 Ladies and gentlemen, the Railroad Hour. And here comes our star-studded show train. Tonight, the Association of American Railroads presents the first air performance of Song of Norway, starring Marina Koschets as the Countess, Melvin Niles as Nina, Gilbert Russell as Rick, and your host, Gordon MacRae, as Edvard Grieg. Our choir is under the direction of Norman Luboff, and our music is arranged and conducted by Carmen Dragon. Yes, tonight another great musical success is brought to you by the American Railroads, the same railroads that also bring you most of the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the fuel you burn, and all the other things you use in your daily life. And now, here is Gordon MacRae. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is your host, Gordon MacRae. Tonight, as the composer, Edvard Grieg, I shall tell you how he found greatness in his concerto. On an enchanted hill, called Troldhagen in Norway, I used to play when I was a child. With me would be Nina and Richard, my two dearest friends. And we were pledged together in the solemn bond of the very young. But Nina went away, years passed. Rick began to write his poems, and I by music. And even then, the urge began within me to compose something that expressed the beauty and spirit of my land, a song of Norway. Then one day, Nina returned to Rick and to me. And we three had a warm reunion back in our beloved Troldhagen. Say, we missed you, Nina. It's putting it lightly. Thank you, Rick. And you, Edvard, you wrote so seldom. Nina never judged a man by the letters he didn't write. Well, the main thing is that you're home again. And you know, I used to tell people I was from Norway, but they'd look at me as if I were a savage. To the outside world, we're still biking. Oh, come now, Rick. You, Edvard, could do so much. A man whose music is as Norwegian as a fjord. You see, Nina, Rick's still waving his flaming sword. Sword, fjord. I've made a rhyme. You're not supposed to. Rick has always been the poet, ever since we were children. And you were always the princess, Nina. And you, the minstrel, Edvard. Oh, again, we stand on you's green hill. The poet, the minstrel. The princess. And on Midsummer's Eve, one of our gayest Norwees in holidays, Rick Menestrain. You see, Monsieur, the contest, my wife is an opera singer. And you know opera singers, very temperamental. She insisted on coming here for the celebration. And when my wife insists, ah, she insists. The way the Giovanni also the contest in private life, when there is a private life. Quite different from your grand opera contest. Who sent in so? Grand opera, and I met this Edward Greek. He's a man of rare genius, who one day will be one of the greatest composers of... He's one of the first attractive geniuses I've ever met. How do you do? I'm so glad you like my music. Oh, Edvard, this is Madame Louisa Giovanni, the famous singer. You're quite bad. Thank you. Again. Edward, I must call you Edward. Edward, I'm off this. You must understand. Oh, I do. That is, I think I do. Like that. Does that interest you, Mr. Greek? Me? Well, I don't quite understand. I have not yet selected my accompanist, but just now, when I heard you play, I decided, poof, there he is. Edward. Oh, thank you very much, but I really, I really... Good, good. Edward, this is wonderful. Your chance to be heard. But Rick, our work together, the music for your poem. You can do that when you come back. Rick, I just can't. Nina, we must tell her. Tell me what? Well, Nina, a lady came here today, a rather overwhelming lady. I know. The opera singer. She's the talk of the entire village. Nina, she wants me to go with her on a concert tour as her accompanist. That means being away a long time. Nina, you must realize the opportunity. Yes, it is an opportunity. I... Well, I... I don't know what to do. Oh, you must go, Edvard. You will travel and meet great people of music. And they will hear your music. That's the important thing, Nina. They will hear Edvard Grieg's music. Yes, Rick. Go tell her Edvard will accept. Oh, gladly. Nina. Oh, Nina. Here in our lovely northern twilight, I'm seeing you as if for the first time. Edvard, darling. And where the sight of you comes music. Can you hear it? Yes. It's so near, it touches us. Music. Of the wind and the trees. My songs are only for you, Nina. Here. See this one I wrote only today. May I tell them? Yes. Nina has consented to be my wife. I always have the song you wrote for me today. Well, that's just what they are. And because we have railroads, it is not necessary to burden our other highways with a lot of extra-large and extra-heavy vehicles. The sort of vehicles which interfere with the convenient use of the roads by ordinary motor vehicles. And which over strain and break down the highways with excessive loads. Because we have railroads, it is not necessary to do this to our highways. They're just the same. Mr. Thomas H. McDonald says that's what we're doing. And Mr. McDonald knows because he's the United States Commissioner of Public Roads and one of the great friends of highway transportation. Talking to a road builder's conference recently, Mr. McDonald said the night quote, we are overloading our highways in their traffic volume capacity and in their structural capacity. End of quote. And he added that the results are reflected in the accident record. And in what he termed skyrocketing maintenance and reconstruction costs. Describing the increase since 1931 in truck traffic and especially the increase in heavy axle loadings, Mr. McDonald said that the effect has been, and I quote, that prior to the war, damage had reached alarming proportions. With the marked increase in heavy load since the end of the war, the damage has become even more alarming. End of quotation. Mr. McDonald went on to say that in so far as the great majority of trucks were concerned, there was no problem of critical overloads. And he added that every proposal to increase truck sizes and weights beyond the recommendations of the American Association of State Highway Officials should be rejected summarily. Something which Mr. McDonald did not say but which is likewise true is that further increases in truck sizes and weights are not necessary because we have a special sort of highway which can carry efficiently and economically the largest and heaviest loads. The American Railroads Now back to Saan of Norway starring Marina Koschets, Melvin Isles, Gilbert Russell and your host, Gordon McRae as Edvard Greene. My Concerto, Our Hill of Dreams and Copenhagen seemed far away during the months that followed. Paris, London, Vienna all a weird symphony of trains, concerts and the inevitable tea party. Louisa as usual took complete charge of things and soon I found myself in a concert tour of my own. And so the country boy from Norway became the lion of the salon. We ended in Copenhagen. My recital was a great success and I saw the proud faces Nina, Rick and the audience and they had brought my mother with them. There was a reception in my honor the next day at the Royal Conservatory. Thank you. Thank you very much. Edvard. Rick, I'm sorry. I've hardly had a chance to talk with you. I only came yesterday. I know you've been so busy. I'm the one to complain. He's been here a week and I've scarcely seen him. Well, you understand. Preparing for last night's recital. I sat with Rick and when you played music we remembered from troll, Halden. We were too excited even to applaud. Oh, those little pieces. They're good, but they're so... well rather native. Edvard. You know it's remarkable how one's point of view changes. Now I want to reach for something more important than just folk music. And have you found something more important, Edvard? Oh, come, Rick. You take everything too seriously. Edvard. Yes, Nina? Rick has completed his poem. Good, Rick. Fine. It's as beautiful as Norway itself. I'm sure it sings with your words, Rick. Not yet. It needs your music, Edvard. Darling, I have the most exciting news. I have trapped the second line for the reception. Uh, Louise, you remember my friends and Miss Nina? Oh, yes, the little girl from Norway. Edvard, do you know whom I brought with me? Hendrik Ibsen. Ibsen. He's here to talk to you about writing the music for his new play, Pergunt. My music in an Ibsen play? Nina. Rick, did you hear? Ibsen has become world famous. It's a great honor, Edvard. Yes. Another wrong upward. Exactly, my dear girl. What would have happened if he buried himself in that silly little village of yours? Edvard Grieg would have written great music no matter where he lived. Poof! Those simple little folk songs? Now, when we were in Vienna... Miss Ibsen is waiting on the terrace. Be quiet, baby. Ah, yes, Louisa. In Vienna, dear Nina, my Edvard wrote a song, especially for me, a gay, happy song. Yes. I love to sing it. Pepe, I said I love to sing it. Oh, yes, Louisa. They are pleased singing. Oh, no, Pepe. Oh, please, don't, Louisa. Very well. Excuse me, please. Yes, Edvard. And Rick, of course. I prayed the music to my poor and well. And you know he'd never break a promise made on Trot, Hogan. There you are, children. Oh, mother grief. Rickard, I've had a letter from your father. My father? What did he say? He said that you shouldn't have made this trip, that the doctor forbade it. You never told me with that, Hill. I'm not. Everyone worries too much. Come, let's have some tea. In a little while, Rickard. I want to talk with Nina. Oh, then please, excuse me. I'd like to meet Henry Dixon. Oh, I worry so about Rick and about you too, Nina. Me, mother grief. Nina, when are you going to marry him? Well, I don't know. You should. You too have been engaged for a long time. But Edvard has been traveling so much now. Yes. That is something that Countess is always careful to arrange. Nina, we are simple people. Such a woman does not think as we do. Edvard needs you, Nina. Now more than ever. I thought she'll drop in on Edward to inspire him. Nina, you heard? Yes, Rick. Nina, oh, mother. Nina, Rick, isn't it wonderful? I'm going to Italy to write with Henry Gibson. Well, have you nothing to say to me? Yes, Edvard. My dear. Mr. Thomas H. McDonald, the United States commissioner of public roads, said about the extra cost to individuals and to the public, resulting from overloading our highways. The highway user, Mr. McDonald said, and I quote, does not wish to pay for new highways to replace those destroyed by excessively heavy loads, end of quotation. And Mr. McDonald pointed out another way in which a relatively few extra large and heavy vehicles add to highway costs. By reason of, and I quote, the reduction of the numbers of vehicles of all types that can be carried by our highways when trucks constitute an appreciable percentage of the total, end of quotation. Under certain circumstances, he said, this reduction in the traffic volume capacity of roads is as much as one-third. So the public, the highway users and the taxpayers are paying more than they otherwise would have to pay for their roads and are getting less use out of the roads they pay for because of a relatively few extra large and extra heavy vehicles. And it is all so unnecessary when we have available railroads, specially built and specially fitted to carry just that sort of loads and to do it with unequal efficiency and economy. Our show train will return in just a moment after a brief pause for station identification, starring Marina Koschetz, Melvin Isles, Gilbert Russell and your host, Gordon MacRae, as Edvard Greene. I went to Rome and began work with Ibsen on Pierre Guint. It was a stormy collaboration filled with quarrels and victories. Somehow the music for Ibsen's strange tear would not come to me. My nerves became frayed and jumpy and the ever-present conflict between Nina and Louisa added to my distraction. I finished the music finally and Louisa insisted on having it play for the first time before a small gathering for a film. I will applaud for you and you cannot turn from it, Edvard, nor from me. Yesterday you were a boy who wrote music in a village but now the name of a man is heard and you can make him great. I know Louisa and I'm grateful for everything you've done for me, but... Pardon me, Monsieur Gris. Your wife just arrived and she wants to see you alone. What is she doing here? Nina here. I don't understand. She said she wasn't coming, but please excuse me. Very well, but remember I shall be waiting. Nina, what is it? What's wrong? Edvard, a letter just came for you, special post. It's from Mother Gris. From Mother? Well, let me have it, please. He's gone. This note. He left it for me. Dear Edvard, the day is passing and our lovely fjord sparkled with the last light of a dying sun. It is so with me in my life for I can hear God whisper, to you, Edvard, I leave Norway, the maid so fair like crystal to behold. Nina, my darling, we're going home. Oh, you trolled Haugen. Yes, trolled Haugen. Oh, Nina, I failed you as I failed Rick. Can you still love me? I have never doubted. Nor will I ever. I hear you. Thank Nina, our first Christmas in our own home here in trolled Haugen. Where we always wanted to be, darling. It was here in our hill of dreams, Nina, that you first said. In my ears you spoke, did it stop? It's our sleep under the snow, like giants under white blankets. To write about the mountain. Tonight I keep remembering his poem. It needs your music, Edvard, he said. And make it live. Sleep. Sleep on my sleepless Norway. Thy chilled dark star will yet burn brighter for thy sleep. The words fit into this night. Let me sit here at the piano and listen to them again, Nina, from you. Beyond. Far beyond the span and space of all place, Nor. And before. Oh, long before the face of time fell upon the fjord. The mountains love the sky. The sun knew the earth and both spring. I hear it too, Rick's voice. And there in that far off time and full of springs flowing breast, children danced, even Norway danced. Rick's dream. A song of no- Yes, Nina. We three are together once more giving his warmest thanks to the members of our supporting cast. Jerome Cowan and Myra Myers for their excellent performances in Song of Norway, with musical adaptation and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, based on a play by Homer Curran. Song of Norway was adapted for radio by Milton Lazarus, who also wrote the original stage play. And now, here are Marina Koschets, Melvin Niles, and Gilbert Russell. I just want to tell you how very much I enjoyed appearing for the Association of American Railroads in this exciting production of the thrilling Song of Norway. Ditto from me, Gordon. And from me, too. We all thank you, Marina, Melvin, Gilbert. And we hope you'll be listening next Monday night, March 7th, when we'll be bringing you Jeanette MacDonald in Franz Leihar's Mary Widow. I will. I will. And I will. That's wonderful. And the following week, March 14th, another treat. Victor Herbert's charming Irish operetta, Eileen, in honor, of course, of St. Patrick's Day. Well, that's another date. Well, it looks as though we're ready to pull out. And so until next week, goodbye. Original producer, Edwin Lester, and through the courtesy of Universal International Studios, who will soon world premiere the life of Riley, starring William Bendix's Riley. Marina Kochettes appeared by arrangement with Metro Golden Mayor, producers of the Technicolor picture, Little Women, starring June Allison, Peter Lawford, Margaret O'Brien, and Elizabeth Taylor. Gordon McRae appeared by arrangement with Warner Brothers. This is Marvin Miller speaking. The railroad hour is brought to you each week at this time by 132 railroads of the United States. Each one of them has its own operations and services. Each one competes keenly with others for business, but all of them work together through the Association of American Railroads for the improvement of all railroading and for better service to you.