What happens
Jack Benny tries to win a dramatic role opposite Claudette Colbert in a Gulf Screen Guild Theater radio play. After being turned down by Edward Arnold, president of the Screen Actors Guild, he phones director Ernst Lubitsch, then Colbert herself, insisting he can handle drama. He arrives at Colbert's house for a rehearsal alongside Basil Rathbone, and the two men compete for the part. The broadcast is a comedy about rivalry and egos, presented as the Gulf Screen Guild Theater's 1940 episode of October 20 in the series' usual format, with Roger Pryor as host.
Hollywood, California, in 1940, with telephone calls and a rehearsal at Claudette Colbert's house
Characters: Jack Benny, Claudette Colbert, Basil Rathbone, Edward Arnold, Ernst Lubitsch, Roger Pryor
Listen for: Jack Benny's repeated phone calls to Arnold, Lubitsch and Colbert, and his arrival at the rehearsal
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.