THEATRE GUILD ON THE AIR {U.S. STEEL HOUR}: CALL IT A
DAY {GERTRUDE LAWRENCE, FRANCHOT TONE} (RADIO)
Summary
One in this series of radio adaptations of successful
Broadway plays, and occasionally, books or films,
presented by the Theatre Guild. In this presentation,
Gertrude Lawrence and Franchot Tone star in Dodie
Smith's comedy "Call It a Day" as a married couple whose
fancies turn to thoughts of love on the first day of
spring. Announcer Norman Brokenshire opens the
program. Roger Pryor introduces the play, which marks
the 200th production of the Theatre Guild on the Air and
which also features Irene Worth and Robert Flemyng,
members of the current Broadway production of T. S.
Eliot's "The Cocktail Party." The play opens on the
Hiltons, Dorothy and Roger, at their home in Scarsdale
on a beautiful spring day. While the Hiltons seem stuck
in a bit of a marital rut, their children are oddly
affected by the seasonal change. Their youngest
daughter Ann, stirred by the work of Edna St. Vincent
Millay, has decided to become a poet, while the
17-year-old Catherine has grown moody and strange
since she began posing for a portrait with married
painter Paul Francis. Dorothy's friend Muriel calls to
meet up for a matinee and cocktails with her brother
Frank, a tennis-playing bachelor who has spent the last
several months in Brazil on a rubber farm; Roger
announces that he will be meeting with the actress
Beatrice Gwynne to give her tax advice. The housekeeper
ominously warns that the "first spring day is in the
devil's pay." In Act II, Catherine flirts obviously
with the painter Paul, but he resists her advances; he
admits that he gave her the wrong idea in their first
meeting on Orchard Hill and agrees to meet her there one
last time that evening. At lunch, Muriel tells Dorothy
of her plan to set her brother up with one Dorothy
Walton. Muriel abruptly leaves Dorothy with her
brother, but Frank mistakes her for the woman his sister
wants to set him up with. When he discovers his error,
he insists on still seeing Dorothy later at her home,
having fallen in love with her already. At the office,
Roger meets with the actress about her taxes. Miss
Gwynne flirts shamelessly with Roger and invites him up
to her place that evening, to which Roger agrees despite
some hesitation. In Act III, Catherine faces
disappointment when her mother tells her that Mr. and
Mrs. Francis have abruptly left town to see some
friends. That evening, Dorothy resists Frank's
advances, despite the temptations of spring, while Roger
staves off the amorous Miss Gwynne with tax details.
When the couple return to bed that evening, they
quarrel, revealing their jealousies, but all is resolved
when each fully confesses their "offers" and their
decisions to refuse them. Includes commercials.
(Network affiliation varies: An earlier series "Theatre
Guild Dramas" aired on CBS from 1943 to 1944; "The
Theatre Guild on the Air" also aired on ABC from 1945 to
1949.)
The acquisition and cataloging of The Theater Collection
was made possible by The Park Foundation, Inc., and the
Verizon Foundation.
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: June 4, 1950 Sunday 8:30 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:59:44
- COLOR/B&W: N/A
- CATALOG ID: R:0262
- GENRE: Radio - Comedy
- SUBJECT HEADING: Comedy; Theater Collection, The
- SERIES RUN: NBC - Radio series, 1949-1954
- COMMERCIALS:
- Radio - Commercials - United States Steel
CREDITS
- Armina Marshall … Executive Producer
- H. William Fitelson … Production (Misc.), Managing Director
- S. Mark Smith … Production (Misc.), Editor
- Lawrence Langner … Production (Misc.), General supervision by
- Theresa Helburn … Production (Misc.), General supervision by
- Homer Fickett … Director
- Harold Levey … Composer, Conductor
- Dodie Smith … Writer
- Erik Barnouw … Writing (Misc.), Adapted for radio by
- Norman Brokenshire … Announcer
- Roger Pryor … Narrator
- Gertrude Lawrence … Cast, Dorothy
- Franchot Tone … Cast, Roger
- Jimsey Somers … Cast, Ann
- Mary Fickett … Cast, Catherine
- Eda Heineman … Cast, Mrs. Milson
- Viola Roche … Cast, Muriel
- Roger Pryor … Cast, Paul
- Robert Flemyng … Cast, Frank
- Irene Worth … Cast, Beatrice Gwynne
- Barbara Weeks … Cast, Elsie
- James Monks … Cast, Policeman
- George Hicks … Talent, United States Steel