The Beulah Show

Bob Hug · 07-03-2007, 11:10 AM

Here's yet another rarity coming from Alpha Video on August 28th, sort of along the lines of "Hazel" with an African American lead; four episodes.

http://www.oldies.com/product-view/5413D.html

Museum of Broadcast Communications article:

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/...lah/beulah.htm

Bert Greene · 07-03-2007, 05:09 PM

Good to see Alpha is still mining the p.d. oddities. I have a few of the 15-minute "Beulah" radio shows on tape, but never got around to seeing any of the television episodes. Don't know much about it other than it seemed rather plagued by cast changes. Wasn't it a Hal Roach production? If so, I suppose it will have a similar vibe to "The Stu Erwin Show" (aka "Trouble with Father"). Whatever the case, it should prove an interesting curio from the early days of tv. I'm all for that!

Joe Lugoff · 07-03-2007, 07:55 PM

What Alpha says isn't correct, because Hattie McDaniel was scheduled to replace Ethel Waters, but she never did -- it was Louise Beavers instead.

The Ethel Waters episodes were live, from New York. (In fact, she was appearing in the play "The Member of the Wedding" at the time, and so they started the play late on Tuesday nights to give her time to get to the theater.) So if these are the Waters episodes, they'll be kinescopes. I don't think this is a Hal Roach show.

Hank Dearborn · 07-03-2007, 10:13 PM

The show lasted 3 seasons for a total of 78 filmed episodes, done for Hal Roach Studios. There were 3 actresses who played the part, starting with Ethel Waters, followed by Hattie McDaniel for only 6 episodes and the finally Louise Beavers. The prints and negs on this show have virtually disappeared with only a scant few episodes known to exist. The show hasn't been is syndication for over 40 years and prints are so rare that the last one on ebay went for about $600.

David Rain · 07-04-2007, 03:11 AM

This would be a great show to do a set of if they could pull together enough remaining eps to warrant a release. I've never seen an entire episode so I assumed that only a few clips had survived. If it's true that there are at least a few complete ones then that's still a treasure trove. And regardless of which actress was playing the part in which eps it would still be great to see. All of those women are legends.

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Hank Dearborn · 10-18-2007, 06:31 PM

I actually spoke last week to the son of the man who last had a full run of syndication prints on the series, going back about 20 years. No one in the family really knows what happened to them (the father had a stroke) but the building they thought housed the prints was sold and torn down. They may be somewhere but the likelihood of putting a set together now seems extremely remote.

McAllister · 10-19-2007, 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff

What Alpha says isn't correct, because Hattie McDaniel was scheduled to replace Ethel Waters, but she never did -- it was Louise Beavers instead.

The Ethel Waters episodes were live, from New York. (In fact, she was appearing in the play "The Member of the Wedding" at the time, and so they started the play late on Tuesday nights to give her time to get to the theater.) So if these are the Waters episodes, they'll be kinescopes. I don't think this is a Hal Roach show.

Actually, Joe, some of the first season's episodes were produced on film from New York by Pictorial Productions. I have an Ethel Waters episode on VHS tape that was definitely shot on film. It was at the start of the second season that filming shifted to Hollywood. Roland Reed Productions ("My Little Margie", "Trouble with Father") handled filming at the Hal Roach Studios for the remainder of its run.

And as Hank pointed out, Hattie McDaniel did portray Beulah for only a few episodes, but dropped out because of serious health issues. I have one of those episodes as well, and if you look carefully, it was painfully clear that Ms. McDaniel was very ill, as the spark she once had in "Gone With The Wind" was... gone with the wind. Sadly, she passed away shortly after filming her episodes, after which she was replaced by Louise Beavers.

A little side note: After "Beulah" ceased filming, Louise Beavers appeared on the first few episodes of Danny Thomas' "Make Room For Daddy" as Louise, the maid, before she was replaced by Amanda Randolph, who at the time was playing Beulah on radio. I always thought the character of Louise was named for Ms. Beavers.

Hank Dearborn · 10-19-2007, 11:08 AM

There were no live episodes. That's a fallacy. All 78 episodes (3 seasons at 26 per) were filmed.

Joe Lugoff · 10-19-2007, 12:10 PM

OK, what you guys say contradicts my reference books, but that doesn't surprise me. It's the rare reference book that isn't loaded with errors.

Hank Dearborn · 10-19-2007, 05:41 PM

And what makes it worse is that once misinformation gets printed in one place, it gets copied and repeated elsewhere until it's all over.

David Rain · 10-19-2007, 08:59 PM

So it's possible that someone was sitting on copies of a number of episodes but they weren't kept track of in spite of their now-legendary status ? Figures.

dallhtf · 10-21-2007, 12:39 AM

A little Beulah trivia: it's sometimes said that Ethel Waters left the series because she objected to the way the show's African-American characters were depicted. Actually, she left Beulah because the decision was made to move production on the filmed series from New York to Hollywood, and Waters was uninterested in moving along with it. ABC didn't mind losing Waters when Oscar-winning Gone with the Wind co-star Hattie McDaniel agreed to take over the title role.

The Louise Beavers episodes began airing in April, 1952. The six Beulah episodes filmed by McDaniel before ill health forced her to drop out of the role were shown in late July and August of that year, then the network went back to Beavers, which must have confused viewers.

Beulah was syndicated for many years by a company called Flamingo Films. Flamingo went out of business in 1963, and Beulah subsequently vanished, except for a handful of episodes on the collectors' market.

nostalgic TV guy · 10-22-2007, 10:21 AM

The four episodes Alpha is offering have been around for a while, I've seen them offered on Ebay and Movies Unlimited has a DVD of these four episodes.

I've got these 4 episodes plus 3 more I managed to find. Three of these are with Ethel Waters, two with Hattie McDaniel and the last two with Louise Beavers.

Of the three women who played Beulah on TV, McDaniel is the best. She plays the role with dignity and humor.

According to the website TVParty, Hattie filmed only six TV episodes before being diagnosed with cancer.

I did manage to find an episode guide of Beulah on the Internet. There are no details listed from Sept. 1951-March 1952 which apparently is the Hattie McDaniel period. According to this guide, the McDaniel episodes were rebroadcast during the summer of 1952 and 5 of the 6 McDaniel episodes from then have at least a episode title and a brief description listed.

It's a shame that this series seems to be lost forever, as it is definitely worth the viewing.

The website TVParty has three pages of info (and video clips) about the show. The forum won't yet allow me to post a link, but you can find the pages easily via google.