[Milsurplus] FW: Stage “prop” radios

[Hubert Miller]

> This may be of interest to some in the club, especially those who collect vintage military gear. My brother-in-law, Jeff, is the set designer/property manager for the Asolo Theater in Sarasota,Fl and was tasked with getting period radios for a production of South Pacific. For those unfamiliar with the show, it centers around actions that occurred with Seebees and marines during WW2, in of all places, the South Pacific. Rather than acquiring old radios, he searched images of radios of that era and built mockups himself out of wood. They look great (and could probably fool unsophisticated potential buyers), although I told him that the labels are wrong (one looks like a BC348, which was used by the Army Air Corps in bombers, like the B17, not the Navy, although a limited Navy version was produced). Anyway, they look remarkably good...I'd like to buy one myself just for fun!
>Jon

This is for me, at least, an interesting and amusing post. I opine that this building of props is "overthinking"
the play. My thinking is, you don't need any radio props for South Pacific, but if you do, #1 use some Hallicrafters radio and a couple items of test equipment, like most war movies of the era did, and particularly nowadays, as very few of the boomer generation know anything about that technology anyway, and certainly none of the people born after the vacuum tube era. #2 make some cardboard cutouts, cardboard boxes. No one's going to look at them close up, inspect the back side, and so on. But why go thru all that work of making wooden replicas? That seems to me like a real waste of time. 

The BC-348 replica shown has the nameplate of the Navy TCS, which was a pair receiver - transmitter used on ships and some vehicles. It has no where near the form factor of the BC-348. Of course no one's going to get on stage and read nameplates. The Navy did use some BC-348 in large planes, such as PBY and PB4Y2, but these still retained the original Army Air Force nameplates.

Thinking about this, i could see a place for maybe 1/3 - 1/4 size cardboard replicas, the kind of fold and cut kits that have been sold for ages in Europe. Like castle and historic buildings kits. If you're interested, search on subject like " papiermodelen schloss ".  These generally are one - sheet and sell for around $8. I bought a few cute castle models thinking i would build them and put LEDs in the windows, but ( as typical ) have not got around to it yet. I would definitely go for a BC-348 cut out model, maybe others, altho i admit i still have too many real BC-348s on hand.

The following is more subjective: i read South Pacific, by James Michener, many decades ago, and i was underwhelmed. I thought it very inauthentic. When i was 10 years old, i read "The Bridge at Andau" by same author. When i told my father i had read it, he said, that book's not for children, but it was too late already. It is nonfiction, which maybe somehow, in reality and in my judgement, that made it for me a much better read. I found it odd that this title is not listed in Michener's Wiki biography. Later in some college class i read "The Bridges at Toko-Ri" and thought it was pretty shallow. My opinion, and i don't think i'm alone, is that Michener was kind of a hits - factory. Give the masses what they want, and keep the books rolling down the conveyer belt.
But don't let my crusty opinion color your expectations.
-Hue Miller
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