Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Flywheel of Fortune

Monday evenings in 1932 and 1933, an NBC radio program called Five Star Theater presented episodes of a comedy series called Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel starring Groucho and Chico Marx. When I first became involved in Marx Brothers fandom and history, all traces of these shows had disappeared off the face of the planet but for a few reviews and magazine articles about them. One Marxist scholar I knew spent several fruitless months trying to track down what he believed might be the only extant recording of an episode. When he finally got his mitts on it, the audio was about as clear as that 18-and-a-half minutes on the Nixon tapes.

But miracles sometimes happen. In 1988, someone found almost all of the scripts in The Library of Congress. They were published in book form and at least two separate groups recorded new re-creations. And then eight years after that, someone found a few fragments of actual Flywheel audio plus one complete episode. The show is not great but hey, it's Groucho and Chico. How often do you get to hear new (to you) 1933 Groucho and Chico banter?

And yes, we have a link for you...but it's BBC Radio so you have to hurry. Their audio links don't stick around for long. It's a half-hour special that runs about half an hour and includes the surviving episode plus an interview with Nat Perrin, who was one of the writers. Go for it. And thank Stu West, a reader of this site, for letting me know about it so I could let you know.

• Posted at 5:55 PM · LINK

Follow-Up

A couple of folks have written me that they think Steve Chapman would more properly be described as a Libertarian rather than as a Conservative. Okay.

• Posted at 11:18 AM · LINK

Roy Stuart, R.I.P.

It apparently hasn't hit the wire services yet but character actor Roy Stuart passed away on Christmas Day at the age of 70. Stuart was one of those guys who popped up at one time or another on every TV show shot in Hollywood beginning around 1964. He usually played some nervous clerk or official. The photo above at left is from one of the few recurring roles he had — that of Corporal Boyle on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., the soldier who was always trying to talk sense between Sgt. Carter and Private Pyle. Stuart's rubbery face also turned up in hundreds of commercials over the years. He was one of those actors who made a decent living in Hollywood but every day, someone would stop him in a public place and say, "I think I know you from somewhere." You may be looking at the above photos right now and going, "Oh, yeah...that guy."

I have a special affection for Mr. Stuart's skills as an actor. Around 1967, I saw The Odd Couple for the first time. It was at a production in the Ivar Theater in Hollywood, he was playing Felix and Jesse White was playing Oscar. If I had to list the ten evenings in my life when I laughed the most, that would certainly be among them. It was truly a wonderful production and Stuart was very proud of it. Over the years, I ran into him at parties and a few times at the Hollywood Collector Shows. Every time, I reminded him I'd seen him in the role and every time, he'd turn to someone else, point to me and say, "He saw me do The Odd Couple." He did a lot of stage work in L.A., mostly with the Theatre West group on Cahuenga, and I think I saw him there in several other plays. But he will always be my first Felix Unger...and trust me. He was as good as Lemmon or Randall or any of them.

• Posted at 12:19 AM · LINK

December 28, 2005 • Current • December 26, 2005