Best Plays - There Shall Be No Night (01-25-53)

There Shall Be No Night (Aired January 25, 1953)
Best Plays presents theatrical paramounts of excellence. It's hosted by the drama critic of New York’s Daily News, John Chapman. Dramatic and comedic performances outshine other theater radio shows, greatly performed by such greats as Boris Karloff and Alfred Drake. In This Episode, On Borrowed Time a 1939 film about the role death plays in life, and how we cannot live without it. It is adapted from Paul Osborn's 1938 Broadway play, which was a smash hit. The play, based on a novel by Lawrence Edward Watkin, has been revived twice on Broadway since its original run. Set in a more innocent time in small-town America, the film stars Lionel Barrymore, Beulah Bondi and Cedric Hardwicke. Lionel Barrymore plays Julian Northrup, a wheelchair-bound man (Barrymore had broken his hip twice previously and was now using a wheelchair, though he continued to act), who with his wife Nellie, played by Beulah Bondi, are raising their orphaned grandson, Pud. Another central character is Gramps's beloved old apple tree - by making a wish, Gramps has made the tree able to hold anyone who climbs. THIS EPISODE: January 25, 1953. NBC network. "There Shall Be No Night". Sustaining. The program has also been dated January 23, 1953. The play won a Pulitzer Prize and was rebroadcast on November 29, 1953 on, "NBC Star Playhouse" (see cat. #106190). John Chapman (host), Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, Robert Sherwood (author), Robert Carroll, Joan Lorring, George Lefferts (adaptor, transcriber), Fred Collins (announcer), William Redfield, Luis Van Rooten, Leon Janney, William Zuckert, Bill Lipton, Donald Buka, John Sylvester, Ivor Francis, William Welch (supervisor), Edward King (director). 56:01. Episode Notes From The Radio Gold Index.