Duffy's Tavern - "Archie Takes Up Reading" (05-03-46)

Archie Takes Up Reading (Aired May 3, 1946)

When the AFRN rebroadcast those episodes for U.S. servicemen during World War II, the announcer referred to Duffy's Tavern. Radio's Duffy's Tavern didn't translate well to film or television. Burrows and Matt Brooks collaborated on the screenplay for the 1945 film, Ed Gardner's Duffy's Tavern, in which Archie (with regulars Eddie and Finnegan) was surrounded by a throng of Paramount Pictures stars playing themselves, including Robert Benchley, William Bendix, Eddie Bracken, Bing Crosby, Cass Daley, Brian Donlevy, Paulette Goddard, Betty Hutton, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and Dorothy Lamour. The film's plot involves a war-displaced record manufacturer whose staff — those not sent off to war — drown their sorrows at Duffy's on credit, while the company owner tries to find ways around the price controls and war attrition that threaten to put him out of business.

THIS EPISODE:
 
May 3, 1946. "Archie Takes Up Reading"- NBC network. Sponsored by: Ipana, Vitalis. A moving and different kind of "Duffy's Tavern" program. In between Archie's jokes are serious dramas about starvation in India, Italy and Greece. Good radio! Ed Gardner, Eddie Green, Charlie Cantor, Sandra Gould. 30:00. Episode Notes From The Radio Gold Index.