Category: Radio

That Thing She Does!

Debbie Daughtry and friend

Last weekend I was on a Watch Party that Debbie Daughtry was hosting, showing Tom Hanks’ delightfully note-perfect movie that I also love, That Thing You Do! There was a technical glitch, but I figured out a workaround and had a lot of fun. Debbie sounds like she’s up to trying another watch party, and the movie I recommended won’t surprise anyone who knows me.

Today the full story has been revealed about Debbie, Boss Radio 66, and how Tom Hanks came into the radio picture.

“Debbie sends me the playlist and I do a dive on the web for salient and fascinating information,” Tom tells PEOPLE of how he prepares for his sets.

https://people.com/movies/tom-hanks-dj-boss-radio-66-brooklyn-oldies-station-debbie-daughtry-exclusive/

Boss Radio 66 is just the first of several collaborations between Tom and Debbie to come, including a country music and American Standards station soon to follow on TuneIn.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/radio-producer-brooklyn-ended-tom-153400227.html

Here are a couple of movie trailers that were put on YouTube by Johnathon Schaech, who plays Jimmy in the movie. Johnathan apologized to Debbie because he wanted to join the watch party, but then was unable to attend.

Look fast for a young Charlize Theron in this one!

Look fast for an old Ortofon SPU phono cartridge in this one!

Hitch’s Guilt Complex

Something I featured recently deserves to be mentioned more on Turner Classic Movies — Old Time Radio shows that were adapted from movies of the time.

In 1950, Alfred Hitchcock introduced a radio play of his 1944 film Spellbound. The Theramin sound gets to be a bit much, but it’s an interesting adaptation. Five years later, the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents began its long run.

For now, there is a complete copy of Spellbound available on YouTube. The movie includes the famous dream sequence that was created in collaboration with Salvador Dali. In the finished film it was directed not by Hitch, however, but by William Cameron Menzies, who has been the subject of some recent posts.

https://youtu.be/lNThFiBh7Ck

https://scalar.usc.edu/works/the-space-between-literature-and-culture-1914-1945/vol14_2018_king

On a related note, Donald Spoto died a couple of weeks ago. I read Spoto’s Hitchcock biography, The Dark Side of Genius, as soon as it came out in paperback, 39 years ago. I remember reading it on airplanes and in hotels while traveling on business. I was halfway through the book when I accidentally left it in the seatback pocket of a plane while in a rush to catch a connecting flight. Realizing my mistake, I had just enough time to buy another copy at an airport bookstore to continue my reading on the next flight. That copy I didn’t lose.

To me, Spoto’s take on Hitch smacked of him having a thesis that was more like an agenda, and force-fitting some facts to back it up. I had a similar reaction to David Michaelis’ biography of Charles Schulz.

https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Film_Quarterly_(1983)_-_The_Dark_Side_of_Genius:_The_Life_of_Alfred_Hitchcock