NBC's 1950-52 variety series, The Big Show was a last ditch effort to stave off the growing domination of television. The series starred Broadway actress and raconteur Tallulah Bankhead as mistress of ceremonies. It was a lavish, star-studded production, with each episode running 90 minutes, and costing the network $100,000 to produce. Radio stars like Fred Allen were semi-regulars, as were a surprisingly wide array of film and variety performers. The show, which was produced in New York, traveled occasionally to Hollywood, and, in the 1951-52 season, to London. Aside from generating a buzz for the show, taking The Big Show on the road allowed the producers to bring on a different collection of famous guests. In the April 1 1951 episode we're featuring today, Ethel Barrymore, Van Johnson, Groucho Marx, and Bob Hope are among the guests. The episode was broadcast from Hollywood, soon after the Academy Awards for the year honored All About Eve as Best Picture. Starring Bette Davis, the movie was based on Tallulah Bankhead's life in the theatre. You'll hear a few "Eve" references in this episode of The Big Show.

Dick Powell began his film career as a juvenile leading man and crooner in musical comedies of the early 1930s. Bored by musicals, Powell remade his image in the 1940s as a hard-boiled film noir hero. His first major noir role was as Philip Marlowe in the 1944 film, Murder, My Sweet. In 1945, Powell began his first radio series, Rogue's Gallery, playing private eye Richard Rogue. The culmination of Powell's radio career came in 1949 when he starred as Richard Diamon, Private Detective, in the Blake Edwards-penned series. On today's show, we hear an episode of each series.

Cary Grant takes Joseph Cotten's role in this Screen Directors' Playhouse production of Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. The 1950 radio adaptation also features Grant's third wife, Betsy Drake. There are at least three other radio adaptation of Shadow.