This week’s installment features another visit to our listener library with an episode of Favorite Story, recommended to us by our mysterious listener, Tim (author of numerous books including Radio by the Book: Adaptations of Literature and Fiction on the Airwaves)! In this case, the series is presenting Fred Allen’s “favorite story,” an adaptation of “Frankenstein.” How will this version of the frequently-adapted tale distinguish itself from others? Is the story improved by including all the murders? How different were the police back then? Listen for yourself and find out! Then vote and let us know what you think!
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I really appreciate you guys plugging my book. Thank you.
You’re welcome. We’ve found the OTR community amazingly friendly and supportive. It’s a pleasure to share that support with other OTR enthusiasts. Thank you for the great recommendation!
By the way, the dog at Jack Benny had a double-meaning. It does reference Benny’s famous feud with Fred Allen. But it also is a call out to Ronald Coleman’s frequent appearances on Benny’s show. Coleman and his wife played themselves as neighbors of Jack who were perpetually being annoyed by his antics.
I totally missed the Coleman/Benny connection. Thanks for pointing it out.
“Dig” at Jack Benny. Not “dog.” Stupid autocorrect .
I loved this. I would not have thought that an adaptation of Shelley’s novel could be as good as this in just a half-hour. My only real complaint about this is that it didn’t really establish a motive for the monster’s hatred of Frankenstein. In the novel, when Victor awakens to find the monster looming over him, Victor flees in horror and abandons his creation. Here, he just falls back asleep, and in the morning finds that the creature has wandered off. If they had just changed a few lines of narration to show that Victor abandoned the creature, rather… Read more »
One more comment: At the end, when Frankenstein warns the listener, “Above all things, do not say my name — for the sound of the syllables ‘Frankenstein’ makes the anger rise in the monster’s brain,” it made me imagine that all of the comments on social media to the effect of “Actually, Frankenstein was the name of the doctor” might in fact have been made by Frankenstein’s monster, and he’s pissed.
(To clarify, in case you have any international listeners, I meant “pissed” in the U.S. sense of “angry”, not in the U.K. sense of “drunk” — although the thought of Frankenstein’s Monster drunkenly posting comments on social media is also amusing to me.)
Insightful as always, Mr. Potts. You’re quickly becoming an honorary co-host! I understand your quibble with the logic behind the monster’s wrath, but it didn’t jump out at me. It’s one of the benefits of being so familiar with the story. I think the listener unconsciously fills in certain gaps. You raise a good point about Mr. Coleman’s introduction. I listened to it again and that’s absolutely what he was doing – building up to the big reveal of the name of the story. I’ll play devil’s advocate to your last point though. Wouldn’t creating a sterile bride only delay… Read more »
To parahprase All the President’s Men, it isn’t what Mr. Coleman did, it was How he did it.
Agree with Eric, fine but doesn’t really add anything to the story besides some light misogyny. What wife would ignore how frantic the doctor is? The story practically blamed her for her death.
Also, we don’t need to apologize or try to excuse sexism in the past. The opening was very sexist and demeaning to female authors and creators. I appreciate Eric, Tim, and Joshua for calling out that bs.