Friday, February 12, 2010

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - The Hallmark Playhouse "The Long Winter" (03-15-51)


The Long Winter (Aired March 15, 1951)


The Hallmark Playhouse was heard over CBS stations Thursday evenings. This drama anthology of 30-minute shows was sponsored by, of course, Hallmark Greeting Cards. It was preceded by the RADIO READER'S DIGEST, which ran from September 13, 1942 thorugh June 3, 1948. Hallmark sponsored the RADIO READER'S DIGEST from January 13, 1946 to it's end. On Feb. 8, 1953, the series name and format was changed. It was now called THE HALLMARK HALL OF FAME and presented biographal sketches of famous persons, past and present. The new format was used until the end of the 1955 season. The exception to the new format was the broadcast each Christmas season of "A Christmas Carol". Like other dramatic series of this time, this one made use of major screen actors in the productions. James Hilton, author of "Random Harvest", "Lost Horizon" and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" plus others, served as host and Narrator. Dee Engelbach produced and directed the shows. Jean Holloway was the writer. Sound Effects were by Harry Essman and Gene Twombly. Musical conductor was Lyn Murray. The show's theme was "Dream of Olwne" by Charles Williams.


THIS EPISODE:

March 15, 1951. "The Long Winter" is a Newbery Honor novel by Laura Ingalls Wilder, first published in 1940. The story is set in South Dakota during the severe winter of 1880-1881, when Laura turned fourteen. It is the sixth book in the Little House series. The story begins in Dakota Territory at the Ingalls homestead in South Dakota on a hot August day in 1880 as Laura and her father ("Pa") are haying. Pa tells Laura that he knows the winter is going to be hard because muskrats always build a house with thick walls before a hard winter, and this year, they have built the thickest walls he has ever seen. In mid-October, the Ingallses wake with an unusually early blizzard howling around their poorly insulated claim shanty. Soon afterward, Pa receives another warning from an unexpected source: a dignified old Native American man comes to the general store in town to warn the white settlers that there will be seven months of blizzards. Impressed, Pa decides to move the family into town for the winter.

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