Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Saturday, August 27, 2011


A Reader Who Listened In ...

Hearing from Greenbriar readers is fun and informative on any occasion, but every so often, one will come forth with a lollapalooza that calls for GPS getting out an extra. Such was the case with today's e-mail from Lou Barbarelli, who shares a Horror Of Dracula memory we'd all wish to claim. As was reported in Part Two of Greenbriar's HoD posting (from 2/8/2011), a live radio telecast from station WOR in New York captured excitement of Dracula's opening (mid)night (May 28, 1958) at Broadway's Mayfair Theatre, air host Long John Nebel supplying blow-by-blow commentary as the movie unspooled. I expressed wish then for a recording of that historic broadcast, realizing slim chance of its survival. What I did get from Lou Barbarelli, however, was very much a next best thing, but I'll let him tell the story in his own words, and just say Thanks A Million for allowing me to share this account of a radio night to remember ...


Your website mentions this broadcast, stating that you wish you had a tape of it. I know of no recording in existence, but I heard the live broadcast in 1958 (I was 15) and remember a lot of it. For one thing, Nebel actually broadcast from the premiere, bringing some his "regulars" along, and you could hear the entire movie as it played to the opening night audience. An amazing broadcast. The broadcast was, to my knowledge, the first and only time a complete movie was ever broadcast live on radio. Nebel took some of his regular guests with him to the theater and they helped describe, by whispering into the microphone, the action taking place between the moments of dialogue. The effect was that the broadcasters were right in the audience, but they may have had a box seat or something. You could hear the shocked reaction of the entire audience when stakes were driven into the hearts of the various "undead" characters.


By prearrangement with the producers of the film, the broadcasters were silent during the last five minutes, so that radio audiences couldn't figure out the ending. That tactic pissed off some listeners, including me, because we weren't warned in advance that Nebel and his people would conceal the ending from us after we had listened for 80 minutes. You could still hear what was going on onscreen during those final five minutes, but it was all bombastic music, heavy breathing, smashing, etc. Frustrating but tantalizing!

After the film, Nebel and his colleagues interviewed several people in the audience. Their reactions to the film were uniformly positive. One of the people interviewed was famed columnist Sheila Graham who talked about attributes of the film that were unique at the time, (but that would reshape every horror film made thereafter). Among other things, she pointed out that the film was sensual as well as gory and that Dracula was a "very handsome man."


Another member of the audience was a high school English teacher who said that, if the movie hadn't been so terrifying, she would have loved to bring her students to a showing, because the actors spoke their lines with "perfect diction." She described the effect as "almost Shakespearean."


Unfortunately, I don't clearly remember the interview with Peter Cushing afterwards. I do remember something about a tall man standing off to one side in the shadows of the theater startling the departing theatergoers who noticed him lurking there. I believe that man was Christopher Lee, but I wouldn't swear to it. After all, it's been 54 years or so. After all that time, however, Sir Christopher is still lurking in the shadows-- thrilling us.

More Horror Of Dracula at Greenbriar Archives: Part One, Two, and Three, plus The Diary Of Jonathon Harker.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Jim Lane said...

Now that was worth a special post; thanks, John, for sharing it, and thanks to Lou for sharing it with you.

A lot of theaters in those days had "cry rooms" -- at the back of the house, semi-soundproofed, with the movie sound piped in and a big double-glass window facing the screen. They were for parents to take babies if they started fussing during the show; Mom or Dad could get little Johnny or Janie out of earshot without having to miss any of the movie themselves. I wonder if maybe Long John Nebel and his crew set up shop in one of those.

6:02 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

That's a very good possibility, Jim. I remember a "cry room" at the Joy Theatre in King's Mountain, NC. A broadcast from one of these would have been ideal. We never had one at the Liberty, though.

7:55 AM  
Blogger Christopher said...

was Christopher Lee there?..THat would be a bit startling to see him standing by as you exit the theater..heh heh..

11:42 PM  
Blogger Reg Hartt said...

The BBC broadcast the audience reaction to Charlie Chaplin's THE GOLD RUSH when it premiered at Albert Hall to all of Britain.

That's how to sell a movie.

Both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee were in New York for the film's premiere. It would have been natural to have Lee appear as people left the theater.

Great showmanship that could only work with radio.

7:22 AM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Dan Mercer e-mailed some interesting memories of radio's Long John Nebel:


I was about nine years old when I fell in love with radio. I’d gotten a crystal radio set for Christmas and listened to a broadcast that morning of Basil Rathbone reading Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Later the GE clock radio in the kitchen made its way into my bed room, and I would stay up late at night listening to Long John Nebel’s show on it. I missed his live broadcast of the New York premier of Horror of Dracula, but when I listened to him in the early sixties, his show was mostly about “ghoulies and ghastlies and things that go bump in the night.” I was fascinated by flying saucers, and this was a special enthusiasm of Long John. He would have well-known “contactees” on, such as George Adamski and Howard Menger, and also fans and investigators like Jim and Coral Lorenzen, Gray Barker, and James Mosely. In a way, his show was rather like the “AM Coast to Coast” show hosted by George Noory these days, with the same offbeat topics and polite incredulity expressed by Long John, though a little more “mondo,” if the “Dracula” broadcast is any indication. Of course, I loved science fiction and horror films then, but I was even more interested in the real thing, if space ships from other worlds, abominable snowmen, ghosts, and sea serpents are at all real. Certainly they were to me, these things just beyond the edge of sight and sound, unless your eyes are open to see and your ears to hear. The Long John show on a radio softly glowing in the darkness was a passage for me to another sort of reality, and one I often sought, preferring unknown terrors to the ones that had become all too familiar.

8:06 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024