Listen to Benchley Perform The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

December 8 is the birthday of James Thurber (1894, Columbus, Ohio), so what a perfect time to listen to Robert Benchley and a full cast perform Thurber's most-popular work, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty? It was recorded in December 1944 for CBS. Thurber loved this adaptation of the story from The New Yorker. This is the complete broadcast, not abbreviated. To celebrate Thurber today, let's share this with our friends, and try to get 100 listeners for both Benchley and Thurber!

Art Buchwald and Robert Benchley

Five years ago this week, in a 2006 deathbed interview with NPR's with Diane Rehm, political humorist Art Buchwald talked about his life and his decision not to seek treatment for his kidney disease. At about 29 minutes into the nearly hour-long interview he sites Robert Benchley and James Thurber as his role models.

Hear Ted Delorme Read Benchley

Ted Delorme has contacted the Robert Benchley Society with the exciting and welcome news that he has created an audio recording of Robert Benchley's book Love Conquers All and has uploaded it to the Librivox project where it is available free of charge. For more information about Mr. Delorme's audio recording projects see his website http://glassmask.net/ted/librivox.html. For a direct link to Mr. Delorme's recording of Love Conquers All click on http://librivox.org/love-conquers-all-by-robert-benchley/.

Benchley Audio Recordings

The Robert Benchley Society was contacted by someone with this inquiry:

Hello-

I am looking for some information, and I'm hoping you might know about what I'm looking for. Bob Elliot of the comedy team 'Bob and Ray', did a phonograph recording of some of Benchley's writings. Do you know the name of this recording and what company released it? I'm sure it is long out of print (I certainly can't find it).

We responded:

According to the standard reference work "Robert Benchley, An Annotated Bibliography" by Gordon Ernst (Greenwood Press, 1995) the recording "The Best of Benchley" was put out by Caedmon on LP (TC 1731) and cassette (CP 1731) in 1983. I do not know if this is still available in the Caedmon catalogue. You might try searching on e-Bay and similar sites.

Nat Benchley Releases Volume 2 of 'Benchley on Benchley'

We got the new CD of Robert Benchley stories from his grandson, Nat Benchley, who recorded it. "Benchley on Benchley Volume 2" has ten stories, all classics. Among them are "Kiddie Kar Travel," "How to Understand Music," "Penguin Psychology," and "The Social Life of the Newt."

Nat was good enough to answer 5 questions for us about the CD, which you can purchase on his web site.

Nat, how did you choose the pieces on Volume 2?

Mostly, they were among my favorites which fit into the recording time frame and were not universally printed in too many collections.

What is your favorite piece on Volume 2, and why?

Well, I don't want to prejudice listeners, but there is one particular piece which -after all the readings and recording and listening again- still absolutely cracks me up (because of the writing, of course, not the reading). It is one I reference in my one-man show for a particular line, but there are many other sections of the piece which make me giggle. I think anyone who might ever have been "overserved" will relate to it.

What is the best part about recording your grandfather's work, and presenting it to the public?

To be perfectly, Frank, [sic] the best part is finally getting it right. There have been recordings before -some by some very talented people- which just missed some of the whimsy and the off-beat nature of his character. I will immodestly say that after all these years of living with the legend, studying his films and recordings and performing my one-man show, I think I have him down pretty well.

Volume 1 has "The Treasurer's Report"; does Volume 2 have anything like it that stands out?

Well, "The Treasurer's Report" is his "signature" piece but not necessarily his best (just listen to what he has to say about it in the intro). One of the pieces on Volume 2 is one that has long been underrated. If you listen to (or read) "How To Understand Music" carefully, I think you will realize what a clever piece of satire it is. Close to music criticism, but way askew.

Will we see a Volume 3?

Only if Volume 2 sells really well.

Thanks so much, Nat. We look forward to hearing it.

Listen to "Love Conquers All" Online

You can now listen to Benchley's second book,  Love Conquers All, for free online at www.librivox.org. This wonderful site features recordings of over 1500 public-domain books read by volunteers. You can listen to streaming audio, or download mp3 files and/or podcasts. The Benchley offering is here. (Actually, this link is to the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php), which indexes many audio sites in addition to librivox.org, so it's a good place to start exploring the wide variety of public domain recordings available on the web). 

Since all the librivox readers are volunteers, the quality varies from book to book. But fortunately, the reader of Love Conquers All is very good. See the complete librivox catalog here. 

Librivox welcomes volunteer readers, so, as more of the Benchley books enter the public domain, perhaps some of you out there in blogland will volunteer to do a reading. It would be great fun (if you can keep a straight face while reading Benchley -- no mean feat!)

The Internet archive also contains a link to a fascinating "movies for the blind" version of the complete soundtrack of the (now public domain) 1945 movie, The Stork Club, featuring Robert Benchley. It's available here for streaming or for downloading as three mp3 files. Each file has an excellent voiceover that unobtrusively describes what's happening onscreen, effectively turning the soundtrack into a self-contained "radio" show (They even read all the credits at the beginning). The main "movies for the blind" site is here. There aren't all that many movies available yet, but I highly recommend it.

(By the way, there's quite a bit of old-time radio material on the archive site. See for example the Henry Morgan shows here.)

- Chris Morgan