The Valient

Lady Esther presents the Screen Guild Players. Lady Esther Screen Guild Play Tonight, The Valiant, the starring players. This is Humphrey Bogard. This is Dorothy McQuire. This is Robert Middleness. And this is Pedro de Colima.

Tonight, through the courtesy of 20th Century Fox, Lady Esther presents the Screen Guild Players, one of the most famous stories in American theatrical history, The Valiant. It stars Dorothy McGuire as the girl, Humphrey Bogart as the prisoner, Pedro de Cordoba as the chaplain, and Robert Middlemass who wrote the original play as the Wharton.

The Lady Esther Screen Guild Players in the Valiant, a penitentiary, the Connecticut State Prison, a bad night, a depressing night, a night set aside for an execution. It's raining outside. A steady dismal rain that chills the bones and drums its way into the mind. A relentless, implacable sort of rain. Even conversation becomes damp and heavy.

Inside in the prison office, a single small lamp is burning on the warden's desk. And here in the half-lit, half-shattered gloom, two men wait and count the passing minutes. The warden and the prison chaplain, both trying to forget what lass are hit.

Yeah, it would have to go and rain tonight. It's past eleven. We haven't very much longer to rain. Well, thank God. I'm sorry. I guess I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. Is anyone ever young?

No, I suppose not. Well, the necktie party didn't use to bother me so much. This one's giving me the blue devils. It's not a peasant, you think, even with the west of them. Now, was he quiet when you left him?

Yes, he was perfectly calm. I believe he'll stay that way to the end. Father, when you were with him in his cell, did he talk? Yes, he talked very freely. What about? Almost everything himself.