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Family Affair Friday: Episode 1, Buffy (Pilot), 9/12/66

This is the first in a weekly series reviewing episodes of the classic CBS sitcom Family Affair

Episode 1, Buffy (Pilot), 9/12/66
Written by: Edmund Hartmann. Directed by: James Sheldon.

Synopsis

Successful construction engineer Bill Davis resides in what his gentleman’s gentleman French refers to as “the quiet, monastic atmosphere of the bachelor apartment.” (“Monastic” is a bit ironic–Bill’s calendar shows him dating four women in less than a week.) As we meet him, he is returning from work in India that was successful enough to land him on the cover of World magazine.

Slowest. News week. Ever.

Without warning, Fran Higer arrives from Terre Haute, Ind., with Bill’s young niece, Buffy. Buffy’s parents were killed in an “accident,” presumably a car accident, about a year before. Bill was in Turkey at the time, and Buffy and her siblings were separated and placed with various relatives in Terre Haute. Fran wants Buffy to live with Bill because the child–defiant and unemotional–can’t get along with Mr. Higer. Believing that his bachelor status and frequent travels make him unsuitable as a father figure, Bill resists.

Buffy arrives.

Meanwhile, French is appalled at having to perform such duties as serving milk and cookies and escorting Buffy to the bathroom. He calls her “a little clot,” and she responds by biting his leg.

French, bitten. Well, he sort of had it coming.

Bill gently reprimands Buffy and tries to make her see that living with him would not be ideal for her. “Why don’t you want me to live with you?” she asks flatly. During this conversation, Fran slips out and leaves Buffy behind. The next morning, Buffy overhears Bill telling French that he is sending her back to Terre Haute. Buffy spends the day with French in the park, where French faces teasing from a group of nannies who believe he has joined their ranks.

French: “I am no one’s nanny.”

At the suggestion of his partner, Ted Gaynor, Bill decides to send Buffy to school in Switzerland rather than back to Terre Haute. When he tells Buffy, she is characteristically unresponsive, but in her room she cries and writes a farewell note.

Awww.

Years of nanny experience help French’s friend Miss Faversham lead French to Buffy’s hiding place in the basement. When Uncle Bill realizes how upset she is, he tells her she can stay. “Grown-ups always tell you things like that at night to make you go to sleep. It’s all different in the morning,” she replies. Uncle Bill assures her that he’s telling the truth and tells her that he loves her. For the first time, Buffy smiles and stops her curt “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” answers.

Awww times 10.

Soon Uncle Bill must leave for Peru. Just as he’s leaving, Buffy’s twin Jody arrives with another relative, who thought the twins should be together. After Bill departs, the twins’ teenage sister Cissy shows up, leaving an exasperated French to remark, “Good heavens, I am a nanny.”

Awww to the infinite power.

Random Thoughts

This is a good pilot that sets up the show’s situation with equal parts comedy and pathos. Tiny Anissa Jones and Johnnie Whitaker are at their most adorable. Jones’ portrayal is mostly deadpan, but that’s appropriate for Buffy’s mental state.

Buffy’s apparently suffered some harsh treatment in her prior home, considering her remark about being stuck in a closet as punishment and her cynicism about adults’ sincerity. Fran’s behavior here–dumping Buffy at the apartment and sneaking out–is pretty disgusting. I guess a charitable interpretation is that she knew Buffy and Uncle Bill would be better off together, and that Bill would come around in time. Mr. Higer sounds like a real jerk–what kind of person can’t be patient with a recently orphaned child?

The oh-so-sensitive Aunt Fran. By the way, the books in Uncle Bill’s den seem to be of the Reader’s Digest condensed variety. I know he’s a busy man, but really.

The pilot version of Mrs. Beasley lacks glasses and has a creepier face than the one used throughout the series.

Mrs. Beasley 1.0

Brian Keith and Sebastian Cabot are both wonderful in this episode. Keith exudes warmth in his emotional scene with Buffy, and Cabot conveys  wonderful disgust with the whole idea of child care.

Notable Quotes

French: “May I ask, madam, what is a Buffy?”

Buffy: “Mrs. Beasley is not a doll. Mrs. Beasley is my friend.”

French, shortly after Buffy arrives, regarding Uncle Bill’s date: “Miss  Larrabee fled, sir.”

French: “Back home, in civilization, we have infancy and manhood–nothing in between.”

An exchange between Buffy and Jody about Mr. French:

Jody: Who’s he?

Buffy: He’s the maid.

Jody: Does he like kids?

Buffy: I don’t think so.

Jody: Could he run fast?

Buffy: No.

Jody: (After a thoughtful pause) Okay, I’ll stay.

Guest Cast

Ted Gaynor: Philip Ober. Among Ober’s many guest appearances were two on I Love Lucy–not surprising since he was once married to Vivian Vance. He appeared twice on Sebastian Cabot’s early 1960s series Checkmate (which is available on DVD–wow). He also appeared in many movies, including North by Northwest and From Here to Eternity.

Fran Higer: Louise Latham, who would return twice as Aunt Fran. Latham’s career spanned from Perry Mason and Gunsmoke in the ’50s to CHiPs and The Waltons in the ’70s, Designing Women and Hunter in the ’80s; E.R. in the ’90s; and The X-Files in 2000. Her first movie role was as the title character’s mother in Hitchcock’s Marnie.

Miss Faversham: Heather Angel. She appeared in many movies, including That Hamilton Woman and Suspicion. She also did voices in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Her Family Affair role would be a recurring one.

Miss Larrabee: Lisa Seagram.

Miss Hodges: Sandra Wirth.

Bess Melville: Barbara Perry.

Miss Ponsonby: Nora Marlowe.

Mrs. Grayson: Shirley O’Hara.

Critical Reaction

Critics didn’t exactly embrace Family Affair. Though I like the show, I find this snarky Cleveland Amory review from the December 24, 1966 TV Guide pretty amusing.

Final Fun Facts

Uncle Bill is not fond of ballet. Bill’s business partner is Ted Gaynor.

Where to Watch

The whole pilot episode is available on Youtube. Here is part one:

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Weird Words of Wisdom: TMI, Dick Clark! Edition

“At certain times each month you feel listless, bored or even completely knocked out. A physical change is making its presence known through menstruation. With the beginning of these days of monthly bleeding, some girls may be hit by attacks of cramps, headaches and even upset stomach. Strange, isn’t it? And frightening at first, until you begin to understand that this is part of life’s process for continuing itself. Your body will supply a son or daughter to build the world of the future.”

Your Happiest Years by Dick Clark, 1959

About the Book: Do any adults actually remember adolescence as their “happiest years?” This book by television personality Dick Clark, who would later be called “the world’s oldest teenager,” falls into that strange 1950s genre we have encountered here before—a volume of teenage advice authored by an adult celebrity. Can you imagine buying your young daughter a book in which Ryan Seacrest explains how her body will soon burst into womanhood?

Of course, when it comes to these celebrity books, it’s questionable who really authored them. Pat Boone’s book had a ring of authenticity, but this one is a pretty generic collection of 1950s wisdom for teenagers. It offers sensible advice on dealing with friends and family, while urging strict adherence to gender roles.

About the Author:  American Bandstand premiered nationally in 1957. The show “did as much as anyone or anything to advance the influence of teenagers and rock ‘n’ roll on American culture,” according to the New York Times. An immediate hit, it would run until 1989. In its early years, the Times wrote, teenagers saw Clark as “their music-savvy older brother.”

Dick’s marriage to high-school sweetheart Bobbie gave his teenage romance advice some credibility. Unfortunately, Dick and Bobbie divorced only two years after the publication of Your Happiest Years.

Clark was also a shrewd businessman, who never shied from a money-making opportunity.

”I get enormous pleasure and excitement sitting in on conferences with accountants, tax experts and lawyers,” he told the Times in 1961. It’s not surprising that he would lend at least his name to this book. Now, it is a bit surprising that he also “authored” a book for adults about bowling (scroll about 3/4 of the way down the page).

Clark wasn’t experiencing one of his happiest years in 1959. As the U.S. House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight investigated payola in the music industry, Clark’s network bosses took pre-emptive action. As Time wrote on November 30, 1959, “ABC confronted him with a significant decision: he must get rid of his outside music interests or else quit TV…Faced with the ABC ultimatum, Clark decided to ‘divest’ himself of his interests in various music firms.” Clark denied any involvement in payola.

Celebrity Names This Book Drops: Connie Francis, Solly Hemus, Mickey Mantle, Dinah Shore.

Cautionary Tales Clark Offers:

  •         A boy who failed to overcome his shyness with girls at the appropriate age and reached the age of 19 without ever being kissed.
  •         A young ladies’ man who grew into a lonely adult when girls tired of his “gay-blade routine.”
  •         A sickly boy who resisted his parents’ curfew and came down with tuberculosis.
  •            A girl who stayed out all night, causing her worried father to head out looking for her. In his exhausted state, he crashed his car and emerged permanently crippled.

More Quotes from Your Happiest Years

“Once you’ve stepped out and found you can have a good time with girls, you are free to call any of them you know and ask for a date. They can say no, but at least you can ask. You don’t even have to feel self-conscious about it if one turns you down—you can dial another. A girl can’t do this—or certainly should not.”

“The sweaters and blouses that once flopped about you, to the despair of your mother and father, who wanted their little girl to look neat, are starting to fit snugly around your chest. Your breasts are undergoing a change as you grow into young womanhood. So are your hips, which broaden as they prepare for the function nature has marked out for you as a woman: the bearing of children.”

“It’s fine to be ‘one of the boys’ at certain ages. The teen age isn’t one of those times. The sports you played together when you were nine or ten belong only to him around thirteen or fourteen. You can know about them. In fact you should be able to talk about them—but let him star at them. You be there to cheer and he’ll notice and appreciate that.”

“A young woman should begin in her teens learning the things that keep a home running smoothly. She can watch how her mother cooks and bakes. There are also many opportunities for a daughter to observe how Mother handles Dad when he’s had a tough day at work. Mom can always use some help around the house, with dishes, cleaning, cooking, and a million other things a girl should know to qualify for that band of gold.”

On menstruation: “Accept it as you accept other signs of developing femininity and attractive womanhood. Although it may give you some discomfort and even embarrassment at first, it is a mark of special favor for you as a woman.”

Why teenage boys shouldn’t avoid dating in favor of hanging out with the guys: “A pinball machine may be a lot of fun when you’re seventeen, but at twenty-two it’s no date for a dance, and it won’t sew up those ripped shirts, when you’re thirty.”

Previous entries in this series

Weird Words of Wisdom: Prettily Bewildered Edition

Weird Words of Wisdom: Spanking New Edition

Weird Words of Wisdom: Chaperoned Edition

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A Love Affair with Words: His Girl Friday

My husband balked at re-watching my favorite movie with me this weekend.

 “How can you not love this?” I asked, a few minutes into the film.

“It’s just so much…talking!” he sputtered.

His Girl Friday is, indeed, all talk. Its characters talk so much, so quickly, that their words overlap, ringing out into a musical counterpoint.  

Words attracted me to His Girl Friday the first time I encountered the movie, during my teenage years. As I flipped channels, this exchange captured my attention:

 Walter: This other fellow–I’m sorry that I didn’t get a chance to see him. I’m more or less particular about whom my wife marries. Where is he?

Hildy: Oh, he”s right on the job, waiting for me out there.

Walter. Hmm…Do you mind if I meet him?

Hildy: Oh, no, Walter. It wouldn’t do any good, really.

Walter: Now, you’re not afraid are you?

Hildy: Afraid? Of course not!

Walter: Then, come on! Let’s see this paragon. Is he as good as you say?

Hildy: He’s better!

Walter: Well, then, what does he want with you?

The Front Page, a 1928 Broadway hit written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, is His Girl Friday’s source. In the play, star reporter Hildy Johnson wants to escape the seedy world of journalism by marrying and finding “respectable” work. His managing editor, Walter Burns, thwarts him at every turn as the two collaborate on a bombshell story—a prison break by condemned murderer Earl Williams.

In His Girl Friday, Director Howard Hawks transforms Hildy Johnson into a woman, a change that raises the stakes considerably. Hildy’s choice between journalism and respectability is also a choice between a career and a traditional feminine role, and a choice between two very different men—her insurance-salesman fiancé Bruce Baldwin and her ex-husband, Walter Burns.

Two kinds of people populate His Girl Friday’s world. The journalists make up one group—a fast-talking, irreverent group. Walter Burns is this group’s apotheosis; nothing matters to him except the power and pleasure he derives from words. On the other hand, we have earnest people like Bruce; Earl Williams and his friend Molly Malloy; and prospective “city sealer” Joe Pettibone, who blows the lid off the mayor’s plan to execute a mentally ill man. These people speak slowly, mean what they say, and become lost in the journalists’ layered ironies and wise cracks.

Rosalind Russell’s Hildy operates well within both groups. Adopting a hushed interview style, she elicits Earl’s story. Showing sympathy that her male counterparts lack, she wins Molly’s trust. Admiring goodness and simplicity, she works to protect Bruce from Walter’s machinations.

In the end, though, Hildy can’t escape Walter and the lure of word craft. Words are weapons in their sparring, but also bind them in moments of shared delight that Bruce can’t comprehend. (Consider his delayed reaction, in the restaurant scene, when Hildy sees through Walter’s lies about another reporter. Bruce’s confusion produces contempt in Walter and embarrassment in Hildy.)

As James Walters wrote in the Journal of Film and Video:

“The film makes clear Hildy and Walter’s delight in controlling language, their near-delirium in playing together with the pace, tone, and rhythm of words. Their fluent use of language connects them with a world in which the ability to use words dictates a person’s status and in which, as in Molly’s case, an inability signals a person’s collapse…Indeed, there is a truthfulness in their shared vocal rhythms and patterns, as though their profound affinity emerges naturally and unavoidably whenever they are together.”

Choosing Walter’s world means giving up a lot, from little courtesies accorded to ladies, to society’s respect, to hopes of home and family and “a halfway-normal life.” For Hildy, however, giving up the mental exercise that Walter and writing provide would be a more bitter sacrifice.

His Girl Friday influenced my own choices, propelling me toward journalism school and a writing career. One day, in my college newspaper offices, the managing editor mentioned a Cary Grant movie she’d watched the night before.

“Have you ever seen His Girl Friday?” I asked.

 My reserved editor suddenly turned gushy: “Isn’t she great?!”

Hildy became a heroine ahead of her time when she announced, “I’m no suburban bridge player. I’m a newspaper man.”

Final Fun Facts: Hawks pioneered the overlapping dialog style that distinguishes His Girl Friday, but Grant and Russell made some delightful contributions to the script as well. Grant’s ad-libs include Walter’s description of Bruce as looking like “you know, that fellow in the movies…Ralph Bellamy.” Rosalind Russell, in her autobiography Life is a Banquet, described her secret hiring of a comedy writer to punch up the script. He added such bits as her murmured “slap happy” and her hand-signal-of-warning, both in the restaurant scene.

Note: His Girl Friday is available for streaming, free, at Hulu, and for free downloading and streaming at Internet Archive.

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Play Family Matters

When I was about four, I walked with my mom to a nearby store. I can still remember walking home, up a hill, carrying a large box, and bursting with excitement. For no special reason at all, my mom had bought me the Fisher Price Play Family School that day.

Play Family toys were among my favorites. Besides the School, I had the House and the Houseboat. When I was five, Santa brought me the wonderful Play Family Village, which included a firehouse, dental office, theater, post office, police station, barber shop, garage, restaurant, and telephone booth.

I don’t have any of my old Fisher Price toys, but my husband has picked up some vintage structures at flea markets and yard sales. My daughter, who is nine, still enjoys playing with them now and then. Today, she set up a Play Family city around the living room rug.

Here’s how our little people spent Labor Day.

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Spin Again Sunday: H.R. Pufnstuf

Another week, another cardboard-and-plastic journey to the past.

Today’s Game: H.R. Pufnstuf Game

Copyright Date: 1971

Object: Be first to collect cards completing picture of PufnStuf characters.

Game Board: Colorful and cartoony, though the cartoon likenesses leave a lot to be desired.

Game Pieces: None. Cards and a spinner are all you need to play this game.

Recommended Ages: 6-12. The game box, with its full-color photos, might have attracted kids throughout that age range, but the graphics inside scream little kid.

Game Play: The board is really superfluous in this game; players don’t move around it. They just spin and collect cards and try to complete a puzzle. (It’s nice that Freddy the Flute gets his own puzzle; on the show, he just squeaked “Jimmy” and got stolen a lot.

Personal Notes: I never had this game as a child—I would’ve been too young to play it in 1971. I did watch H.R. Pufnstuf, though, and still have the disturbing, hallucinatory memories to prove it.

About the Show: H.R. Pufnstuf premiered on September 6, 1969, as part of NBC’s Saturday morning lineup. Popular with kids, it aired for two years on NBC, one year on ABC, and two and a half years in widespread syndication—an amazing feat considering that Sid and Marty Krofft only produced 17 episodes.

Final Fun Fact: Jack Wild, who starred as Jimmy, got to keep one of the original Freddy the Flutes as a souvenir after the show wrapped, according to the book Pufnstuf and Other Stuff.

Previous Entries in this Series:

Charlie’s Angels

Laverne & Shirley

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Dreaming of Family Affair

Something I’d seen on TV as a child haunted my memory for years.

It involved a perky teenage girl beginning her service as a hospital volunteer. In her starched candy-striper uniform, she was the picture of efficiency. During her first day on the job, however, she made a terrible mistake. An old woman patient begged the girl for a glass of water, and the girl gave it to her. She didn’t know that the woman was on her way into surgery and barred from drinking food and water. The old woman’s doctor became furious with the girl because her mistake could have cost the old woman her life.

Many years later, I saw this show again. My husband, who watched with me, had never seen it before but had heard my description. Well, the show wasn’t quite the way I remembered it. The old woman’s begging and the doctor’s reaction weren’t nearly as dramatic on film as they were in my memory. My husband still teases me about this incident when I share other childhood memories.

In my defense, CBS showed Family Affair in daytime reruns from September 1970 to January 1973, so I was no more than four when I watched Cissy Davis’ stint as a candy striper.

But that scene and others made a vivid—if inaccurate—impression on my young mind, and gave Family Affair a special place in my heart.

Too young for the show’s 1966-1971 primetime run, I discovered it in those daytime reruns. After that, it pretty much disappeared until TV Land aired it in the 1990s.

Revisiting the show then was like encountering an old friend. I enjoyed it so much that in the late ‘90s and early aughts I ran a comprehensive Family Affair web site.

(Kathy Garver left an approving message on my guestbook!)

Since that site is lost in the mists of time and the wreckage of Geocities, I am declaring Fridays Family Affair days on Embarrassing Treasures.  Starting next week, I’ll take a fresh look at one episode each week and share images from my large collection of Family Affair memorabilia.

Why do I like Family Affair so much?

1.      A strange poignancy permeates the show and makes it stand out from similar shows. Unlike every other classic TV sitcom whose premise involved dead parents (My Three Sons, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, and many more), Family Affair showed kids who remembered and missed their parents occasionally—not just in the first episode or even the first season.

2.      Brian Keith is my favorite on-screen father figure ever. Whenever his paternal love radiates through his ruggedly masculine persona, I melt. This happens often in Family Affair, but my favorite Brian Keith dad moment comes in Disney’s 1961 The Parent Trap. Check out the scene that begins at 4:00, when he realizes he’s seeing his daughter Sharon for the first time since she was a baby.

When Keith died in 1997, Entertainment Weekly called him an underrated actor—I wholeheartedly agree.

3.      Mrs. Beasley! What sitcom ever had a product tie-in like this one?  Her old-lady look is unique in the world of dolls and straddles the line between cute and creepy. Episodes where Mrs. Beasley gets lost are always great.

4.      The setting is exotic. Sure, it’s just New York City. But to small-town kids like me, a city childhood did seem exotic. Buffy and Jody lived in a high-rise apartment building and had a terrace. They played in Central Park. A British butler was their babysitter.

Buffy, Mr. French, and Jody

5.      Mr. French! Sebastian Cabot’s chagrined portrayal of Mr. French, forced to take on a nanny role he never sought, cuts the show’s saccharine level and provides some genuine humor.

6.      Buffy and Jody. The names alone are fun to say. (As a young child, I thought “Buffy and Jody” was the show’s title.) Anissa Jones and Johnnie Whitaker are genuinely adorable in the early seasons, although they later faced the curse common to sitcom kids—a mandate to continue being little and adorable long after it was possible or desirable.

7.      That jaunty Frank De Vol theme song and the kaleidoscopic opening effect that mesmerized me as a child (and reminded me of my grandma’s bingo markers). My memory never failed me where that was concerned.

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Old-Time Radio Playlist: London Calling, Part 2

I continue this week with the second part of my Olympics-inspired playlist.

“Confession”


Escape, December 31, 1947
“You are lost in a London fog, uncertain whether the figures looming around you are real or creatures of your imagination. And somewhere in the wet grayness lurks a murderer, from whom you must escape.”
Story: A Canadian soldier, shell-shocked from his World War II service, becomes disoriented on a foggy London evening and encounters a mysterious woman who soon ends up dead.
Based Upon: A short story by Algernon Blackwood, a prolific and influential author of horror fiction.
Notable Cast Members: Bill Conrad, one the best and most ubiquitous actors in old-time radio, plays the soldier. Fellow Generation Xers will remember Conrad best as TV’s Cannon and Jake from Jake and The Fatman. It can be hard, at first, to erase that visual from your mind as you listen to his radio work. His powerful performances soon engage your full attention, however. In my opinion, he did his finest work as Matt Dillon on radio’s Gunsmoke.
Peggy Webber, who plays the mysterious woman, will be familiar to viewers of TV’s Dragnet because she appeared in roughly a zillion episodes. She also worked as a writer, producer, and director in the early days of television, and she helped to found the California Artists Radio Theatre.
About Escape: Escape was “radio’s greatest series of high adventure,” according to John Dunning’s On the Air. It ran from 1947 to 1954, a sister series to the longer-running Suspense. Several things distinguish the two series. First, Suspense had bigger budgets and, thus, big-name guest stars, throughout most of its run. Those big budgets came from sponsors, which Escape didn’t have. This is a plus for the modern Escape listener—you don’t have to hear, or fast-forward through, grating commercials. (Yes, Autolite, I’m looking at you.) Escape tended to use more exotic settings than Suspense and dabbled more in the supernatural. Also, on Suspense things tended to end well; Escape often went for the darker ending. (I wonder how much sponsors, or the lack thereof, had to do with this.) Both series are excellent—they are in my top five favorite radio shows, and which one ranks higher just depends upon my mood.
My Verdict: This is a solid episode. A sense of dread slowly envelops the listener as the fog envelops Conrad’s character, and the ending is satisfyingly chilling.

“The Hands of Mr. Ottermole”


Suspense, December 2, 1948
“By all means, sergeant, let’s talk about…murder.”
Story: A journalist and a police sergeant talk about a serial strangler who’s menacing London. Since the script takes pains to avoid telling us the men’s names, it’s obvious one of them is the deadly Mr. Ottermole.
Based Upon: A short story of the same name by Thomas Burke, an author who specialized in portraying London and its working-class citizens. Burke published “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole” in 1931. According to Ellery Queen, “No finer crime story has ever been written, period.”
Notable Cast Members: Vincent Price and Claude Rains star in this episode. Price, of course, was made for creepy tales like this, but it’s Claude Rains who really shines.
About Suspense: Suspense billed itself, with ample justification, as “radio’s outstanding theater of thrills.” Extremely popular, it ran for 22 years (1940-1962). For much of that time, it attracted top Hollywood stars, who often got the chance to play roles that contrasted with their on-screen image. William Spier produced Suspense in its best years and, according to Dunning, “personally guided every aspect of the show, molding story, voice, sound effects, and music into audio masterpieces.”
My Verdict: Suspense is another of my top-five shows and an excellent introduction to old-time radio for new listeners. This episode is very good, with a script that keeps you guessing and an outstanding performance by Rains.
Final Fun Fact: Alfred Hitchcock Presents offered a TV adaptation of this story in 1957. You can watch it free via Hulu.

“Disaster in London”


Top Secret, August 6, 1950
“I think I will never feel anything again, ever.”
Story: A double agent is collaborating on a scheme to poison the London water supply with deadly bacteria.
Notable Cast Members: Top Secret starred Ilona Massey, or “beautiful Ilona Massey,” as she’s billed here. Nope, I had never heard of her either. She was a Hungarian actress who had a brief movie and television career.
About Top Secret: This NBC spy drama ran for only four months in 1950.
My verdict: This show is interesting. Spies didn’t proliferate in old-time radio the way cowboys and detectives did. Massey’s female spy is not ditzy or dependent on the men surrounding her. She’s a classic spy—world-weary, but brutally efficient. As this episode opens, she’s seeing to it that an enemy agent meets his doom under an oncoming subway train! She shows compassion, however, for the mother of the story’s double agent. This is the first Top Secret episode I’ve heard, and I will definitely seek out more. (Unfortunately, the sound quality is poor.)

“Portrait of London”


The CBS Radio Workshop, July 20, 1956
“This is possibly one of the most lovely views. I thought it was good from Westminster Bridge, but I shall always now think that Big Ben has a very special one. I’m looking directly down on Westminster Bridge, over the Thames. I can see St. Paul’s, and it is the perfect time of day, the end of the day, and the sun is shining.”
About the Episode: Sarah Churchill, actress and daughter of Sir Winston Churchill, narrates a documentary-style tour of London. Her tour includes the London Zoo, where she visits a lion that the Lions Club of America donated to her father; Petticoat Lane Market, where a seller demonstrates small figures of Sir Winston that puff on cigars; a rainy rehearsal for Trooping the Colour; and a trip to the top of the tower that houses Big Ben.
About The CBS Radio Workshop: Coming at the end of the radio era, this was an experimental anthology program that wasn’t afraid to take chances. Dunning quotes CBS Vice President Howard Barnes as saying, “We’ll never get a sponsor anyway, so we might as well try anything.”
My Verdict: This is absolutely charming. The sound patterns and interviews with Londoners and tourists come together to paint a vivid picture of the city. Sarah Churchill was beset by personal problems during the 1950s, but she makes a warm and enthusiastic host here. I’m a lifelong Anglophile, but I’ve only had the privilege of visiting London once. This program made me long to go again.
Google-Worthy References: While visiting Big Ben, Churchill learned that pennies are placed on the clock’s pendulum to adjust its timekeeping for accuracy. I had to know if they still use pennies; they do, although some of the original pennies have been replaced by a five-pound coin that commemorates the 2012 Olympics.
Final Fun Facts: I tried to find out more about Rusty, the lion featured here, to no avail. Rota the lion, presented to Winston Churchill in 1943, is much more well known. Rota died in 1955, so Rusty–whom his keeper says is young–must have been a kind of replacement. (You can see Rota, stuffed, at the Lightner Museum in St. Augustine, Florida.)
My quest to research Rusty led me to some other interesting destinations. This fascinating article describes Churchill’s attempt to bring a platypus to England, and this vintage London Zoo map has wonderful graphics, including an image of Churchill walking his lion and his kangaroo.