The screenplay writer in Hollywood was a pen-for-hire. Whatever your status elsewhere in the world here, in Hollywood, you were usually a high-paid weekly contract where your talents, your genius, were at the beck and call of others who spoke of Art but were really mad but we're really the mouthpieces of Commerce.
But radio for the Hollywood studio system was all about marketing. On that basis something approaching art could be produced on a regular basis. This series produced some real gems from all manner of writers as their short stories and plays were remade for a radio audience. With high production values courtesy of the money from the shows sponsor, Philip Morris, the expert writers and cast delivered marvelous works, as we're about to find out.
