, cheered, as if to reward or placate believers of some faiths, with tunes, tinsel, and treats. No Scrooge in the matter, I got tickets to a stage production of A Christmas Carol starring screen veteran Ron Moody, best known for his role in the musical Oliver! (a more recent production of which I discuss here). Young Twist and old Scrooge, those two have outlasted most of Dickens’s children, in the shadow of which vast nursery lies one Barnaby Rudge.

In the spirit of charity, I have picked up this ill favored Barnaby Rudge, serialized in 1841. Subtitled “A Tale of the Riots of ‘Eighty” it is a fictionalized account of the anti-Catholic uprisings in England, Protestant anxieties stirred by a member of Parliament opposed to the Catholic Relief Act. With the Pope’s visit to Turkey, a Muslim country whose faith he offended a few months earlier, and the multi-million sex abuse claim settlement by the Catholic diocese in Los Angeles making headlines these days, this old page-turner promises to be topical reading. No escapism here.

Say, what’s your literary treat for the “holidays”?

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The History [of] Boys: Alan Bennett and the Gay Social Science

I often ask myself whether I am. History,  I mean.  Not that anyone is opening a museum dedicated to my life, a definitive space for finite time as it is now in the works for 1970s pop act Abba.  To be history, I suppose, means to be quite past it; insignificant, irrelevant, outside of what matters now, someone either to be forgotten or to get nostalgic about.  To be part of history, on the other hand of time, means not only to think of oneself in context but to be thought of as belonging to it, as fitting into its continuum. And to make history is to take part in its continual shaping, be it wilful or inadvertent, by bringing something (or someone) about.  So, am I a manifestation of history? Am I making it? Or am I beyond its bounds as determined by those who assume the authority of authoring it in word and image?

Such questions have been whirring through my mind after watching The History Boys, the film adaptation of the acclaimed stage play by Alan Bennett, the well-known British radio raconteur.  The History Boys documents the quest of a group of students who, in an effort to make something of themselves (or to please their folks), try to get into one of Britain’s most influential or prestigious institutions of higher learning by reading (that is, studying) history.

Bennett sets the action, such as it is, in 1983, which means that, by now, those ambitious, playful and bewildered youngsters would be middle-aged men, like myself (pictured), a spinning forth of their fictional lives the film encourages in its “whatever became of” epilogue.

One of them did not make it this far into the 21st century, having given his life for his country (or those governing it on his behalf) by serving in the military.  Most of his classmates, it seems, have gotten little out of their college education, other than the satisfaction of being able to brag about it.  Except for the one, most vulnerable, least sure of himself, who took his schooling to heart and decided to pass it on.  That one, according to the queer history of Mr. Bennett, is the outsider who, unlike his closeted professor, has a chance to be, make, and impart what he has learned about himself.

At first, I was irritated by the imposed pastness of the action, as much as I can relate to the period as one of adolescent confusion.  Why bother to recreate a certain historial age, to impose a make-believe historicity on the growing-up experiences portrayed, thereby diminishing or obscuring their relevance? How would their story play out if were set in the present day, rather than a past that looks, by virtue of being bygone, quaint to those who have not lived it and to those whose vision is warped by nostalgic longing?

Might not such an act of looking back serve a purpose other than to suggest a past beyond change? The history of those boys turned men, individuals who were not always in control of their paths (as accidents shaped them as much as their actions), is not so much over as it is crossing over into the present.

The History Boys strikes me as an old man’s gesture of bridging what is often thought of as a generation gap, a chasm into which recent lessons and those still present to teach them are tossed to be discarded.  It is an encouragement to learn not from books and experience alone, but from intercourse with those around us, those whose stories might not get into the books other than by being thought of while reading.

The body of our histories, like the history of our bodies, cannot be got at from a distance, scrutinized in clinical detachment by ostensibly objective onlookers; it has to be lived, felt and shared in order to matter.  Beyond the groping for bare facts in hopes of an elusive naked truth, beyond the stripping of traditions exposed as lies and the weaving of postmodern thought in a garish display of thinly veiled self-pleasuring, imparting an understanding of history is a mentoring in the half-forgotten sense of the word.

 “Pass the parcel.  That’s sometimes all you can do.  Take it, feel it and pass it on.  Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day.  Pass it on, boys [and girls].”

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On This Day in 1930: ‘”Mystery Gun” Disappears As Lights Go Out’ in Invisible Courtroom

I don’t suppose I shall ever get used to it. The Welsh weather, I mean, the nocturnal roars and howlings of which I often drown out by listening to the familiar voices of old-time radio, reassuring and comforting voices like those of Harry Bartell or Elliot Lewis, both of whom were born on this day, 28 November, in 1913 and 1917, respectively. Storms are part of the Welsh soundscape, much like the bleating of sheep on the hills. If such climate conditions were faced by the people of New York, among whom I numbered for some fifteen years of my life, I wager that the local television newscasts would report little else. To be sure, last night’s storm did make headlines, being that a tornado wreaked havoc in a village just a few miles from my present home.

Thanks to some well-chosen radio thriller, I managed to sleep through it all, losing myself in dreams that, once radioactivated, tend to become particularly vivid. I often wonder just how much my mind, conscious or not, is influenced by the popular culture I consume by listening in. Sometimes, though, it is what we hear about, and not what we perceive, that stirs our imagination. There are a few listening experiences I can only dream of, plays I have only read or read about and consequently fascinate me no end. One such unheard soundplay is the serial The Trial of Vivienne Ware (previously mentioned here and discussed at some length in Etherized, my study of American radio dramatics). Pulled by the Hearst press and propagated on the air by station WJZ, New York, it was a spectacular publicity stunt designed to promote Hearst’s less than reputable papers.

Those tuning in did not only get to hear the proceedings, but were cast as jurors. They stood a chance of being awarded $1000 for coming up with the most convincing verdict (be it “guilty” or “innocent”), thus making it unnecessary for the author of the story—one Kenneth M. Ellis—to determine upon a reasonable conclusion and the fate of his titular character.

From the 25th to the last day of November, the fictional trial was broadcast live, with eminent figures of law and politics, New York Senator Robert F. Wagner and prominent attorney Ferdinand Pecora, heading a cast that included noted stage actress Rosamund Pinchot. Here is how the New York American, the Hearst paper sponsoring the series, described the session of 28 November 1930:

It was almost at the close of the session that the lights suddenly were extinguished and the court plunged into total darkness. Women’s screams, the shouts and bustle of court attaches, and the hammering of the gavel filled five or six black seconds with sound. Then the lights came on again—but the .38 caliber revolver which George Gordon Battle, chief counsel for Vivienne Ware, had just introduced as evidence had disappeared from the table where it lay.

Now, that’s a melodramatic conjuring act fit for the airwaves. It probably wouldn’t do much good during a stormy night, though, since such interactive thrills—let alone the pondering of the verdict, and what to do with the prize money—are, unlike much else that was presented on American radio with comforting predictability, anything but soporific.

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Now As Then: "Thanksgiving Day—1941"

Well, it took me some time to get it. Thanksgiving, I mean. Being German, I was unaccustomed to the holiday when I moved to the United States in the early 1990s. I didn’t quite understand what Steve Martin’s character in Trains, Planes & Automobiles was so desperately rushing home to . . . until I had lived long enough on American soil to sense the significance of this day. Now that I am living in Britain and, unlike last year, not flying back to America to observe it, I wish I could import the tradition.

I don’t mean to ship over all the trimmings and fixings, the pies and the parade. Just the concept of an annual get-together that encourages one to reflect upon what matters in life—provided that those who matter as “family” are understood to be any gathering of people (and, Montague insists, pets) whose presence spells home.

To the horror of some, an Americanized Halloween has caught on big time here during the last few years. Why not a grown-up holiday like Thanksgiving, regardless of the direction in which the Pilgrims were heading? With an eye to the future, I am not even being ahistorical.

A feast in defiance of the old saw that you can’t go home again, Thanksgiving is often thought of as an occasion to wax nostalgic. Sure, it is a time to look back; but that does not mean it should exhaust itself in sentimentality. It can be an incentive to pull through, an event for which people pull themselves and one other together in the face of adversities.

Belittled as a ritualistic tripping on tryptophan, bemoaned as an annual family headcount that starts with the headache of getting there and ends in a bellyache getting back, Thanksgiving still compels millions to travel hundreds of miles and, unlike Christmas, has remained remarkably free from commercialism. It mobilizes more folks than a national election. It is a day of the people, not of corporation (unless you are running an airline). And despite its culinary excesses, it is simple, solid, and reassuringly primal in its cheering of the harvest and the life we owe the land and its natural riches.

A celebration “wholly of our earth,” is how the aforementioned American poet Stephen Vincent Benét expressed the meaning of the day in a speech delivered by actor Brian Donlevy and broadcast on 19 November 1941, just a few weeks before the US entered the Second World War. “This year it is and must be a sober feast,” Benét reminded the listener. Even if the attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, the bombs over London were clear enough signs of the perils ahead:

Today, one hundred and thirty million Americans keep the day they first set apart.  We all know what Thanksgiving is—it’s turkey day and pumpkin pie day—the day of the meeting of friends and the gathering of families.  It does not belong to any one creed or stock among us, it does not honor any one great man.  It is the whole family’s day when we can all get together, think over the past months a little, feel a sense of harvest, a kinship with our land. It is one of the most secure and friendly of all our feasts.  And yet it was first founded in insecurity, by men who stood up to danger.  And that spirit is still alive.

“The democracy we cherish,” Benét concluded,

is the work of many years and many men.  But as those first men and women first gave thanks, in a dark hour, for the corn that meant life to them, so let us give thanks today—not for the little things of the easy years but for the land we cherish, the way of life we honor, and the freedom we shall maintain.

If it is set aside to cherish land, life, and liberty, Thanksgiving cannot mean a retreat into the home, a shutting of doors and a closing of one’s eyes to the responsibilities that lie beyond the closest circle of relatives and friends: the duties of citizenship and the challenges of living in a global community. Some of the liberties fought for, the life and the land enjoyed in the past are now being threatened; not by foreigners alone, but by those of us who rely on or deal in outmoded constructs, who promote the concept of nation while defying the communal for their own profit.

“There are many days in the year that we celebrate,” Benét remarked, “but this one is wholly of our earth.” Although he might have meant his native ground—his speech being a pep talk to potential soldiers and a rallying cry for the home that soon would turn front—it won’t hurt to misread him, to consider “our earth” to be that truly common ground we share and to reflect on the global crises that may lie ahead and that, if at all, can only be met jointly. I hope we are “still alive” to this “spirit” and am thankful to those who keep on conjuring it.

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The Candy Man Can’t: "Junk Food" Advertising Outlawed on British Television

Well, it’s been a bad day for Willy Wonka. The snack manufacturers in the UK are in a state of sugar shock. Sure, the chocolate factories will remain open; but the popsicle peddlers and potato chip pushers have been dealt with a restraining order, forced to keep a low profile when it comes to accosting their most valued customers. The golden ticket—or any such gimmick designed to promote so-called “junk food” on television—is a thing of the past. Count Chocula will have to go underground in search of fresh blood, and millions of hyperactive and hypoglycemic kiddies might have to learn about candy from strangers, now that cable channels are closed to the trans-fat movers and saltshakers that thus far defined and financed much of children’s television.

The ban on “junk food” advertising is to go into effect in January 2007, the BBC reports. The measures are surprisingly far-reaching, considering that such commercials will no longer be permitted on any “pre-school children’s programs,” “programs on mainstream channels aimed at children” or “cable and satellite children’s channels,” “programs aimed at young people,” including those featuring music videos, and “general entertainment programs” that “appeal to” a “higher than average” number of viewers under the age of sixteen.

The decision, presumably on behalf of an obesity-prone or malnourished public, was made by Ofcom (Office of Communications), a new regulatory body established in 2002 and authorized by Britain’s Office of Communications Act in 2003. Will this catch on elsewhere? Are ice cream, soda pop, and French fries going the way of the cigarette, now that health fascism is on the rise in the west?

What might have happened to American action heroes like Buzz Corry, commander in chief of the Space Patrol, had the FCC clamped down on US radio advertising in the 1930s and ’40s (whose jingles you may hear and see discussed here)? Would Buzz have had to load his tank with corn flakes or oatmeal, like most of the competition? Space Patrol, after all, “was brought to you by Nestle’s Eveready, the instant cocoa, and famous Nestle chocolate bars. Remember N-E-S-T-L-E’-S.” And, as the announcer promised, those listening in could get their own “rocket cockpit” and fly “into space” with Buzz Corry if only they sent in those Nestle labels.

Are we, in this happy meal age of movie tie-ins and product placement, really Buzz Lightyears removed from such sponsorship models? No doubt, there’s lots of dough in cookies, and those protective of commercial television foresee great losses in revenue; losses, they argue, that might very well lower the quality of programming in Britain, as advertisers lose interest in a large group of potential viewers previously seen as a target audience, thus decreasing the purchasing power of advertising-dependent cable channels.

So, who is to gain as kiddies trim down (if indeed such a widespread downsizing of pint-sizers will follow)? The outlawing of “junk food” advertising might prove a boon to those with poor parenting skills, those who rely on legal strictures and thrive on lawsuits to raise a new generation of leaner, healthier consumers, sturdier taxpayers with fewer cavities and lower blood sugar, calm little low-sodium dieters deprived of the catchy tunes that used to cheer our everyday.

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Live and Let Die: Is It Time to Give Bond the Boot?

Well, I know, it is an old argument. One that is being dusted off every time a new man slips into the suit. Always a man, mind you. And the man in question is Bond, James Bond. With Casino Royale now in theaters, and the less-than-favored Daniel Craig assuming the role of 007, the question arises anew: does Bond still matter, over fifty years after he was introduced to the world in Ian Fleming’s spy stories? Should he die another day, right this minute, or some time tomorrow (which presumably never dies)? What does his resilience tell us about the crumbled British Empire, about the state of international diplomacy, about the ways of the warring world?

A new Bond picture is still a media event, some forty-five years after the release of the first entry in what turned out to be a highly lucrative franchise. For me, it all began with The Spy Who Loved Me, the second movie I ever got to see in a theater; as such, it made quite an impression on me. Okay, he did not love me (little did I know how much he loathed me and my kind). The villain was played by a fellow German (Curt Jurgens); but dubbing, as it is still being practiced in my native country, all but obscured the lingering animosity toward Germany as expressed in such castings. It is easy to watch James Bond thrillers without noticing their cultural and political agenda. It is convenient to do so; but it also renders those films irrelevant.

Bond did much to keep the Cold War alive—or any crisis beneficial to the West. He has always been On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (rather than the people’s)—and a grateful Queen Elizabeth II once again attended the Royal Premiere of the latest 007 mission she thus endorsed. Bond is the anti-diplomat—ultra-conservative, xenophobic, and unapologetically sexist. Dame Judy Dench was brought in as a response to decades of Pussy Galore and the casting cat calls it provoked; but “Octo” never did denote octogenarian and female sidekicks still get the kittenish outfits, the headlines and centerfolds, along with those less than subtle names suggestive of slippery bodies just waiting for a firm . . . well, you know.

Bond is an institution—perhaps one that is ripe for abolishment. Austin Powers may have mocked the machismo, as others have done before him, but left the Bond franchise unshaken if slightly stirred.

The producers of the latest installment could have responded to such claims of obsolescence by turning Casino Royale into a period piece, setting it in the political climate in which it was conceived. It would have been a bold move for Bond, at once an acknowledgment of the datedness of the character and its historical significance, a topical significance long obscured in favor of gadgetry and reduced to pop-cultural nods to celebrities of the day (such as Goldie or Grace Jones, last seen at a Guinness Book-making gathering of the Joneses). Diamonds Are Forever—but traditions? Upon reflection, the Bond image might be as timeless as a rhinestone on an extravagant designer suit: dernier crie one day, but “for crying out loud” thereafter.

That said, I am looking forward to the latest James Bond, if only to take him on. If Freddy Kruger can be confronted with Jason, how about a match-up of Bond versus Shaft, to kick the imperial highness right out of 007’s pants? How about Bond having the living daylights scared out of him by Lara Croft? I’d put my Moneypenny on such a fight. How about, Goldfingers crossed, Shaft and Lara Croft as James Bond? You might get to witness just that . . . if you only live twice.

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Note: There’s a War Still On


Well, there were four that fell
On Remembrance Day
As all across Britain
An old armistice was recalled with paper poppies.

And there were more who died
On Remembrance Day
With marching bands passing
And newly wrought wreaths displaying old grief on cold stones.

Note: there’s a war still on
As Remembrance Day
Becomes an occasion
To ready the words of Wilfred Owen for broadcast.

Hear! There are gunshots now
That Remembrance Day
Is gone until next year
While coffins will keep telling time like grandfather clocks.

Mind that the dead come back
On Remembrance Day,
Effects and bones sent home
To force us face that what has come to pass is not past.

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Election Day Special: Could This Hollywood Heavy Push You to the Polls?

Well, I don’t know how many voters turned out to re-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt on this day, 7 November, in 1944 because they had been listening to the radio the night before. Those tuning in to affiliate stations of the four major networks were informed that regular programming was being suspended for a “special political broadcast.” Stepping up to the microphone were Hollywood leading ladies Claudette Colbert, Joan Bennett, Virginia Bruce, Linda Darnell, and Lana Turner, composer Irving Berlin, radio personalities Milton Berle and “Molly Goldberg,” as well as the gangster elite of Tinseltown—Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson, John Garfield, and James Cagney (pictured). Along with fellow Americans “from a great many walks of life,” Humphrey Bogart explained, they all had a “deep and common interest” in the outcome of the election.

Heading the parade of A-listers was Judy Garland, who burst into song with this “suggestion for tomorrow:”

Here’s the way to win the war, win the war, win the war
Here’s the way to win the war, you gotta get out and vote.
To get the things we’re fighting for, fighting for, fighting for,
To get the things we’re fighting for, you gotta get out and vote.
To clinch that happy ending,
On the Tokyo, the Berlin, and the Rome front,
The fellow with the bullet is depending
On the fella with the ballot on the home front.
Oh, we wanna have a better world, better world, better world,
Wanna have a better world? You gotta get out and vote.

There was no doubt just what kind of “suggestion” Garland and company had in mind. What radio listeners were treated to was an hour-long campaign ad for the Democratic party. Sing it, Judy:

Now we’re on the right track, right track, right track,
Now we’re on the right track, we’re gonna win the war.
Right behind the President, President, President,
Right behind the President for 1944.
The track ahead is clear now,
Let’s keep the engines humming.
Don’t change the engineer now,
‘Cause the ‘New World Special’ is a-coming.

Throughout the program, those fighting overseas or laboring at home for victory voiced their fears of a “Third World War,” presumably less likely under the current administration, expressed themselves grateful for Democrat bureaucracy (which, they held, kept the groceries affordable to everyone), or openly attacked a dangerous “amateur” of a Republican candidate, Thomas E. Dewey, by whom they claimed to have been “torpedoed.” Dewey was argued to have rigged the voting laws of New York State, making it “impossible” for “thousands” to go to the polls and cast their ballots for FDR. Even registered Republicans came out in support of the President, expressing themselves dismayed at or ashamed of the candidate representing their party.

It’s a rousing hour of radio electioneering, concluding with an address by the President—and his prayer. With all the microphones on the Democrats that night, the opposition (even if aided by Dewey’s decimating system) simply had none.