Old-Time Radio Reimagined
The March of Time
29 episodes · 1931–1945 · NBC, Blue, CBS · Historical
Play The March of Time on Radio Days
The radio news series of 1931 to 1945 that the famous newsreel grew out of, produced by the ad agency BBDO, with Westbrook Van Voorhis as its voice.
Sources: Wikipedia: The March of Time; RadioGOLDINdex
Episodes
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1931
- Big Bill Thompson Reelected Mayor of Chicago
In the series opener, the stories dramatized are Big Bill Thompson's re-election as Chicago mayor, the Pulitzer sons trying to sell the World Telegram against their father's will, and 774 convicts sailing to Devil's Island. Also covered are the Romanov treasures sold in New York and the House ending its session.
1934
- Hugh Johnson Resigns from the NRA
The N.R.A. loses its head as General Hugh S. Johnson departs, and the Hauptmann trial gets coverage.
1935
- What Does Nazi Germany Want?
The program covers two Dakota boys who get army horses, Seminole peace talks, General Greely's polar expedition and Medal of Honor, and the question of what Nazi Germany wants. A test pilot dies on his final flight. This is the last show for sponsor Remington Rand. - Anthony Eden in USSR
Anthony Eden goes from Berlin to Moscow, where his talks with Joseph Stalin are dramatized. Other items: a doctor testing poison on himself for a murder trial, Eleanor Roosevelt defending Frances Perkins, the Scottsboro verdict reversed, and Giulio Gatti-Casazza's retirement from the Metropolitan Opera.
1937
- Life Goes to a Party
- I'd Rather Be Right
George M. Cohan stars as "I'd Rather Be Right" opens in Boston, including a song about balancing the budget. Also: a falling stock market, five Tampa police freed, a frozen mammoth near Siberia, seven hundred German dead returned from Spain and Rheims Cathedral reconsecrated. - La Guardia vs. Tammany Hall, Soviet Purges
The New York mayoral race is covered, with news from Hungary, Ireland's strict laws against kissing, poisonous Massengill medicine, Hitler on the Duke of Windsor, the opening of Parliament and a submarine attack on a British ship. - Life Magazine 1st Anniversary
Life magazine's first anniversary is the subject of the commercials. The show dramatizes a freighter lost off Cape Hatteras and a man who cashed checks while posing as famous Americans, and also covers a boy's suicide in a hungry family, the deepening 1937 recession and Haile Selassie's hard times. - The Fall of Nanking and Cedric Adams
A columnist predicts a union leader's killing, and Patrick Corcoran is then shot dead. Other items: a haunted British wardrobe, a French soldier with amnesia for twenty-two years, the Senate filibuster, the fall of Nanking and a General Motors sit-down strike.
1938
- Gunboat Panay Attack and 1937 News Review
Life promises exclusive photos of Japan's strike on the gunboat "Panay." The year's best films are recapped with impersonated stars, and the economy looks bleak. Also: a pirate-and-murder story, Mussolini's contest for mothers, a shooting in Shanghai and Chiang Kai-shek leaving the government to fight Japan. - Tom Tom Heflin
Alabama Senator Tom Heflin, who disliked Catholics, loses re-election. News also covers Spanish fighting in the Santa Clara caves, a Bermuda bishop removing the Windsors' pictures, Lindbergh case rewards, an Italian win in the Arabic radio contest, a General Motors testimony, a revived anti-lynching filibuster and Henry Ford's soybean car forecast. - Labor and Industry Conference
A conference of business and labor leaders on the recession displeases both sides. News includes a Madrid subway bomb, the opening of "Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs" at Radio City, labor unrest in France, manners among young people and King Farouk's wedding. - C.C.C. Fraud
The opening minutes promote the film "Inside Nazi Germany, 1938." Stories cover an $84,000 fraud on a made-up C.C.C. camp, proposed euthanasia laws, a seal in California, Hirohito praying for peace, a lost Eastern Airlines plane and Eleanor Roosevelt's new haircut. - La Guardia Is Making a Midwestern Farm Tour
Mayor La Guardia travels through farm country in the Midwest, a Russian polar team drifts on ice, and a Brooklyn theatre faces a union fight over a bead. An unidentified submarine torpedoes a British freighter, a reporter bluffs his way into an asylum and struggles to leave, Kaiser Wilhelm gets a royal telegram, and Princess Beatrix is born in the Netherlands. - Preparedness and Defense Review
A former washerwoman wins a Philippine golf title, Admiral Leahy cautions about Japan, Germany and Italy, and an artist is kept out of the Birmingham show displaying his painting. Little businessmen make demands, Al Capone breaks down in Alcatraz and Hitler assumes command of the government. - Equal Rights Amendment Debate
Postal Telegraph Valentines sell hugely, and Southern tenant farmers suffer. A debate covers the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, Gracie Fields is honored by King George, Dunninger reads the Vice President's mind and columnist Oscar O. McIntyre is remembered. Hitler seizes Austria without bloodshed. - Austria Has Pledged Friendship
Joseph Kennedy, newly named ambassador to Britain, appears in the first commercial and his departure for Europe is dramatized. Other news: Austria's friendship pledge to Germany, a Nazi revolt looming, a stabbing in Hoboken, Gabriele D'Annunzio's death and tenor Frederick Jagel replacing Giovanni Martinelli in "Aida." - Social Upheavals and Life Magazine Growth
A Prime Minister's daughter weds her gardener, and the head of the stock exchange, Richard Whitney, is bankrupt. A terrier lives through an avalanche while his master freezes, the TVA board quarrels, Pastor Niemoeller is jailed again and Mayor La Guardia's family backs Life. - Hitler on the March
The whole program is on Hitler's invasion of Austria, with a short biography of him. It also reports a Nazi plan for Germans in Czechoslovakia, German troops headed to Spain, French troops at the Spanish border and Italian bombing of Barcelona. - Austria Has Just Been Annexed
Austria has just been annexed. Greta Garbo and Leopold Stokowski are reported vacationing in Italy, Congress reacts to Roosevelt's government reorganization proposal, and Barcelona is bombed with graphic accounts. A drama shows what Nazi rule did to the Vienna Philharmonic. - Federal Reorganization Bill
Franco keeps winning against the Loyalists, and the reorganization bill looks headed for passage until Father Coughlin objects and telegrams pour in. A condemned man, Everett Jones, relates his life, and a pre-World War I peace effort that nearly worked is recalled.
1939
- Rebellion in Congress and European Tension
Topics: the racketeering trial of Hines, an American dancer performing for Hitler, a Supreme Court ruling about sit-down strikes, Harry Hopkins's Iowa campaign and the election of Pope Pius XII. - Hitler's March On Czechoslovakia
Dramatizations of what happened in Europe over the past week.
1941
- First Week of World War II
A look back at how the country spent its first five days at war. Called one of the best in the series, with news bulletins afterward. - First Week of the United States at War
1944
- Scales of Destiny: Global War Review
Major Jay Zeemer, speaking from Washington, tells how he earned the Medal of Honor flying in the Pacific. The show also includes Russia's new anthem, a Russian mother's letter read by Anna Sten, a talk on Germany's finances and a Theatre Wing sketch, "Johnny Q."
1945
- How Are American Wives Faring
Mussolini's fall is dramatized, and a Life reporter describes Marshal Tito and Yugoslavia. The program also tells of a woman who remarried after her husband was reported dead and other wives on the home front. Two songs from Disney's "The Three Caballeros" are heard, and only the first 22 minutes survive. - Allied Advances and Reeducating German Youth
- The Sherman Tank Debate in Europe
Subjects: free Japanese who fight their own homeland, the tale behind photos of a very odd wartime episode, whether 60 million postwar jobs are realistic, and whether labor or management is at fault for slow war output.