Program number 11 of 18 programs. 
Myrna Loy introduces this unique series. The long romance between music and the silent movies, the musical extravaganzas of the thirties, the great days of the Roxy Theater, and the artistic contributions of "background music" to films are among the recollections which Miss Dorothy Lamour introduces. Her guests are Jeanette MacDonald, Gene Kelly, Francis X. Bushman, Allan Jones, producer Arthur Freed, songwriters Dorothy Field and Ray Henderson, award winning composer Franz Waxman, pianist Jack Shaindlin and former organist of the Roxy Theater, Dr.(of music) C.A.J. Parmentier. Most of the interviews were originally recorded in 1959 by producers Joan and Robert Franklin.    

    NOTE: Robert  C. Franklin (1920-1980), inspired by a 1958 newspaper story he read about Columbia University's POPULAR ARTS ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, approached Dr. Louis Starr, then director of the oral-history collection, with a proposal to interview and tape record, on to 1/4" reel to reel audio tapes, movie people as they passed through New York. The objective would be to document, through personal recollections, the era of the silent era in films, the impact of sound, the triumphs and inequities of the major studios, and life in the glittering film capital...a firsthand account revelation of how silent movies were actually made.  

Robert  and his wife, Joan Franklin went on to record 200 reels of audio tape, recording celebrities mostly in New York City hotel rooms in 1958 and 1959. Transcripts of interviews were made available at the time to students and researchers. 

In 1961 excerpts/highlights from these audio tapes were edited into a 16 part  radio series titled, MEMOIRS OF THE MOVIES. Myrna Loy provided a standard opening. A different celebrity host/hostess was employed to introduce each episode. All of the 90 celebrities interviewed have since passed away with the exception of Joanne Woodward. Two additional episodes were later produced, "Style of the 70's," and "Rush To Reality," both hosted by Ben Gazzara and added, subsequently, to  re-issues of the series which were syndicated in the 1960's and 1970's airing  in New York (WINS), Boston (WBZ), Philadelphia (KYW), Baltimore (WJZ), Fort Wayne (WOWO), Chicago (WIND), San Francisco (KPIX), and Los Angeles (KFWB).  

The original 200 unedited reels of 1/4" audio tape interviews recorded by Joan and Robert Franklin are no longer known to exist. However, audio cassette transfers from these original tapes were donated by Joan Franklin many decades ago to Columbia University's Oral History Research Office where they exist  today.
Confirmed during a 2009 phone conversation with Mary Marshal Clark, archivist at Columbia at that time, who stated that the first on file communication from Robert  Franklin to Columbia University related to his  proposal to do an oral history audio recorded project is dated, July 31, 1958.
                               

ABC Close-Up! 1960-

"The Miners' Lament" focuses on the issues and arguments behind recent violence in the Eastern Kentucky coal fields. Views of bombed-out homes, impoverished towns and unemployed miners are shown.  Kentucky governor, Bert T. Combs discusses the friction between union and non-union miners and the recent United Mine Workers announcement that four hospitals, supported by its Welfare Fund, would soon be closed.  
                                                               

September 27, 1960 - June 4, 1963

BELL AND HOWELL CLOSE-UP! a series of reports produced in the main by ABC News' newly formed CLOSE-UP! unit headed by John Secondari, but often by Robert Drew and his team at Drew Associates in association with Time, Inc. Of particular  interest is the fact that John Daly, ABC's vice-president of News and Public Affairs, resigned in protest following the broadcast of Drew's "YANKI NO!" Daly, who in 1953 had become that network's first nightly TV nightly news anchor quit his ABC post in disagreement with the network's  new practice of farming out documentay assignments to independent producers.
 
Unfortunately for Robert Drew Associates, which were creating a new way of making documentaries ('DIRECT CINEMA'), only five different documentaries from his company, three of them filmed by documentary cinematographer Richard Leacock, were broadcast in total (one a two parter) from December 7, 1960 to May 16, 1961.

"YANKI NO!" broadcast  December 7, 1960

"X-PILOT" broadcast February 6, 1961

"THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING" broadcast 
February 16, 1961

"ADVENTURES ON THE NEW FRONTIER broadcast 
March 28, 1961

"KENYA: LAND OF THE WHITE GHOST, part  1" broadcast
May 9, 1961

"KENYA: LAND OF THE WHITE GHOST, part 2" broadcast
May 16, 1961 


"MONEY FOR BURNING," A documentary about the Secret Service (protecting the president from harm and protection of US money from counterfeiters). 

Deputy Chief Paul Paterney and agent Richard Roth describe and then raid a counterfeiting distribution center. Undercover agents explain their roles and methods. Tips on spotting bad bills are also offered. Interestingly, in 1962 five hundred thousand dollars' worth of bogus bills was passed in the USA. Three and a half million was intercepted before it went into circulation and 737 do-it-yourself currency producers were arrested. 

Narrated by Oscar Rose.  

Sponsored by Bell and Howell.                                                  

This is a journey back to the roots of our popular music, exploring some of the diverse sources that have contributed to the type of song now dominating the music industry. 
To show something of the past, producer Stephen Fleischman's cameras visit Preservation Hall in New Orleans, where some "elder statesmen" still come to play the kind of jazz performed at the turn of the century. Films of singers at the Morning Star Baptist Church and of the Supremes in a recording session illustrate the relationship between the two groups; responsive singing and heavenly accented rhythms. We also see The Grand Ole Opry of Nashville, Tennessee, the most famous showcase for Country and Western music, which originated with America's early Scottish, English, and Irish immigrants.
Among other musicians interviewed or performing...Rock N' Roll: The Temptations, The Dave Clark Five, Country and Western: Marty Robbins, Tex Ritter, Jazz: Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, Billy Taylor, Musical Comedy: Richard Rodgers, Pop: Tony Bennett. 

Narrator: Bob Young. Consultants: George Simon, Fred Ramsey, Jr. 

Narrator Frederic March presents a scrapbook of famous men and women who have contributed significantly to the history of the 19th & 20th centuries. Rare
recordings of voices heard are those of Florence Nightingale, Thomas Alva Edison, William Jennings Bryan, John Barrymore, W.C. Handy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding and others. The sign off for WBAI is heard, giving the complete programming day for tomorrow on this listener sponsored New York City
Radio station.                          

Host Archie Rothman relives the Golden 
Age of Radio with Harold Arlen, Louis
Armstrong, Gene Austin, Fred Astaire, the Andrews Sisters, Paul Anka, Ben Bernie, Edgar Bergen, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Fanny Brice and Martin Block. A montage of radio show openings is also presented on this weekly 10 PM to midnight Sunday evening broadcast. Guest Dave Goldin discusses this era with Rothman. Goldin, a former engineer at CBS, NBC, and Mutual radio, reflects on old time radio. Note: In the late 1960's, Goldin formed "Radio Yesteryear." He is considered the first person to aggressively market and sell programs independently.             

Scenes of the Old West- described by people who lived there-are recreated in this half-hour chronicle. 
Producer James Benjamin set out to show life in the late 1800s as it really was, unadorned by romanticism or legend. To do it, he talked with two men and a woman who were there. (They were also among those interviewed by John Myers for his book "The Westerners," the basis for this program.) Their remarks are interspersed with stills and art of the Old West and reenactments (by nonprofessionals) at Pioneer Arizona Village, near Phoenix, Arizona.
The three historians are Charlie Blake, 90, a cowboy who specialized in bronx busting; Pecos Higgins, 86, who left Texas to escape the law; and Agnes Wright Spring, in her late 70s, who arrived after the others and typified settlers who witnessed the end of a great American era.

Narrated by Robert Ryan.               

History of the Capital in Washington, DC. Description of how the Cspital was built.

Narrated by Alexander Scourby.
                         

Rip Torn portrays Walt Whitman in this American Parade CBS special.        

 The contributions of noted American women over the past 200 years are depicted through dramatizations and newsreel footage. Patricia Neal narrates.
  Women profiled include Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, pioneer suffragettes; Harriet Tubman, who helped free hundreds of slaves; and Margret Sanger, who established the first birth control clinic in the U.S.          

An American and British narrator relate their countries differing perspectives of the events leading up to American independence.                                        

See #1151 For Details.                                    

A program about ragtime music includes an interview with pianist-composer Eubie Blake. Discussion includes the art of Scott Joplin.