Classic Radio Dramas (Particularly Classic Film Adaptations)

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RyanSmallwood
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Classic Radio Dramas (Particularly Classic Film Adaptations)

Postby RyanSmallwood » Sat Sep 12, 2015 1:43 pm

So I study languages as part of my interest in film history and classic films around the world. I recently discovered there are tons of public domain radio drama adaptations of classic films from America and England. My immediate instinct was that this would be a fun way to improve listening comprehension for classic films, as I could practice with more audio-rich versions of my favorite stories and hear the lines being delivered by the same actors in similar audio quality to make watching films from that era easier to understand.

My initial attempts at google searching some non-english versions of these radio drama film adaptations came up empty. I did learn from the wikipedia pages that this appears to have been a common practice in Germany, Italy and Japan, and perhaps was less common in France. However I was unable to find any direct links to the content. Just curious if anyone knows where one might find these. Are there any issues with classic radio dramas from some countries not being in the public domain the way a lot of American and English ones are? Would appreciate any leads if anyone has any.
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AlexTG
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Re: Classic Radio Dramas (Particularly Classic Film Adaptations)

Postby AlexTG » Sat Sep 12, 2015 1:53 pm

RyanSmallwood wrote:Just curious if anyone knows where one might find these. Are there any issues with classic radio dramas from some countries not being in the public domain the way a lot of American and English ones were? Would appreciate any leads if anyone has any.

Actually most English radio drama from that era was destroyed by the BBC: they wiped over the tapes with new material instead of archiving them. It was truly a barbaric age. It might have been the same in the countries you mention :(. I'm not sure why so much American stuff survived, perhaps they viewed radio through the prism of film whereas the British viewed it through theatre (the performances of which are ephemeral).

Edit: btw, I do know a place to get classic radio drama in French, but it's one of those sites we're not supposed to talk about. The primary user who puts them up always adds the comment "JAMAIS commercialisé" to make the point that this is the only way people can get access to them, even if they do want to pay. The relevant phrases are "pièce radio", "pièce radiophonique", "fiction radio", "fiction radiophonique", and "fiction sonore".
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Re: Classic Radio Dramas (Particularly Classic Film Adaptations)

Postby pir » Sat Sep 12, 2015 11:07 pm

I'm hesitating to reply because I don't have a direct answer to your question.

But radio dramas are still produced in Germany, and are well-liked, so it would surprise me if there were no pubic access to older materials such as what you are looking for. There is literature on it, and there are guides, some are linked from the main Wikipedia page for Hörspiel. And German production did experience a boom after WWII because most theaters and cinemas had been destroyed, several hundreds of them were broadcast between 1945 and 1960.

Wikipedia has a (very far from complete) list of German-language radio dramas: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deu ... %B6rspiele which you could search to see whether there are any associated with films. It's been too long for me, and I wasn't interested in films at the time, so I don't recall anything. But there are definitely audio dramas based on the same books as various films among them.

This is a fantastic site: http://www.hoerdat.de/ a database 35,000+ audio dramas. You can search for those related to films in some way. They often have links to where you can get copies (though those are not necessarily free, but once you know names, there are probably ways to find other routes of acquisition were you so inclined).
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Re: Classic Radio Dramas (Particularly Classic Film Adaptations)

Postby RyanSmallwood » Wed Sep 16, 2015 6:24 pm

Sorry for the delayed response, but thanks so much for the replies. True I'm sure radio archiving was probably less than ideal in many countries. Found some interesting leads based on the links and advice provided. No concrete examples of what I'm looking for yet, but some interesting stuff none the less, and useful resources for future searches for classic radio content.
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