What happens
Atherbury Dodd, a young and rigidly logical executive vice president of the Penny Packer bank, travels to Hollywood to take charge of the failing Colossal Studios. There he meets Lester Plum, a former child star who now works as a stand-in, someone who takes the star's place while the cameras and lights are set. Dodd is surrounded by studio men who seem eager to keep him distracted and away from the company's records. The episode is the Lux Radio Theatre production of Stand-In, broadcast on April 7, 1941, with Warner Baxter as Dodd and Joan Bennett as Lester Plum. The story sets Dodd's mathematical certainty against the unpredictable world of moviemaking.
Hollywood and New York, 1941, in the offices of the Penny Packer bank, the Colossal Studios lot, a hotel and a rooming house
Characters: Atherbury Dodd, Lester Plum, Mr. Penny Packer, Annabelle, Mr. Nassau, Thelma Sherry, Mr. Potts, Mr. Kozlowski
Listen for: Dodd's clipped, mathematical speech and his confusion at Hollywood's ways, contrasted with Lester Plum's wry, down-to-earth manner
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.