WILLIAM N. ROBSON - THE MAN BEHIND "THE MAN BEHIND THE GUN"
THE MAN BEHIND THE GUN
John Dunning’s excellent text, The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio, ranks three documentary series as, “…the most vivid and historically significant dramas of their time.” Two were NBC’s long running Cavalcade of America and the network’s 99 episode literary series, Words At War which ran from July, 1943 to July, 1945. The third was an often overlooked CBS entry sandwiched between them from October, 1942 to March, 1944, The Man Behind The Gun.
Unlike the acclaimed NBC programs, only several episodes of the Peabody Award winning Man Behind The Gun exist, and those are in marginal audio quality, hardly reflective of the money that CBS spent on the series or the work that director William N. Robson or composer-conductor Nathan Van Cleve or its staff of five writers poured into it. (1)
Their work was virtually nullified by the network which introduced The Man Behind The Gun at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday October 7, 1942, following the operatic Great Moments In Music with its 4.8 rating, and opposite the second half of Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge on NBC, which was the season’s highest rated music show and Number Eleven in the country’s Top 50 for three years running. The CBS newcomer didn’t have a chance with its almost dead start and such a heavyweight competitor..
Nevertheless, its placement didn’t dampen Variety’s enthusiastic review for the new series, as it patriotically cheered on October 14th: “…it was an engrossing show, alive with atmosphere and crammed with action. It was expertly produced with excellent sound effects and a number of vibrant performances. (2)
"Presented as a message from a rookie tail-gunner, with an Army bombing force in the Pacific, the program told the story of how ‘Bathtub Charlie’, (so called because his post was in the bathtub-like nose of the plane), came through coolly in his first battle with Jap flyers. The script and the production were notable for several effective devices, such as the banter against the background of pre-flight instructions from the commanding officers, the musical punctuation and the descriptive battle sound effects. ‘The Man Behind The Gun’ is one more and a worthwhile addition to the long varied list of programs about and contributing to the war effort.”
Trade paper Billboard agreed with its competitor, naming The Man Behind The Gun the winner of its Top Documentary Program award three times during its 14 months on the air. Only one episode exists from this period, a program saluting the Royal Air Force from January 6, 1943.
The program presented problems, however, between Robson and two of its original principals. As Dunning later wrote, “Early in the run Robson crossed swords with narrator Everett Sloane and composer-conductor Bernard Herrmann. Sloane was the show’s voice, the all-important thread that would pull a story together through the music and sound effects. Timing was everything and every broadcast took two days to rehearse. Sloane felt he didn’t have the time to rehearse…so, Jackson Beck became the voice of the series. Herrmann, long known as one of radio’s most tempestuous musicians, disagreed loudly with Robson’s decision to use a robust theme. ‘He screamed at me in the first rehearsal,’ Robson said, ‘You wanna win the war with music, get Wagner’s music! Don’t get my music! I can’t win the war with my music!’ Herrmann departed and Norman Van Cleve gave Robson the gutsy sound he wanted.”
CBS finally pulled the program out from under Kay Kyser’s shadow on March 7, 1943 when it landed Elgin Watch Company as a sponsor for The Man Behind The Gun and moved it to Sunday nights at 10:30 following Phil Baker’s comedy quiz Take It Or Leave It. The documentary responded to the move with a 9.2 rating which placed it 76th in the 1942-43 season’s rankings, substantiating Variety’s endorsement of the switch three days after it happened:
“The trade looks on this sponsorship by Elgin as one of the smartest buys made in network radio for some time. Elgin has got itself a timely little package, (no pun intended), and the outlook for both the program and(the account’s listener good will should be bright as long as Elgin is willing to abide by the format of its initial sponsored installment. (3) The sales copy, which was strictly institutional, couldn’t have been more tastefully and tactfully contrived, while the program itself was one of the finest to date.
“The Man Behind The Gun’ ranks as a scintillating example in good writing matched in good direction. Its chief asset is its ability to treat the most harrowing and violent subject, war, with a fine sense of understatement and restraint and to maintain through it all a composed thought realistic concept of American boys under fire. The series is incisively instructional in that It conveys to those on the home front the conditions which actually confront the men in our various armed forces and the examples it cites give good cause for inspiration and courage to both the civilian and fighting forces.
“The theme last Sunday was a ticklish one for broadcasting but it was handled by rare skill by the writer, the director and the cast. (4) It was the dramatized transcript of the testimony of the appendectomy performed by a submarine pharmacist’s mate upon a shipmate while the sub at the bottom of the ocean and unable to move for fear that the sound of her motors might betray her whereabouts to a pack of Jap destroyers on the surface. Also worthy of mention was the work of sound effects men and the musical score directed by Nathan Van Cleve.”
The episode reviewed, Incident In The Pacific, was repeated near the series’ end on February 19, 1944. Its first broadcast, however, was the beginning to The Man Behind The Gun’s finest hours, both figuratively and literally, as told in the two-part story of The USS Boise from March 21, 1943 and March 28, 1943. The program’s quest for subjects aside from typical combat are found in Company Aid Man, May 16, 1943, and The Trainer of War Dogs, June 6, 1943.
Elgin’s original 13-week contract had expired at the end of May and The Man Behind The Gun continued as a sustaining program until its summer hiatus from June 27th until August 7th when the program returned with Elgin sponsorship for a second 13 weeks at 7:00 p.m. on the CBS Saturday night schedule. By this time the program had become known for its sense of hotspots in the war as Variety reported on August 25, 1943:
“The Man Behind The Gun socked the bell again Saturday evening, (21), with a dramatization about the capture of Kiska just eight hours after the announcement of the actual event. It was the second such instance in recent weeks the series having done a broadcast about the invasion of a city within a day after the event itself. Saturday’s stanza about Siska had been written some time ago and was scheduled for last week by director William Robson on a mere hunch that something was about due to pop in the Aleutians, The show itself was a fairly gripping drama about a bombing sortie against the island with the actual reference to its capture used as climax and to point a course for future action in the North Pacific. As usual for the series, it was skillfully produced and played.”
The final program in this post continues on the theme of the unexpected with Something For The Girls from January 29, 1944. By this time Elgin’s second 13-week contract had expired and The Man Behind The Gun had inched along with original and repeat programming on CBS at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday nights for 26 weeks and left the air with a meager 4.9 rating in the 1943-44 Season.
It was a sorrowful end to a noble broadcasting effort. But of even greater sorrow is the lack of effort on anyone’s part to record and preserve it for future generations.
(1) Creation of the series was credited to veteran Producer-Director William N. Robson, 36, who had returned to CBS after three years in advertising and government work, and 27 year old Ranald MacDougall who later gained screenwriting fame with over 30 credits including Mildred Pierce, June Bride, The Unsuspected, The Naked Jungle and Cleopatra.
(2) The initial cast included narrator Everett Sloane and New York City actors Ed Lattmer, Johnny Kane, Chet Stratton, George Tiplady, Roger DeKoven and James McCallion.
(3) The sponsorship was actually negotiated by Elgin’s ad agency, J. Walter Thompson. Its success - and Elgin’s sudden windfall of profits from military sales led to the agency’s creation of Elgin’s Thanksgiving Shows one month later.
(4) Supporting Producer-Director Robson in this broadcast were writer Ranald MacDougall, (co-creator of the series), narrator Jackson Beck and actors William Quinn, Frank Lovejoy, George Tiplady, Cliff Carpenter and Frank Gibson.
Copyright © 2020, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
John Dunning’s excellent text, The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio, ranks three documentary series as, “…the most vivid and historically significant dramas of their time.” Two were NBC’s long running Cavalcade of America and the network’s 99 episode literary series, Words At War which ran from July, 1943 to July, 1945. The third was an often overlooked CBS entry sandwiched between them from October, 1942 to March, 1944, The Man Behind The Gun.
Unlike the acclaimed NBC programs, only several episodes of the Peabody Award winning Man Behind The Gun exist, and those are in marginal audio quality, hardly reflective of the money that CBS spent on the series or the work that director William N. Robson or composer-conductor Nathan Van Cleve or its staff of five writers poured into it. (1)
Their work was virtually nullified by the network which introduced The Man Behind The Gun at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday October 7, 1942, following the operatic Great Moments In Music with its 4.8 rating, and opposite the second half of Kay Kyser’s College of Musical Knowledge on NBC, which was the season’s highest rated music show and Number Eleven in the country’s Top 50 for three years running. The CBS newcomer didn’t have a chance with its almost dead start and such a heavyweight competitor..
Nevertheless, its placement didn’t dampen Variety’s enthusiastic review for the new series, as it patriotically cheered on October 14th: “…it was an engrossing show, alive with atmosphere and crammed with action. It was expertly produced with excellent sound effects and a number of vibrant performances. (2)
"Presented as a message from a rookie tail-gunner, with an Army bombing force in the Pacific, the program told the story of how ‘Bathtub Charlie’, (so called because his post was in the bathtub-like nose of the plane), came through coolly in his first battle with Jap flyers. The script and the production were notable for several effective devices, such as the banter against the background of pre-flight instructions from the commanding officers, the musical punctuation and the descriptive battle sound effects. ‘The Man Behind The Gun’ is one more and a worthwhile addition to the long varied list of programs about and contributing to the war effort.”
Trade paper Billboard agreed with its competitor, naming The Man Behind The Gun the winner of its Top Documentary Program award three times during its 14 months on the air. Only one episode exists from this period, a program saluting the Royal Air Force from January 6, 1943.
The program presented problems, however, between Robson and two of its original principals. As Dunning later wrote, “Early in the run Robson crossed swords with narrator Everett Sloane and composer-conductor Bernard Herrmann. Sloane was the show’s voice, the all-important thread that would pull a story together through the music and sound effects. Timing was everything and every broadcast took two days to rehearse. Sloane felt he didn’t have the time to rehearse…so, Jackson Beck became the voice of the series. Herrmann, long known as one of radio’s most tempestuous musicians, disagreed loudly with Robson’s decision to use a robust theme. ‘He screamed at me in the first rehearsal,’ Robson said, ‘You wanna win the war with music, get Wagner’s music! Don’t get my music! I can’t win the war with my music!’ Herrmann departed and Norman Van Cleve gave Robson the gutsy sound he wanted.”
CBS finally pulled the program out from under Kay Kyser’s shadow on March 7, 1943 when it landed Elgin Watch Company as a sponsor for The Man Behind The Gun and moved it to Sunday nights at 10:30 following Phil Baker’s comedy quiz Take It Or Leave It. The documentary responded to the move with a 9.2 rating which placed it 76th in the 1942-43 season’s rankings, substantiating Variety’s endorsement of the switch three days after it happened:
“The trade looks on this sponsorship by Elgin as one of the smartest buys made in network radio for some time. Elgin has got itself a timely little package, (no pun intended), and the outlook for both the program and(the account’s listener good will should be bright as long as Elgin is willing to abide by the format of its initial sponsored installment. (3) The sales copy, which was strictly institutional, couldn’t have been more tastefully and tactfully contrived, while the program itself was one of the finest to date.
“The Man Behind The Gun’ ranks as a scintillating example in good writing matched in good direction. Its chief asset is its ability to treat the most harrowing and violent subject, war, with a fine sense of understatement and restraint and to maintain through it all a composed thought realistic concept of American boys under fire. The series is incisively instructional in that It conveys to those on the home front the conditions which actually confront the men in our various armed forces and the examples it cites give good cause for inspiration and courage to both the civilian and fighting forces.
“The theme last Sunday was a ticklish one for broadcasting but it was handled by rare skill by the writer, the director and the cast. (4) It was the dramatized transcript of the testimony of the appendectomy performed by a submarine pharmacist’s mate upon a shipmate while the sub at the bottom of the ocean and unable to move for fear that the sound of her motors might betray her whereabouts to a pack of Jap destroyers on the surface. Also worthy of mention was the work of sound effects men and the musical score directed by Nathan Van Cleve.”
The episode reviewed, Incident In The Pacific, was repeated near the series’ end on February 19, 1944. Its first broadcast, however, was the beginning to The Man Behind The Gun’s finest hours, both figuratively and literally, as told in the two-part story of The USS Boise from March 21, 1943 and March 28, 1943. The program’s quest for subjects aside from typical combat are found in Company Aid Man, May 16, 1943, and The Trainer of War Dogs, June 6, 1943.
Elgin’s original 13-week contract had expired at the end of May and The Man Behind The Gun continued as a sustaining program until its summer hiatus from June 27th until August 7th when the program returned with Elgin sponsorship for a second 13 weeks at 7:00 p.m. on the CBS Saturday night schedule. By this time the program had become known for its sense of hotspots in the war as Variety reported on August 25, 1943:
“The Man Behind The Gun socked the bell again Saturday evening, (21), with a dramatization about the capture of Kiska just eight hours after the announcement of the actual event. It was the second such instance in recent weeks the series having done a broadcast about the invasion of a city within a day after the event itself. Saturday’s stanza about Siska had been written some time ago and was scheduled for last week by director William Robson on a mere hunch that something was about due to pop in the Aleutians, The show itself was a fairly gripping drama about a bombing sortie against the island with the actual reference to its capture used as climax and to point a course for future action in the North Pacific. As usual for the series, it was skillfully produced and played.”
The final program in this post continues on the theme of the unexpected with Something For The Girls from January 29, 1944. By this time Elgin’s second 13-week contract had expired and The Man Behind The Gun had inched along with original and repeat programming on CBS at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday nights for 26 weeks and left the air with a meager 4.9 rating in the 1943-44 Season.
It was a sorrowful end to a noble broadcasting effort. But of even greater sorrow is the lack of effort on anyone’s part to record and preserve it for future generations.
(1) Creation of the series was credited to veteran Producer-Director William N. Robson, 36, who had returned to CBS after three years in advertising and government work, and 27 year old Ranald MacDougall who later gained screenwriting fame with over 30 credits including Mildred Pierce, June Bride, The Unsuspected, The Naked Jungle and Cleopatra.
(2) The initial cast included narrator Everett Sloane and New York City actors Ed Lattmer, Johnny Kane, Chet Stratton, George Tiplady, Roger DeKoven and James McCallion.
(3) The sponsorship was actually negotiated by Elgin’s ad agency, J. Walter Thompson. Its success - and Elgin’s sudden windfall of profits from military sales led to the agency’s creation of Elgin’s Thanksgiving Shows one month later.
(4) Supporting Producer-Director Robson in this broadcast were writer Ranald MacDougall, (co-creator of the series), narrator Jackson Beck and actors William Quinn, Frank Lovejoy, George Tiplady, Cliff Carpenter and Frank Gibson.
Copyright © 2020, Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com