Don Juan in Hell (1952) with Charles Boyer 

We also saw this with Charles and Agnes, but also in the cast were Vincent Price and Sir Cedric Hardwicke...unforgettable...

Beginning in 1950, Boyer was occupied with an extraordinary stage presentation of Don Juan in Hell intermittently for four years. Many of his friends, and others who did not know him, regarded Boyer's rendering of the title role the highest achievement of his career as an actor, either on stage or screen. Don Juan's conflict is the choice between a pleasure-seeking existence and service for the betterment of the human race. It is to the Devil's despair that Don Juan cannot be compromised to Hell, even with his beloved Ana there. In Boyer's trust, Don Juan attained the status of an authentic hero for dramatic literature.

How completely .lucky I was able to see this in NYC when I was in college. Memorable and one of the best theatre experiences of my life.

Agnes could not be better prepared as an actress, to sit on a stool or chair and read or recite a script into a microphone. She was one of the most versatile, prodigious and gifted of radio actors in the heyday of radio drama, and as such, does not need TO DO much of anything to act. Her expressive and distinctive voice offers every advantage and she can get it to communicate layers of meaning and nuance from literally decades of experience. Nobody can buy that kind of experience anymore because nobody writes and produces radio dramas.

Thank you so much for this. Charles Laughton as Satan as written by Bernard Shaw. Excellent!

Boyer, Laughton, and Hardwicke came on in black-tie tuxedos, and Miss Moorehead in a chiffon gown, also crowned with a jeweled tiara that represented a substantial portion of the production cost, actor salaries apart. There were four reading stands, each supporting an oversized playscript. That was it, and the nearly unanimous opinion was that that was enough. A mere reading? The four actors acted up a storm, but with their voices only. And such voices! Boyer astonished listeners with the clarity of his English, to its most subtle intonations. He demonstrated an ability almost to banish his native accent on demand, while delivering enough to retain his inimitability. That all four voices were beguiling and also complementary and even harmonious was important.

Thanks so much for making this available. I have it on LP but have never heard it with such sonic clarity.

I first heard this on LP when I was 13 by an uncle who loved plays on records. I saw this played live in 1973 with Moorehead, Paul Henreid, Edward Mulhare and Riccardo Montalban.

Somewhere, I have this on a set of 16rpm discs, but no turntable to play them. It's been just shy of 35 years since I was able to listen to the great performance. Thank you!

Wow that was amazing!!! I saw the record for this today in a thrift store. I did t get it, but I look it up, and wow it is amazing!!!

I have this on 16 rpm discs, but haven't been able to listen to it for years for lack of a proper turntable. Brilliant performances.

Wonderful to recapture this masterpiece. Although, like a prior commenter, heard it repeatedly as a boy via 33 1/3 records, I consider myself to this day damnably deprived of the live performance, since I'm from Manhattan, & could have attended, presumably. Thanks to Kate for presenting, & for her own comments. Odd, also, that Boyer probably shaped many a boy's view of life, then; & with little change since (?). Imagine what current censorship would make of Shaw's views now...

Reviewers and audiences seldom made qualitative comparisons of the members of The First Drama Quartette, generally rating each as superb. Yet more than the others, Boyer was the revelation, the focal character and dominant presence without whose excellence the presentation surely would have foundered. Boyer loved acclaim - can an actor not? - but he maintained his characteristic modesty, confident that Charles Laughton was representing him ably. Laughton said, "It's a pity that Bernard Shaw didn't see and hear Charles Boyer as Don Juan. Shaw of all people knew how rare is the true intellectual actor. Boyer is that, besides which he is a considerable artist in other respects. I would call him a genius - yes, a genius who belongs on the stage." Altogether they presented Don Juan in Hell more than seven hundred times, and on the very last occasion Boyer said, "It's still getting better."

I was in the audience for one of the very first performances, which took place in 1951 at College of the Pacific in Stockton, California. It changed my life. thankyouoneandall.co.uk/letters/jack.htm

A staple of which I was schooled, and a education I will never forget. Classic when this country was educated and before the dumbing down of America.

In Hell, Don Juan debates with the Devil. - from IMDB

Paul Gregory's plan was to eschew sets, costumes, other aspects of stagecraft, and even physical movement, and to present the work as a dramatic reading. It wasn't divine inspiration; Don Juan in Hell had been similarly performed before and often, but not by players of such renown, and never before in America. The "production" was first presented in New York in 1951, an offering by The First Drama Quartette, as the four actors were collectively saluted.

The note is a little confusing. There were 66 performances on Broadway.

you know this, the answer is he never found it but he got it wrong...zippo zilch

1:21:20

Don Juan is hell