QP at the University of Maryland CP

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wcme
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Posted Sep 28, 2007 - 9:10 AM:

Hello everyone!

My name is Wyatt and I work at the University of Maryland, College Park. While a lengthy intro to me is not yet in order here, its enough to know that my passions run the length of Silent films, through Serials, OTR shows of all kinds, Universal Horror and mystery, into Hammer Horror and endless complete tv shows from all ages. Throw in a desire to own all the classic animation I can (Original Popeye, looney tunes, felix the cat, etc.) and you have someone born in 1969 with a eye firmly in the past behind me. Heck, I'd rather play ZORK or ADVENTURE then HALLO 3. smiling face

To this end, I stumbled upon the campus BROADCASTING ARCHIVES. Tucked away on floor 3 of one of the 3 libraries here on campus, this is a way cool site chock full of broadcasting archives from tv and radio. Every document that CBS radio ever produced; original trades and pictures from the silent era to the dawn of tv and well beyond, etc etc.

I talked at length the curator of the items, and he was kind enough to lead me into the locked archives room. This must be where the LOST ARK went at the end of RAIDERS. Endless rows of boxes full of actual real scripts, memorabilia, studio tickets from radio shows - all archived, box by box, into a show by show set of broadcast history.

As I always take 2 months at Halloween to listen to new (to me) radio shows (This year its THE PRICE OF FEAR, QUIET PLEASE - next year - THE SEALED BOOK, THE WEIRD CIRCLE) and 2 months of new (to me) classic horror movies (This year, tons of Borris Kaloff films, the entire LON CHANEY INNER SANCTUM MYSTERIES to name a few) I have been listening to Quiet Please - 3 episodes a day on the way home and on the way to work.

So, I mentioned this to him, and he said "Take a look at these" and led me to 2 huge boxes that said "Quiet Please - The Willis Cooper Collections" - and while I didn't dig through every folder, we sampled one folder which was the actual script for an episode - not a photocopy - that was used to read the show that night. It was full of notations, cross outs and the like in different colors!

Needless to say, I will be back to investigate further - see whats all there, and how it can help us.

smiling face
wcme
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Posted Sep 28, 2007 - 9:32 AM:

Sorry, here are some links:

http://www.lib.umd.edu/LAB/

http://www.lib.umd.edu/LAB/scripts.html

www.lib.umd.edu/LAB/collect...#Unprocessed%20Collections
wcme
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Posted Sep 28, 2007 - 1:22 PM:

Ok. I just returned from the archives site and spent 90 mins with the 2 giant QUIET PLEASE boxes of archives. Folks, if you are a fan of the show, this is something you all must see. Not only does it have every script, from what i can tell, but there is a wealth of additional information that would knock your socks off.

As I looked through the boxes, it became apparent that this is an original collection, kept by the original owner, Willis Cooper, and after his death his wife and eirs have donated this intact. There are folders of personal correspondence between Cooper and Ernest Chappell , contracts for QP, the tv series, Whitehall 1212, and so on.

Each of the scripts I pulled has a complete, original script on yellowing old paper that was used by the team for that weeks show. To my mind, after observing the pages of notes, symbols, and such, I have to assume that cooper made extensive notes in a full dress rehearsal, timed it out to be sure it ran proper length, add or remove lines, make notes to accentuate words so the point go across. This is amazing to behold.

There are revelations I was not aware of: the "Audition script" as so many shows had was "How are you pal?" which later was #13 redone. The audition was June 1947.

There was a script written for "Tales of tomorrow" tv series, called "The interference" and 6 months later, Willis Cooper had yet to be paid for it and there are letters asking for payment to his agent! This was written Feb 17 1953.

There are 2 scripts with no notes on them and no dates. "The Rendezvous" is 30pgs. "The Caller" is 23pgs. there’s a GIANT screenplay(?) written by "Suzanne Stevenson" called either "I sat Alone" or "Chinese Lanterns." I have no idea if Willis Cooper knew her, or it was bought to read and left in the collection.

This collection seems to have been donated by Emily D Cooper of Boulder Colorado.

Here are some samples by episode of notations:

In general, every script has a big handwritten "Cooper" on his copy cover. There is a duplicate of each script with no notations, as a backup?

Each script was "timed" it seems - there are several notes on each page with a simple "7" "7.5" "8" and so on in one color, and then perhaps another set in a different color. Different dress rehearsals? one script has 3 sets of such timings throughout. So that in thsi way, they could tell what min of the 30 they were on as they marched toward 27 and 28 mins total.

Notes are everywhere. cross outs and last second line adjustments. Underlines on words as notes to accentuate that in the live broadcast. Sound effects notes saying add music here, continue it, or to change the effect.

Some examples:

THE INQUEST:

"I Regret that is impossible" : REGRET is underlined twice.
"What's he laughing at?" : HE is underlined twice.
"ECHO" is added to each of the Scots lines.
"Just for the record Mr Ross," ^Rustle paper is added.
"LEGATO" is written across the entire section of speech for the sister as she starts "No William, I like it this way"
Coroner: ["(me)" is added in blue] Right over here if you please "[Where do you want me? Cue" is added here as well.]
One name was changed: "CORONER: Yes, Mr. Ross. And the gentleman, in what you termed a bathrobe, died at the hand of a friend named Judas." is the line you have in the scripts section. in Coopers script it says "Brutus" instead of "Judas"!
Lastly, there are underlines and hand written cast names at the end: "Eileen: Sylvia Cole" and "Arthur" has an underline and nothing written in it.

Forble Board:

After the Screech owls and they hear the pipes clang, "Too Quick Too Close"
A line change from: "They just walked off and never came back" to "They wasnt gonna wait for a 3rd"
The famous line at the end "I told you I was scarred of spiders?" was added in and hand written.
At the end, instead of "Featured" cooper wrote in "The men who spoke to you are:" and some parts have yet to be cast. Billy has a blank line, but the Policeman (sic) is hand written as "Dan Sutten" and "Cecil Roy".
Next week's story is hand written as "The Sorceress Apprentice" but below the end of the script in giant letters is "PRESTO CHANGO I'M SURE!"

There are folders that cover some legal dispute that his wife had to regain the QP scripts which were estimated at $10,000 and that folder is thick, as is "Informal letters" to and fro with Ernest Chappell.

Theres a letter from Ernest stating he has no interest in scripts from "Whitehall 1212" from whoever was in contact with him but to contact Emily Cooper at the cooper estate as she would like to have them.

All in all, you could spend forever here. I did today, and only saw 3 scripts and notations.

Imagine was out there in estates for all my favorite shows? Twin Peaks, The Prisoner...and so on. And Republics serial scripts and music recordings? Wow.

I guess I know what my room will look like in heaven in WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. It will look like where the ark is in raiders.

Any questions I can research for you fellows in this material?
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Posted Sep 29, 2007 - 11:49 AM:

Glad to hear from you, Wyatt. It's good to know we've got someone on the "inside." smiling face

The text of some of the collection's QP scripts (usually minus Cooper's handwritten timing numbers) have been posted in the "Scripts" section of this forum. Astro1 posted about fifteen a few years ago and I'm (slowly) posting a few I sent away for since then.

Well, here are some questions for you:

1. You write that there are two boxes marked "Quiet Please - The Willis Cooper Collections." Does this mean that there is more than one Willis Cooper collection? Is there more to the collection(s) than just the two QP boxes?

2. Are any of Cooper's 1934-36 "Lights Out" scripts in the collection? I know that the university's archive has two of them from late 1935, apparently grouped with LO scripts by Arch Oboler and others. It seems that Cooper owned the rights to a certain number of his LO scripts and assigned the rest to NBC so I'm wondering if he might've saved any of them.

3. Are any of the scripts for the 1949 QP TV series ("Volume One") in the collection? Six episodes were broadcast. According to one source I've seen, the premiere episode's script allegedly "totaled 74 pages." So these might be pretty lengthy.

4. > >There are 2 scripts with no notes on them and no dates.
> > >"The Rendezvous" is 30pgs. "The Caller" is 23pgs.

Are these QP radio scripts? Or scripts from other projects? If you can spare the time, perhaps you could skim through them (and the "Tales of Tomorrow" TV script) and give us a plot synopsis for each.

5. > >there’s a GIANT screenplay(?) written by "Suzanne Stevenson"
> > > called either "I sat Alone" or "Chinese Lanterns."

Hmmm. This one's got me stumped. Around March 1951, Cooper was reported to be writing scripts for "TV and film features" featuring Sax Rohmer's fictional villain Fu Manchu -- to be produced by Herbert Bayard Swope Jr., producer of NBC-TV's "Lights Out!" That's the only mention I've seen of Cooper working on a screenplay during this period.

This is just speculation but I suppose it's possible Cooper wrote it under a pen name. He seems to have done his share of uncredited work over the years, so using a pseudonym wouldn't be a big surprise. If it isn't a screenplay, it might be an unusually lengthy TV script. Perhaps there's info about these "orphan" scripts in the correspondence or among the contracts.


------------------------------

I'm sure we'll think of more questions for you, Wyatt, but let me just say a big "thank you" for letting us know about all this.

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Posted Oct 04, 2007 - 8:00 PM:

Thanks for the info. I wish I lived in Maryland now.
wcme
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Posted Oct 08, 2007 - 11:27 AM:

Hello all.

To dig further into the collection, I have gleaned:

* This is the entire collection donated. All QP scripts, misc folders as reported above. No QP tv scripts, recordings, or other scripts for other shows like LIGHTS OUT in this set of boxes. If there is, for example, a LIGHTS OUT collection, and we knew the script names, I could search that way.

However, this is exciting enough in itself. I did notice that this site doesn’t have all scripts or even episode descriptions for missing episodes. The 2 boxes in the archives would have every script to all 106 shows, so we can gather "unknown" information from here over time.

I focused today on the 2 scripts "THE CALLER" and "RENDEZOUS". Here is what they are:

THE CALLER - a very slow moving character study play about 2 Irish friends, and the funny ways they remember their lives, friends in town they speak about, they way their culture is, and so on. This isn’t my cup of tea, and I really struggled through it awaiting a supernatural twist. Nada. At any rate, the story is about DINNY MULDOON and BITSY MCMAHON in a small cottage in ROSCREA in the country of TIPPERARY. If you like flavorful dialogue and in depth rants about how offended Scots are if you say they are drunks when they really are only drinking for medicinal purposes, you will get a chuckle out of this.

I took a break and read over some scripts of QUIET PLEASE on the shows that I heard last week that were new to me. Of course, all were loaded with Coopers hand written notes, timings, and on the set revisions to dialogue. Of interest to me was the end to VERY UNIMPORTANT PERSON. The VUP originally says: "I am going to give you one hour to make up your minds" in response to the idea of choice between the new world that awaits and going back to the old world. On set they changed it to the broadcast ver which says "This time I am going to let you decide!" and based upon that, hand written in is the request "Mary, hand me that microphone" before he asks everyone if they should stay or go. So now, he’s asking all the planes, and not just the 2 of them in this plane. It’s more clear.

I then went on to THE RENDEZVOUS. It’s again a stage play, with notes on how to set up the stage, and so on. I was now running out of time to be there, but here is what I have so far:

It’s set on Halloween night in "the current year". An old man of 80 is awaiting the yearly rendezvous between him and his granddaughter. They planned this yearly event since she was 6, and every year since they have met, except lest year when he was ill and couldn’t make it. She could not have visited him because of "difficulties" A cop that starts talking to him notes that she would now be 23. When he leaves, and the girl appears, she is 12, "floats" across stage, and the elements do not affect her. She reminisces about her year "in school thsi past year" the play she was in, the boys she had a crush on, and so on. She does seem to understand that time has moved on without her, as she asks if anyone asks about her anymore, and if the boys she liked in school have gotten married. She was scared last year when "Pop Pop" failed to visit her, because she knows a year will come when he can no longer visit. "This comes to us all". Then 2 sailors wander by (the girl hides in the shadows like a statue) and engage in 7 pages of "cute" chatter about life, drink, age, and s on. It really adds nothing to the play except to show how kind the grandfather treats everyone, if they bother him or not. When they leave, the girl drifts back on stage and says "don’t cry Pop Pop it wasn’t your fault".

This is half the play, but I had to go. I will advise later the ending. smiling face
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Posted Oct 12, 2007 - 3:11 PM:

Wow, a cliffhanger! :-)

This is great stuff, Wyatt. Many thanks. I'm working on a bunch of questions about specific QP scripts for you and will try to post them soon.
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Posted Oct 18, 2007 - 7:01 PM:

wcme wrote:
I did notice that this site doesn’t have all scripts or even episode descriptions for missing episodes.


The lack of descriptions on the episodes page is my laziness. It's hard to me to pay attention to the ones that don't have any audio, I read the missing episodes once but just don't enjoy rereading scripts like I do relistening. Let's see... these appear to be the undescribed ones:

9 "A Mile High and a Mile Deep" unknown 1947-08-18
10 "Mirror, Mirror On the Wall" unknown 1947-08-24
12 "Retreat At Dunkerque" unknown 1947-09-03
13 "Three Sides To A Story" unknown 1947-09-07
15 "The Big Box" unknown 1947-09-15
17 "The Low Road" unknown 1947-09-29
41 "Meeting at Ticonderoga" unknown 1948-03-15
52 "Below 5th Avenue" unknown 1948-05-31
53 "100,000 Diameters" unknown 1948-06-07
63 "Motive" unknown 1948-08-30
78 "Read Me This Riddle" unknown 1948-12-12
79 "Gothic Tale" unknown 1948-12-19

If someone would like to write summary articles I'll add them in.
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