Martin Block

National DJs help a promoter make an unknown girl a star, to prove the power of radio over TV.

Disc Jockey Martin Block talks with and plays music by Tex Beneke

Virginia O'Brien visits Martin Block as he hosts a radio show devoted to Les Brown and His Band of Renown. A few numbers are heard from the band as Block gives a brief history of how they started. O'Brien also recalls her first movie song.

We visit Martin Block at his studio desk at 11:30 AM at the height of his popularity as a disk jockey, when more than 400 radio stations carried his show. Block opens the show with Freddie Martin's first big hit, "Tonight We Love," an adaption of a Tchaikovsky piano concerto; he dedicates it to a listener in Wyoming, and we see her daydreaming as she listens. Then Keenan Wynn stops in for a chat, asking Block about being a DJ. Between bits of conversation with Wynn, Block plays three more Martin records, including "Cumana," and we see the band in action.

In this episode of the Musical Merry-Go-Round we get music from Frankie Carle and His Orchestra and Marjorie Hughes.

Musical short featuring Les Brown's take on Strauss' "Blue Danube," Art Lund singing "Mam'sell" to a beautiful blonde, and "Sad Cowboy" while riding on a horse (!), and Tex Beneke sings "Somebody Loves Me."