It’s amazing to have access to these beloved movies from the 1930s and 40s through The Lux Radio Theater. But I have heard from OTR fans that they don’t like a lot of the adaptions on Lux because the radio plays “aren’t like the original movie.” So since I’ve been hip deep in their adaptions of not only “It’s a Wonderful Life” but “The Wizard of Oz,” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” and last year’s Christmas special, “Miracle on 34th Street,” I thought I might have a unique take on the subject.
First the most obvious reason the adaptations aren’t beat by beat the film is time. The Lux Radio Theater only had an hour long time slot, so they had to do a lot of cutting from the original content. Plus, a little bit of extra time had to be set aside for commercials, of course, and for the host to interact with the cast. One of the draws of the Lux Radio Theater was how many of the original cast members would come and reprise their roles on radio. In our “Wizard of Oz,” Judy Garland was on hand with three year old Liza to chat. In “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Walt Disney, himself, discussed the film. I think it’s safe to say audiences enjoyed these little extras. But that did mean more of the film’s content had to be cut or abridged.
Taking a visual medium to an audio-only format. I, personally, have had some experience with this as I have been adapting a TV pilot to be an audio drama. And there is a lot of the original storytelling I intended that was visual. So it’s either cut it or find a way to express it. How about Dopey being a non-verbal character? They put a cowbell around his neck that wasn’t in the film. Or in “It’s a Wonderful Life” the entire school dance scene was eliminated. How do you convey the pool under the gymnasium floor and it opening up mid-dance contest to have all the kids jumping in the water? That was an easy edit for sure.
But I would say the biggest reason some of our beloved moments from these classic films aren’t represented in the Lux Radio Theater’s adaptations is quite simple. These weren’t yet “beloved classic films.” They were most likely popular films, which is why they were chosen. But think about what it was like to be a movie goer in the 1940s. You saw “It’s a Wonderful Life” in the theater in the summer of 1946. The Lux Radio Theater presented the adaptation in March of 1947. If you saw the movie in the theater (remember, it was lukewarm at the box office) it had been several months, and you only saw it the once. So revisiting the story, think of it as watching a TV show episode once during regular season, then again when it was rerun in the summer. You remember it, but not in great detail. Certainly not to the extent of quoting the lines or having personally beloved moments. We take for granted that not only we do have the ability to own movies and play them on demand, but that we also have had decades of our lives to play them repeatedly, or see them run on TV. And it is in that constant replay, and it’s permeation into pop culture, that we know the movie so much more thoroughly than that audience listening in 1947.
So yes, as someone adapting “It’s a Wonderful Life” here in 2024, I found many notable moments missing from the Lux Radio Theater’s version. A glaring one was Zuzu had no pedals! It was a visual moment when George “fixes” her flower, so the writer decided that, instead, George was supposed to be picking up a special Christmas bell for Zuzu, which then was the bell that rings on the Christmas tree at the end. Why would they think anyone would care if they changed that? You might also have noticed a number of cast missing. Violet comes to mind. Completely written out of the Lux’s adaptation. And why not? She was truly superfluous to the plot. She added something to the movie, but we’re cutting for time so yeah, Violet, you’re out. (Hopefully you noticed the 2 lines of hers I put back in…) Sam Wainwright. Hee-haw he’s only mentioned on Mary’s phone call. Ma Bailey. Now to be fair, the Lux version had a monologue from Pa Bailey right before the dance. For MY purposes, it wasn’t needed, so I’m the reason he’s not in there. But Lux fully cut Ma Bailey. Likewise, they only stick Harry in at the end. Both characters getting mentioned by George, but any of their scenes were cut. But also, some of the notable speeches were cut. George calling Potter a “scurvy little spider!” or Potter’s attack on Peter Bailey at the board meeting. All makes sense to shorten or cut, but since today’s audiences have heard those speeches so many times, a version of the story without them seems empty. Note, I added back a lot of those moments (I’m not worried about time) and Scott McKinley, our George, further tried to sneak a few back in himself. He said it was felt odd to start the line he’d heard so many times only to realize the full line wasn’t there.
What I would say about any of the Lux Radio Theater’s adaptations is — cut them some slack. You try taking a two hour and ten minute run time and tell the story in under an hour! And the writers certainly didn’t know Zuzu’s pedals would matter to you, or that your favorite quoted moment would be missed because they had no idea how these movies would live on beyond the 1940s. They were just trying to give audiences a star-studded night with a popular movie that audiences otherwise had no way of experiencing again. So we should celebrate Lux and the other shows like them who helped these movies stay in the pubic consciousness so they could carry on to us watching them 70 plus years later.
