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Silver Theater

Hollywood Drama

Broadcast History:

• Oct. 3, 1937 April 19, 1942, CBS. 30m, Sundays at 5 until Dec. 26, 1937;  left the air temporarily, returning Oct. 2, 1938.  Sundays at 6, 1938-41;  Thursdays at 6, 1941-42.  International Silver.

• July 4, 1943-0ct. 1, 1944, CBS. 30m, Sundays at 6.  International Silver.

• Also:  Three summer seasons, June-Aug. 1945-47, CBS.  30m, Sundays at 6.   Substitute for  The Adventure of Ozzie and Harriet.   International Silver.  Final broadcast: Aug. 17, 1947.

Hosts:  Conrad Nagel, John Loder
Cast:  Major Hollywood stars in original stories, with the occasional movie adaptation.
Announcers:  John Conte, 1930s;  Dick Joy, 1940;  Henry Charles,  1941;  also, Roger Krupp, Jack Bailey, Harry Bartell.
Orchestra:  Felix Mills;  also, Jack Meakin.
Producer-Director:  Glenhall Taylor of Young & Rubicam; Edna Best, Ted Bliss, and Walter Bunker, producers, mid-1940s.
Writers:  True Boardman, Grover Jones, Joseph Russell, George Wells, etc.
Sound Effects:  David Light.

The Silver Theater was strongly identified with its sponsor's "1847 Rogers Brothers" silverware and was sometimes referred to on the air as  The 1847 Silver Theater.  Host Conrad Nagel, a film star from the silent era, got billing as director but was actually a "front man" a la Cecil B. DeMille of  The Lux Radio Theater. The stories were heavy drama with intermittent comedies.

It was launched with a four-part story called First Love: this starred Rosalind Russell as a girl trying to get a leg up in Hollywood, and James Stewart as a fellow she met there.  It was announced as a new concept in radio drama.  Screen scripter Grover Jones had employed stream-of-consciousness techniques then uncommon.   Stewart and Russell, moreover, were asked to learn their lines and play them at the microphone rather than simply read.  Maestro Felix Mills was said t6 have created a three-dimensional musical score, and sound effects were integrated in an attempt to achieve ultimate clarity.  The story was linked to the product, the sponsor creating a new silver line called "First Love" and declaring on the air that Russell had coined it.