Another World Discussion Thread

[Mona Kane Croft]

Arianne Muenker was more than adequate.  In fact, she was beloved by the fans as the third-generation "Matthews girl", complete with the blonde hair. She played Marianne's abortion storyline believably.  I can't imagine what Lemay had in mind for Marianne that he thought Muenker would have been unable to play. I loved Lemay's writing on AW, but his attitudes toward particular actors were, for the most part, ludicrous. 

[Mitch64]

Didn't she go on to ATWT...a soap Lemay always seemed to have an axe to grind with.

[AbcNbc247]

Has AM ever said anything about him? 

I thought a couple of things were boring, but overall, I enjoyed that year as well.

Agreed.

Judging from the clips that she posted, she seemed to have this good quality that made a lot of those scenes, especially the ones with Pat and Michael, look like we were watching a real family.

[Mona Kane Croft]

I've never heard AM mention Lemay directly.  But in her YouTube notes she did write a couple of time that her feelings were hurt when she was let go from AW, so she did not continue to watch the show.  

[Mona Kane Croft]

Lemay didn't seem to like any actor who was proud of his/her work on a soap opera.  I think he preferred performers who were at least somewhat ashamed of being on soap.  

He gave a lot of lip service to hiring actors from the theater, but mostly they were hired into minor and temporary roles.  For all of the big roles he cast (Liz, Iris, Mac, Theresa, Rose, Robert, etc.), he used former soap actors who also had experience in theater.  But I can't think of any of them (the major roles) that were cast with soap opera virgins.  Possibly Susan Harney as Alice. I don't think she had previous experience on a soap, but she was one of his weakest casting choices in my opinion.  

[chrisml]

I never saw Harding Lemay's first run at AW, but is he really as good as his reputation would indicate? It seems to me that when people discuss him (on this board and elsewhere) it's usually about the mistakes or questionable choices he made. 

[Mona Kane Croft]

Yes, he really was as good as his reputation.  He wrote the show as a character-driven show, and wrote very weak (at times almost non existent) plots.  AW during Lemay's tenure was different from any other soap on the air.  He was so good at writing characters, I was absolutely hooked -- even though I complained because "nothing ever happened."  Lemay's characters seemed like real people who faced believable problems and had believable family drama.  There was also a lot of class conflict, as he had working-class, middle-class, and wealthy characters all on the front burner at the same time.  He was also very good at writing long-running tortured romances like Alice and Steve, Rachel and Mac, Lenore and Robert.

As much as I loved Lemay's work on AW, he was not perfect.  And I have no problem criticizing him, even though I loved him.   

Edited October 11, 2024 by Mona Kane Croft

[Maxim]

I'm trying to watch slowly. 1 episode a day, since the episodes are limited in number. I've yet to encounter a boring spot...  but of course I'm still in August in the first available eps I have. 

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[AbcNbc247]

I think August 1980 to November 1981 is still posted somewhere on YouTube. And mostly complete.

[Maxim]

Yup. I'm watching from these episodes. Loving the sound and picture quality. One of the biggest problems I have watching classic soaps is that sometimes the audio is so bad I can't hear what is being said. And since English is not even my second language... sometimes I have a problem following. And a soap opera without dialogue is not the experience I crave. But these episodes are pristine and I'm so thankful to the people that uploaded them. Sad that there were not more available. 

[Xanthe]

His professed reasons for liking one actor and disliking another don't seem to be consistent from.one case to the next so the only explanation seems to come down to personality. 

I was thinking about Lemay's comments about Eric Roberts' success post-AW and it occurred to me that it wasn't so surprising that an actor who has difficulty with the pace and limited rehearsal of soaps might still be brilliant in film or stage. Eric Roberts might never have adapted to soaps.

On a completely other topic, I was thinking about Jonathan Pryce as Reginald because it came into my mind that he couldn't be much older than Anna Stuart. And indeed when I looked it up she was born in 1948 and he was born in 1947. Of course John Considine isn't that much older -- born in 1935.    

[Mona Kane Croft]

Agreed. And I think Hugh Marlowe is another example of this.  Marlowe had been a mid-level movie star and had also done a lot of primetime TV guest shots. He was great in all of those movies and primetime series. But his work on Another World was, at times, borderline embarrassing.   Although he was lovable as Jim Matthews and he will always be my favorite Jim, he stuttered and stammered through his lines so badly I'm surprised the other actors didn't refuse to work with him.  To be honest, it appeared he didn't even attempt to learn his lines and was just phoning-in his performances.   Clearly Mr Marlowe, although an accomplished actor, was unable to adjust to the pace of daytime television -- despite his success in other genres of acting.   

Edited October 11, 2024 by Mona Kane Croft

[Efulton]

Perfect response!

[vetsoapfan]

While Muenker was no teenage Genie Francis (AM was not always up to the challenge of playing heavily dramatic scenes), she was indeed more than adequate. In fact, she was very likeable and often quite appealing. I'd say that she was the audience's favorite Marianne. 

Lemay's entrenched vitriol towards certain actors always came across as pathological to me.

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Mona Kane Croft said it well: Harding Lemay's work was excellent (particularly during the first few years), and he certainly deserved all the kudos he received as a writer. If only his acerbic personality and gratuitously mean commentary didn't get in the way, LOL.

When he was first cast, I thought Marlowe would do fine. The stammering and line-flubbing were not terribly obvious or distracting. Cut to a few years later, and he was often painful to watch. I'd even hold my breath at times, watching him try to stumble through scenes. According to Harding Lemay, Marlowe blamed it on Virginia Dwyer, but even if HM did make those comments to HL, it was BS. Marlowe had  issues no matter whom he was performing with, and the problems actually got worse after Dwyer was fired.

[Jdee43]

Those Another World episodes from August 1980 to November 1981 were originally posted by P&G back in 2007 and 2008 on the AOL Classic Soap Channel. Sad that that venture didn't last longer or that P&G didn't initially choose Hulu back then for uploading their old classic soap episodes 

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