Walt Disney appears as the mystery guest on What’s My Line? John Daly is the host and the panelists are Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, Dorothy Kilgallen, and Jerry Lewis. This episode was originally telecast live by CBS on November 11, 1956:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Time goes by, reputation increases, ability declines.”

Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings

From 2008:

One of the advantages of writing a book on a word processor is that you can search the manuscript for repeated words and phrases. This can be, to say the least, a chastening experience. Like all prolific authors, I have my mannerisms…

Read the whole thing here.

“‘The trouble with fiction,’ said John Rivers, ‘is that it makes too much sense. Reality never makes sense.’”

Aldous Huxley, “John Rivers” (in The Genius and the Goddess)

Titus Techera, who hosts a podcast for the American Cinema Foundation on which he and his guests discuss important films of the past and present, invited me back to talk about Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter on his latest episode. (I appeared last month to discuss Laura.) Our hour-long chat is now available on line.

Titus and I spoke in detail about the film, the only one that Laughton directed, which starred Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters and whose screenplay was adapted by James Agee from Davis Grubb’s best-selling 1953 novel. The screen version flopped at the box office on its original release in 1955 but is now universally regarded as one of the supreme masterpieces of English-language cinema.

Here’s part of Titus’ summary of our conversation:

Titus and Terry Teachout discuss…a remarkable movie about false prophets—the possibility that the devil would come among us in the clothes of a preacher. We talk at length about the various aspects of the making of the movie—actors, script, production, score, and even some editing and cinematography—and we also talk about the moral seriousness served by all these crafts and Laughton’s unity of conception.

To listen to or download this episode, go here.

* * *

The original theatrical trailer for The Night of the Hunter:

A scene from the film:

“Who Is Gustav Mahler?”, a Young People’s Concert by Leonard Bernstein, Reri Grist, Helen Raab, and the New York Philharmonic. This program was originally telecast from Carnegie Hall by CBS on February 7, 1960, at a time when Mahler’s music was still largely unknown to the American concertgoing public. The music heard includes excerpts from Mahler’s Second and Fourth Symphonies, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and Das Lied von der Erde:

To read Bernstein’s script, go here.

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Intimate acquaintance with the executive side of music in orchestra, chorus and opera made even Mahler into a very tolerable imitation of a composer.”

Ralph Vaughan Williams, “A Musical Autobiography”

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column, I review an extremely rare Massachusetts revival of Robert Sherwood’s The Petrified Forest and the off-Broadway transfer of Be More Chill. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

Few playwrights have fallen farther—or faster—than Robert Sherwood. His name was rarely missing from the marquées of Broadway in the Twenties and Thirties, and most of his hits, including “Abe Lincoln in Illinois,” “Idiot’s Delight” and “The Petrified Forest,” were turned into popular Hollywood movies. Then, in 1940, Sherwood went to Washington to write speeches for Franklin Roosevelt, and by the time he made it back to Broadway, tastes had changed and he’d lost his touch: He turned out nothing but flops and near-misses between 1946 and his death in 1955….

Now, very much to my surprise, the Berkshire Theatre Festival has exhumed “The Petrified Forest,” the 1935 stage thriller that made Humphrey Bogart a bad-guy star. What’s more, it’s presenting the play on its main stage in an expensive-looking production directed by David Auburn, the author of “Proof.” All this bespeaks considerable faith in the abilities of a forgotten playwright—and “The Petrified Forest” justifies that faith. It’s not merely stageworthy but excitingly immediate, and Mr. Auburn’s uncommonly well-cast staging enhances the pleasures of a play that is far more than a dusty period piece.

Set in the lunch room of the Black Mesa Filling Station and Bar-B-Q, a rundown roadside café somewhere in the deserts of Arizona, “The Petrified Forest” is a “Grand Hotel”-style ensemble piece that brings together a cast of disparate characters and puts them in a high-pressure situation. The plot is as uncomplicated as a slug from a .45: Duke Mantee (Jeremy Davidson), a hard-boiled heister on the lam, shows up at the café to hide from his pursuers, taking the occupants hostage. Among them are Gabby (Rebecca Brooksher), a disillusioned girl whose lost idealism has just been rekindled by the arrival of Alan Squier (David Adkins), a failed writer who longs in vain for a reason to live—or die.

Sherwood was, of course, the staunchest of New Deal liberals, and “The Petrified Forest” is not merely a thriller but a symbolic portrayal of the shaky state of Depression-era American morale, with Squier playing the part of the high-minded but ineffectual liberal intellectual who is galvanized by crisis into decisive action. The good news is that Sherwood never lets his politics overwhelm the plot….

The New York transfer of “Be More Chill,” the new high-school musical about an anxious teenage nerd (Will Roland) who stumbles across a science-fictional way of overcoming his nerdishness, has just sold out the remainder of its three-week off-Broadway run. Hence I’ll be brief: “Be More Chill” is a delight, a tale of social anxiety whose pop-rock score, written by Joe Iconis, is unfailingly lively and fresh. Stephen Brackett and Chase Brock, the director and choreographer, keep the pace brisk, and the cast, Stephanie Hsu in particular, is engaging without limit

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

David Auburn and the cast of The Petrified Forest talk about the play:

The original theatrical trailer for the 1936 film version of The Petrified Forest:

The trailer for the original Two River Theater Company 2015 production of Be More Chill:

Leroy “Satchel” Paige appears as the guest on I’ve Got a Secret. This episode was originally telecast by CBS on November 22, 1965. Steve Allen is the host and the panelists are Bill Cullen, Henry Morgan, Bess Myerson, and Betsy Palmer:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Write, write, write! It is necessary. Even should the play fail, don’t let that discourage you. A failure will soon be forgotten, but a success, however slight, may be of vast service to the theatre.”

Anton Chekhov, letter to Maxim Gorky, September 8, 1900 (courtesy of Kathryn Jean Lopez)