Hallmark Playhouse: Penny Serenade

Remember, a hallmark card when you care enough to send the very best. Hollywood, the makers of Hallmark Greeting Cards, bring you an exciting dramatization of an unforgettable story on the Hallmark Playhouse. Tonight's story was chosen from the whole world of fiction by one of the world's most popular authors, whose knowledge of stories that will entertain you and story imagination is universally recognized.

Hallmark is proud to present the distinguished novelist, Mr. J. Mr. James Hilton. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Tonight on our Hallmark Playhouse we have a story that has already proved popular as a novel and on the screen.

Penny said a name by Martha Chevens. It's the sensitive and moving story of a marriage, and it uses music to bring back the memory of past events in a way that will surely appeal to anyone who is old enough to have any past events.

For all these reasons I think you'll find Penny said a name this evening, a really warm and genuine show. Those are words that are very close to my heart Mr. Hilton, warm and genuine. They not only fit our show tight, but are as fine a description of Hallmark reading cards as any I've ever heard.

Warm and genuine is perhaps the outstanding characteristic of these fine greeting cards that are just the thing to send your friends on every occasion that calls for remembrance. Because there is a Hallmark card that says just what you want to say, the way you want to say.

and those three important words on the back, a hallmark card, well, they say you cared enough to send the very best. Now, Mr. Hilton, we're ready for our story. Now that Kevin starts her story like this, quite a room on a corner of one of the less-ashinable suburbs in Westchester, Counting, New York, stood a squat ugly, two-storied brick building

with a hanging sign over the front door, the Kudia Press, because the bleak winter afternoon. Any decide one of the windows in the apartment upstairs. Julie Carey looked out of the storm with the last words that Roger Carey had said to her, ringing through her head.

I don't ever want to see that place again. I don't ever want to see you again. I don't want to see anything that reminds me of... I don't ever want to see you again. Julie turned away from the window, trying to shake the memory of his words from her. She moved over to the farmhouse, and picked up some records that were stacked beside it.

She dusted the top one and put it on the machine and she said to herself, thoughtfully, Roger always called these records, the records of a happy marriage. Ain't we got fun? That was a brand new song when I met Roger.

Every evening ain't we got fun? Not much money, over honey. Ain't we got fun? I was playing that record the first time I ever saw Roger. I was selling records and sheet music and at the park and store in New York.

And I looked up and there he was laying on the counter. Just kidding. Hello gorgeous. What's new in part starts? How do you like this one? How do you like it? I think it's 12.

Oh, that's good enough. May I take it? Charge it to Mr. Roger Carey. Pre-57th Street, New York City. Charge it. It's only 35 cents. Oh, I never pay for it. I have to. Where is my criticism and newspaper man?

That's my excuse. Say, what do you do with your evenings? and here's your passive stick. No, no, no, I said... I heard you. Now if you look, excuse me, sir, I'm afraid I'd have to wait on another custom.

A fortune teller told me last night I was gonna fall in love with a redhead. I definitely didn't, fortune teller. No, okay, but you must believe in love. Now, really, this is not the time nor the place.

Oh, yes, sir, well. And I know just the time and the place. I'll be waiting outside the employees' entrance. Hey, Wanda, you any good? Are you finding what you want to? Thank you. I've found exactly what I want.

That was June-thick. The beginning. We met that night, and every night by the week stood in the month. I remember that I was wearing a new hair due to that spring, and a new feeling that was like no other feeling I'd ever had before.

I was riding a rollercoaster for one moment to the next, and life was gay and exciting and wonderful. Life was rock. Hiya, baby. Oh, pan-pack. Let me get a load of that new dress. I'm crazy about you.

They're at least for you and your parents. You're not coming right off that cherry cloth. You're parents, me. You don't think I'm gonna let a busy little redhead like you run around loose for three years, do you?

I seem to miss the beginning of the picture. The newspaper's ten-e-needed, sir. I'm gonna have a fine line and everything. This is a proposal of a redhead. Great ape, little ribbon, Gilbidge. What do you say?

Oh, Roger. You... you aren't gonna say no. Are you kidding? Oh, I mean nobody else is known to you, Roger. Come here. Mrs. Roger, carry. The records of a happy nose. Funny how much songs are part of your memory.

And how easy it is to go back while you listen. I remember a small, dark chap with Roger and I whispering the old honored words. I remember saying over and over myself. And a few short days later, hearing logistically...

Julie, I don't know what to say to you. I thought when I told the office we got married Sunday, Well, of course they didn't say they didn't want you to go. It's just that they won't pay the fair, and I'm a little short at the moment.

Oh, I see. I have $107 in the bank. Yes, well that's just about $100 more than I have. Oh, boy, that's fair. You don't look like that. Oh, I'll tell them to shut the job.

Oh, you can't do that. Oh, it's such a wonderful opportunity and you're going to have a fine line. Well, then I guess the only thing to do is to meet a go over and save every set I can.

And I'll save everything I can. I can go without lunch. Oh sweetheart. Nothing's gonna stop like this. It may be a bit rough right now, but the world's our oyster. And in a month or two, we're gonna crack it, need it on a half-shelf.

So they're Stuart's house. I don't remember how many months it was before I saved enough money to follow Roger to Japan. All I remember is that between New York and Japan there was San Francisco. And in San Francisco I met Roger's brother, Dr. Philip Carroll.

I had dreams wonderful days there before my birthday. Phillips was the exact opposite of Roger. Roger was impulsive, Leop first looked afterwards. Phillips was dependable, serious, thoughtful. I know we talked incessantly, but I can't remember with the boss.

I only remember what we said to last evening. When we hardly saw. Do you like the work course, would you, Will? No, thank you. I'm sorry I don't care. This is a lovely hotel. It was nice of you to be near the dinner.

It's a perfect evening, sir. It has for me too, Ma. Iris? What? Iris, did you've been the girl next door? I've had met you a long time ago. So do I. Better be getting you back to your hotel, don't you think?

You have to get up pretty early. Yes. This I think I am a little tired. We met late to the theatre. To you. Well, Roger always was the lucky one in the family. Hey, like your first ride in a rickshaw.

Well, it's fun for fun. No, I can't wait for you to see the house. Of course, I'm in hot, up to my ears, but I'll pay it off. Oh, did I tell you, Applejack Jones was here.

Applejack Jones? I told you about him. He's my best friend. Remember, he ran the line of type machine down at the office. Oh, yeah. Now, when he bumped his way over on the fader, he got a job at the office.

Oh, well, I'll be glad to see you. Yeah, you were you haven't said anything about Philip. How'd you do it all? Oh We did all right How much father's the house not far now? No, baby, baby. I can't believe you're really here. I wish I could have sent you the money to come

Well, I work nights my managed that way from now on we're never gonna be separated again Married people belong together. They do if they're gonna stay mad We're gonna stay married kids with us. It's for now on and forever As long as we both shall live.

I had only been in Japan a few months when I found out about the baby. And then for the first time in my life I was deeply and completely satisfied in anything. Roger took me up in the mountains outside Tokyo.

And there I planned and dreamed and waited. Roger would come up and tilt you up a long weekend. But suddenly one heart made summer day you ride back unexpectedly. You came rushing up the path.

Julie! Hey, Julie! Julie! Oh, Julie, we're rich. We're rich, baby. I just came in and went in head. We got $6,000. Oh, darling, that's wonderful. Oh, sure. I quit my job the minute the letter came.

Great job. Yeah, you know, we're doing... We're going out of trip. Round the world. China, Africa, Europe, New York, New York. Oh, but Roger. I don't know if I should travel right now. Baby coming, we need every bit of money.

Oh, Julie, don't be a wet blanket. You think you'll have a son who'll have seen the world before he was born. Come on, baby. We're gonna leave for Tokyo right away. We're sailing tomorrow. Is it hot in Tokyo?

Hot. Oh, I'll say it's hot. The answer thickens like breathing syrup. It's what they call earthquake weather. Earthquake weather. Afterwards, people used to say to me, you're in a great earthquake in Japan, weren't you?

Tell us about it. But all I could remember was standing at the head of the stairs and we're seeing the rest of the temple there. And then peeling a trauma. And the lovely thing was there shaking and disintegrating them, I'm leaving myself falling into a sharp, unbearable pain in them.

And speak, Doc. Later, I remember the pain returning and hearing Roger's voice. And the voice of Applejack John. Way off in the distance. I told him about this carriage, now holding his statement, alright? How can we get out of the box and out of scratch?

It's a fire, it's getting different. It's all the way changed. I remember that Applejack picked me up. And I remember playing, sitting, scarred and turning the night blood root. and then the dark coming down and closing running again.

The next thing I really knew I was in Phillips Hospital in San Francisco. There were agonies in sight that no medicine or doctor could reach or heal. The- it had dark agonies of loss and eternal loneliness.

Phillips. Hello Julie, how do you feel? I feel alright. Roger's on the telephone in New York. As a newspaper and watch your three trying to buy Applejack's with him. It would be like Roger to buy a newspaper he's never even seen.

When you asked to settle down, he wanted to try to make up. Make up! Your doctor told you. Tell him. Roger thought maybe if he put his money into something like this paper that he could work on and build, you too might get a little money ahead of the...

...adopt a baby. That dog, Julie, don't let yourself go to peace. Think of Roger. I'm going to leave Roger. He's a spoiled child. That's all he's ever been. That's all he ever will be. I'm sick of marriage.

You know, I think people expect too much of marriage. They don't have a wonderful fantasy of what they think marriage ought to be. Now, in our face with reality, they want to back up. We don't have to face life the way it is, Juney, not the way we wish it could be.

But Roger, you know, we're going to be a little bit more than you. I think we're going to be a little bit more than you. life away it is during that the way we wish it could be but Roger and I have no marriage nothing to keep us together yes there is there's a thing that brought

you together in the beginning you've both had a terrible blow and it came to you together not separately you've got to work it out together you know you know Roger had given marriage a chance yet you're going to you do you'll be very foolish to call of quits at a girl oh almost forgot Roger asked me to give you

It's a record. Happy day. He's wearing a loud storish and I send him up to you. Yes, sir. Send him up. I'll show you. Yes, Julie. Thank you. What playhouse is presenting Penny Serenade, the story selected for you by James Hilton.

There is probably no one in America today who has not benefited in some way from the genius of Thomas A. Edison. The motion pictures we see, the phonographs we listen to, even the light bulbs we use have come, whole or in part from America's greatest inventor. What was responsible for the genius that marked Edison as a man apart? What was the secret that inspired one man to achieve

so much? Well, it was Edison who made the famous remark you heard so often quoted. Genius, he said, is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. He has to accomplish something truly outstanding in any line of endeavor requires unceasing effort as well as genuine talent. The folks who make hallmark cards learn this long ago. That's why so much

painstaking care goes into the expression of even the simplest sentiment on a hallmark card. You see, they're not making just cards. They're creating hallmark cards, greeting cards that carry warmth and friendliness and affection. Cards that say just what you want to say, the way you want to say it. That's why hallmark cards are America's favorite

greeting cards and that's why those three identifying words on the back a hallmark card tell your friends you care enough to send the very best now that this English novelist James Hifen continues with the charming love story by mopicevans pennies serenade and Roger and applejack jones moved to westchester rolled up their sleeves and began a long struggle

but those days were all long in the past house They were all in memories to Julie Carey as she sat playing old records, going back across the years as she listened to it. We waited three years before we went shopping for babies.

Even after three years they were as much as you'd call really asking. But the figures we were writing down in the books were black instead of red. I had written to an agency and sent the largest picture and asked to find us a three-year-old boy that looked like him.

And finally they wrote masters to come in for an interview. Oh, we've got to get out of here. We didn't want to be late. wait a minute there's a stick of dust on that front fender couldn't see you spend all morning watching the car off the road everything's got to be so people

don't have a baby every day or I hope the agency liked us or suppose they turn down suppose they don't think we'll make good parents are you crazy we'll make the best-run parents they ever saw what we have a job say you were come on surely let's get going before we talk ourselves out of it

now in the turn this is scary we have only one child for placement at the moment a baby And doesn't matter, in fact, another couple, actually, on the right to see her face. Oh, her?

Her baby? She's the most unusual baby. She's like no other child I've ever seen. And eventually, you know, she will be three. Would you like to see her? Julie? Of course we'd like to see her.

And so I held her in my arms for the first time. And she said to me, perfectly. She was five weeks and two days old. And she was roger than mine from that moment as completely as though we had actually been her parents.

We called the baby Trina, and we measured off our years by Christmases rather than birthdays. Thought was probably because it was on a Christmas Eve that we finally got the papers that said she was ours.

Some of those years of red tea is mounted stardly in the account so... The Trina and Roger and I felt very wealthy. Trina would count the months and then the days from Christmas to Christmas.

You're gonna be a sister, Carol's Christmas program. I'm happy to. You might be choose for what, honey. If I say grace, we're going to be under everything aside. If I run, I'd be choose. Oh, Roger. She can't carry you too.

Well, uh, Bill, what's the song? Very kind of desperate, yeah. Oh, we have a record of that here. No, here it is. Hey, baby. You ready? Let's try it. Here we go. Oh, Dad! Ratchet couldn't carry a tune either.

But Trina was the very first one in her class to be choose to sing the angels. Looking back now, it seems as though the years flew by like angels taking flights and Christmas to Christmas.

Trina cared long enough to keep her. And I kept letting her hands down and her dresses. On her eighth Christmas, still a phone from San Francisco. I stood there, listening to Trina talk to me.

It's very nice of seeing you. We make it too late. It's going to be the most wonderful program, Uncle Sam. You want to say it? I don't know. No, no, I don't. I'm going to watch it.

You're the only one running up the hill. You're the last thing. You're the only one. I'm in San Francisco. I wish you were here too. You're the only one who's stuck up there. I love you very much.

You're a black woman. To the best. You're the most beautiful. I love you very much. You're a black woman. To the best. To the best. You're the most beautiful. I don't know. You're the most beautiful.

I'll go out and walk up the car. Oh, my poor husband's face starts to laugh. Don't worry, I'll get you there if we have to fly. Oh, Dad, I don't think I can go after that all around without Christmas.

I don't know how we ever got along without you. It's a clean meal. The year a child became a traveler and marched in a solemn procession down the aisle to the stage. One at least with our long apprenticeship, that patience and devotion.

and devotion. It is blood. Trainers ninth Christmas. What? What's the temperature now, Doctor? No change 105. But don't just sit there. Do something. I'm praying, Mr. Gary. That's all I can do now. Nothing. Yes, darling. Yes, darling.

Commander. Roger? You take the car on home.

Where are you going, Roger? I don't know. Oh, please. Please don't do this. Oh, please come home, Roger. I don't ever want to see that place again. I don't ever want to see you again.

I don't want to see anything that reminds me of the sea again. Roger! There's nothing to keep it together now. There isn't any more family. And there isn't it. There isn't any more treatment. And I never want to see you again!

Yes, it's a happy marriage. Oh, Roger. Roger, I don't remember this lady. I'm fine. Oh. Hello, Applejack. I'll hit the record on her. I was listening to those records downstairs.

For now, there's always some darling fools, song a person can't play to hear. Yes, I know what. I was just putting the records together. I thought Roger might like to happen. Life's a queer thing, isn't it, Julie?

There's big things in it like, like love, but mostly it's full of little things. People were along with the little things from one day to the next, and the first thing I know they're old.

I think they've lost their chance for the big thing, but they haven't. They've had the big things too, all along. I guess. I just can't help thinking how much you two are going through together and how long it's been.

I just wish I could help you. Well, I better get down and fire the furnace. I'll ride out for you now. You better go in that little jolly. I'm living room, huh? Roger. Just thought I'd stop riding.

You'll see. Just out and take off those shoes you went out without your room as a kid. Julie, Julie, I... I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. It was just that I was nearly crazy with grief.

I mean, I'd never been sick a day in her life. Julie, you know, the day before she got sick, she asked me for a quarter and I didn't give it to her. A couple of weeks ago, she wanted me to take her home movie.

I told her I was too busy. Yes, I know. It's been the same with me. And just try on a carrier costume she wouldn't stand still. And I said, I said I never got a child in the army again.

I don't know if it'd give. I thought you were going to be coming in a few years. I thought you were in love with Son of a... Oh no, Roger. I'm not in the way you mean till it was and is sort of a symbol to me.

An ideal of beautiful philosophy of life. Oh, but Roger, yes, I said so. And knew something. Philip knows that too. When I think back over, listen, listen, listen. It seems that you see all this madness Can you understand that, Roger?

I'm sure I can't get it. I've been doing a lot of thinking about us. We've been poor now, and even hungry. We've had... ... seen it, and we've loved it. But all along, we've had each other.

Oh, I... ...it's funny, isn't it? How many times you're falling off during the night? There's so many different ways. Darling, darling. Oh, Roger, I became a friend from Miss Oliver. Miss Oliver? What does she want?

Well, I was going to tell him over. Maybe you should see it first. There, and you'll be dead. Although you haven't said anything about wanting to adapt another show, nevertheless quickly off the record, there's a little boy, three years old.

And it's the oddest thing how he puts exactly the description of the child Mr. Carey asked for originally. Of course, there's another couple that have the right to see him first. But if you let me know I'm meeting.

Hey, hey Julie, if the kid's just free now, We better hold a place plan to get the crib out of the attic, huh? Oh, no. It's not a way to make sure. We have a little time for that.

We've got to get on the telephone. Send out a couple. They might get there for a go. Oh, look up the numbers. Yeah. Why do you do that, eh? I want to put on this record, eh?

I brought it along for the collection. I got it this morning. I don't want to walk too much, you say? I thought you were this hot one. So I kind of saw on kid yours in mine.

Did you find the number? Yes, you did. You called while I got these records put away. We've got to take good care of these records. You know, children? The records of a very happy marriage.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you like Miss Chevin's this coming tale. It's fine adaptation for radio was the work of Gene Holloway, and I think you'll agree it was worthy of the excellent cast, which consisted of Francis Robinson and Gerald Moore as Julie and Steve, with Frank Lovejaw, Margaret McDonald, Ed Begley,

and adorable little Anne Whitfield. In a moment you will hear again from Mr. Hinton. Have you heard about the new Hallmark Doll collector's album, The album children are going to have more fun than ever collecting Hallmark dolls.

Now that there's a lovely new album to put them in, it gives you a new and inexpensive way to make some child very happy. And during the introductory period, the album is only 25 cents when you buy one or more of the Hallmark dolls.

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$1.00. It's a wonderful and truly different gift that when any child's heart relief would joy. Then later, you, all friends and relatives, can help complete the entire collection of 16 colorful Hallmark dolls. The dolls are as easy to send as any Hallmark greeting card and cost only 25 cents each. And each new doll added to the collection will mean a new thrill

for a child. So stop in tomorrow and see this new album at the store where you buy your Hallmark cards. The number of the album with three dolls in it to start the collection is only one dollar. Now once again James Houghton. Next week we take you back over a century ago to a classic written by one of the world's very greatest novelists. It's a story which

deserves many complimentary adjectives but if I had to choose one only I'd call it elegant. Jane Austen's pride and prejudice and I hope you're listening. Until then this is James Houghton saying good night. The last musical score was arranged and conducted by Lynne Murray.

To be doubly sure of the finest quality, always look on the back of your cards for those three identifying words. A hallmark card. All mark cards are sold only in stores that have been carefully selected to give you expert and friendly service.

Remember hallmark cards when you carry it out to send them very best. Now this is Frank Goss saying goodnight to you all until next Thursday at the same time when James Knowleson returns with his story selection for the week.

Dane Austin's classic, pride and prejudice. This program came through the Hallmark Playhouse. It's the CDS, the Columbia Broadcasting System. This is KMB.