Anyone watch the Gildersleeve marathon?

[Brian Sheridan]

TCM last week ran several of the Great Gildersleeve movies, right after two films with Bergen and McCarthy, and the Jordons. Anyone see it?

I like Gildy on the radio but, jeez, I wanted to punch him in the face during the movies.

Anyone else catch any of these movies or seen them before? Wow, he was so annoying!!!

 

[ScionPI2005]

I definitely find the radio episodes entertaining (the few I've heard), but have never watched one of the movies. Exactly how was the character different in the movies as compared to radio?

 

[Brian Sheridan]

I definitely find the radio episodes entertaining (the few I've heard), but have never watched one of the movies. Exactly how was the character different in the movies as compared to radio?

I guess that could now see him being pompous and weasily. And Harold Peary is an excellent radio actor but he doesn't seem to much of a movie actor.

 

[ScionPI2005]

I guess that could now see him being pompous and weasily. And Harold Peary is an excellent radio actor but he doesn't seem to much of a movie actor.

Upon thinking about that, I actually wonder if that could be applied to a lot of radio actors from the Golden Era. Perhaps its because I'm one of the younger people on this site, but upon reflecting on my own radio show collection, there are still a handful of actors from the past that I have ONLY become familiar with through radio shows, NEVER their movies. In that case, I wonder if some radio shows are sort of like books in that you hear the character's voice, and visualize what they look like, and their mannerisms in your head as you listen. Once you see those characters on the screen, perhaps you become disappointed because they weren't what you imagined all along. Just a thought...[huh]

 

[Mike in Seattle]

I watched and enjoyed it. I'm not familiar with the radio programs - I do know he started out as a character on Fibber McGee & Molly before being spun-off into his own radio show, and then movies. I think I've probably heard 5-6 episodes of Fibber McGee and I don't remember Gildersleeve too much from that since it's been 30 or so years ago when I heard the tapes.

Part of your...I guess you'd say disppointment with the movies compared to the radio show might be the whole theatre of the mind aspect. When you hear the radio program, you have to imagine the physical, visual portion on your own. Once you've done that, seeing someone else's idea of that world (i.e., the producers & directors involved in the filmed version), it's always different and usually doesn't live up to what you've imagined it to be. Take War of the Worlds - the night that panicked America - everyone hears the Martian space ships opening up in Grover's Field, NJ and imagines the worst...little did they know the space ship opening up was unscrewing a mayonnaise jar held down in an empty toilet in the men's room to get just the right sound and reverberation that Welles was looking for.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Another big problem with radio-show-character movies is that they were seldom, if ever, actually written by the people who wrote the radio programs. Usually the character would be written for movies by studio hacks who had only the barest outline of what that character was actually like, and you'd end up with something that played more like a pastiche than anything else.

 

[Brian Sheridan]

Another big problem with radio-show-character movies is that they were seldom, if ever, actually written by the people who wrote the radio programs. Usually the character would be written for movies by studio hacks who had only the barest outline of what that character was actually like, and you'd end up with something that played more like a pastiche than anything else.

Lizzie may have hit on part of the problem. I didn't see if writers from the radio show were on the movie but knowing how the studios operated back then, I would say hacks would probably be the correct term.

Grrrr- Gildy was just SO INSUFFERABLE in the movies!

The wild thing about the Bergen/McCarthy - Fibber McGee & Molly movies was Bergen was played up as a romantic lead! He was a sweet guy but all of his personality went into Charlie so he comes off more wooden than the dummy.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One interesting thing about Gildersleeve on radio is that the show was written during its best years by the team of John Whedon and Sam Moore -- who gave the characters a real believeable texture thru the use of serialized storylines. They managed to make the town of Summerfield a tangible place filled with the sort of people everyone could recognize from real life -- and the program stood out from other more broadly-drawn comedy programs of the day because of this. Whedon and Moore went on in the early sixties to serve as key writers for "The Andy Griffith Show" on television, and in many ways Mayberry is merely Summerfield revisited.

One more interesting note -- John Whedon's grandson is none other than Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and in his own way every bit as character-oriented a writer as his grandpop.