War Drama

One of the best war dramas on the air got its first sponsor last week. The drama is CBS's five-month-old sustainer, The Man Behind the Gun. The sponsor is Elgin National Watch Co., now fully converted to war work (precision instruments) and willing to tell about it.

The Man Behind the Gun was not designed for commercial exploitation. It was built to convey to Americans at home a graphic picture of what their boys on the fighting fronts were up against, of the weapons they were using, the combat tactics involved. The show took planes, tanks, ships, guns and submarines into action with an authenticity calculated to grip and instruct nonmilitary listeners. An understanding, restrained use of dramatic techniques, sounds and the special language of World War II gave The Man an impact rare in radio.

Last week the audience heard the nervous braggadocio of a U.S. Army private waiting to attack the Japs across a jungle river:

Wait till the Japs get a load of me on the business end of this portable hotfoot.*

The audience also heard a clear-cut conception of a U.S. infantryman's job: And that's the way it goes with the infantry. Some take the final count . . . some get wounded, but the rest keep right on fighting. You learn how much blood you have to pay for fifty-odd yards of battle-scarred mud. Real estate is expensive when you're in the Infantry. And there's nothing but fighting . . . hard fighting, dirty fighting. No silver wings for the girl back home to wear . . . no crash helmet to wear like a tank driver . . . no fancy names like paratrooper or bombardier. You're just an ordinary guy with a gun, and a job to do.

The man behind The Man Behind the Gun is voluble, dark, dimpled William Northrup Robson. His position at CBS is similar to Hollywood's coveted producer-directorships: he makes up his own budget, hires his own talent, produces and directs his shows. His forte is an impeccable sense of timing, an unusual respect for understatement.

Early in his radio career Robson found himself being rapidly "sucked into the hinterland of advertising"--bridge, cocktail parties, etc. For some reason he imagined that the way to get on with his job was to make himself socially objectionable. He expanded his mustache (a fixture on & off from his 19th year) to a full beard, wore dirty brown corduroy suits, bought a yellow chow dog to ride beside him in his bathtub-sized yellow Renault roadster. He became socially unsought-after. A Hollywood urchin finally shamed him out of it with the old standby: "Get a horse!"

Now 36, Robson should be an effective force against the further spread of radio ham. His Man Behind the Gun has received many unsolicited tributes, but none so telling as the complaint of some returned U.S. marines who heard his three dramatizations of their experiences on Guadalcanal. The marines asked him please not to put them through it again.

*A flame thrower.

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