Leslie Nielsen & James Coco in The Ray Bradbury Theater Version
Ray Bradbury’s short story “Marionettes, Inc.” first saw print in the magazine “Startling Stories” in 1949. Its first book appearance was in “The Illustrated Man” (1951), the same year the following adaptation was heard on radio. The company referred to by the title later reappeared in Bradbury’s 1976 story “Punishment Without Crime,” in the collection “Long After Midnight.”
Unlike most Bradbury adaptations, “Marionettes, Inc.” actually provides some unintended laughs, including the absurd prediction that male bar patrons in 1990 would be standing around singing “I Want A Girl Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad.” The view of marriage it presents is the dominant view from the first 1950s sitcoms – that couples could only be happy by perpetrating elaborate ruses on each other. This time a new invention allows husbands to enjoy nights out with the boys by leaving perfect robot replicas of themselves filling in for them at home with “the wife”. But like all modern “advances,” this illegal and clandestine “leap forward” brings with it some unforeseen consequences.
The story was adapted for television twice: Roald Dahl adapted it for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, where it aired in November 1958. The version our members are most likely to remember is the 1985 one for The Ray Bradbury Theater, starring James Coco and Leslie Nielsen.
This adaptation was originally heard on “Dimension X” in August of 1951.
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Riabouchinska
Our final Ray Bradbury radio adaptation is a variation on the familiar theme of the ventriloquist dummy with a mind of its own. “Riabouchinska” (short for the printed story’s full title, “And So Died Riabouchinska”) is the tale of a dummy made in the amazingly lifelike image of a woman the ventriloquist once loved – and may have murdered. Unlike the usual horror story dummy, she has a sweet and kind personality; she is loved even by the puppeteer’s jealous wife. But she also displays a disarming candor her creator can’t control, and has something to say about his connection to a far more recent murder.
Originally aired on CBS’s “Suspense” program in November of 1947, this episode’s Mel Dinelli script actually preceded Bradbury’s published story – it was written from an outline by Bradbury. The story later appeared in “The Saint Detective Magazine” (June/July 1953), and would also be dramatized for television by Alfred Hitchcock Presents (see below) and “The Ray Bradbury Theater” (1988). Here’s an MP3 of the half-hour radio version:
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And here’s a link to watch the hour-long 1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV version, with unlikely co-stars Claude Rains and Charles Bronson:
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