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The Final Reckoning” – May the 2nd of 1944

Creeps by Night Was A 1944 horror series with two hosts, one for each coast. in New York it was hosted by the anonymous, “Dr. X” who, as near as I can find, is anonymous to this day. From Hollywood it was hosted by Boris Karloff.

Although,  did often feature the conventions typical of horror, werewolves and the like. It often provided a twist ending that brought an unexpected buoyancy to otherwise common place yarns. Karloff himself once said that, “There is no greater mystery than the mystery of the mind.” And many of the episodes dealt in psychological, rather than literal, horror.
Then as now, excellence is not a guarantee of long life.

Creeps by Night did not, “Live long and prosper”. It was a short lived series and only a few episodes seem to have survived. Too common a story in the annals of old time radio.

“The Final Reckoning” an episode starring Boris Karloff which aired first on May the 2nd of 1944. This is the story of George Miller, who was played for a Patsy by an associate. For twenty long years Miller had only one dream… a dream of murder, only one aspiration, his revenge. Then one day Miller, through careful planning and unbelievable patients, finds his chance when he manages to take the place of a barber giving the villain a shave.This turn of events creates the chance to play out a fine scene with Miller carefully, almost lovingly, tracing the contours of his victims throat with the edge of a straight razor. It’s heady stuff.

Suspense – “Menace In Wax”  from Nov. 11th of 1942.

Suspense is one of the classics of old time radio. Some fans have special favorites in the thriller/chiller/macabre genre, but most agree that Suspense is right at the top.

The guiding light of this show was William Spier, whose formula of human drama set in interesting situations attracted the best of Hollywood and radio actors. Orson Welles was in many episodes. Cary Grant said, “If I ever do any more radio work, I want to do it on Suspense, where I get a good chance to act.”

Spier’s method with actors was to keep them under-rehearsed, and there-by a bit uneasy. He got great performances, and the show gained great popularity.

All the production values were first class. With Bernard Hermann, who had worked with Orson Welles on the Mercury Theater and would work with Alfred Hitchcock, doing the musical scores.

“Menace In Wax”. This is a world war II drama set in the city of London involving… I’ll bet you already know… Nazis! Better yet despicable Nazi spies! Do I need to say anything else? Nazi spies! What more could you want?

X Minus One , “And the Moon Be Still as Bright” April the 22nd of 1955.

X Minus One is considered the finest science fiction drama ever produced for radio. It was  not the first. That honor belongs to 2000+. It wasn’t the second, That would be Dimension X. In fact the first 15 episodes of it’s  1955 to 1958 run on NBC were new versions of Dimension X episodes. The remainder were all most entirely adaptations of recently published science fiction stories (Mostly from Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine) usually written by the leading writers of the time, including  Philip K. Dick, Fritz Leiber, J.T. McIntosh, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl and Theodore Sturgeon.
For all of us who were weaned on  The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone and for the Trekkies (er,Trekkers) among us, you should know that X Minus One is the forefather of the science fiction you grew up on. You will find that it still is some of the best Science Fiction ever aired.

X Minus One and Ray Bradbury with one of his stories set on Mars, “And the Moon Be Still as Bright”. This story was first published in the Thrilling Wonder Stories issue for June of 1948 and would later be included in The Martian Chronicles as the opening story about the Fourth Expedition. Back in show eight we ran X Minus One’s adaptation of “Mars is Heaven”( AKA, “The Third Expedition”), you may want to check that out. This Episode aired on April the 22nd of 1955.
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The Mysterious Traveler – Murder Goes Free (7/14/46).

A close cousin to the Whistler and the Strange Dr Weird, the Mysterious Traveller was another memorable radio host. Easy to imagine yourself on a train, at night, seated next to a curious gentleman who invites you “to join me on another journey into the strange and terrifying. I hope you will enjoy the trip, that it will thrill you a little and chill you a little. So settle back, get a good grip on your nerves and be comfortable — if you can!”
The Mysterious Traveler was the second outing for pulp writers Robert Arthur and David P. Kogan. Their first effort, a show called  Dark Destiny, ran for parts of 1942 and 1943 on The Mutual Broadcasting System. This show was, unfortunately. not particularly successful. Surviving for only 27 episodes of which only one is known to still exist.
For this, their next effort, they teamed up with producer/director Sherman ‘Jock’ MacGregor, and actor Maurice Tarplin to create a show that would have a very successful run on  Mutual  between 1944 and 1952. Eventually becoming one of the highest rated programs of the era and spawning a handful of spin offs.

When a man fails in his attempt to buy off a gold-digger, he decides to just kill her. He manages it, much to his sorrow! This show aired on March the 31st of 1945 and for some reason it was identified as the last show of the series. It wasn’t, the show actually closed after the July 14th show of 1946.

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The Avengers South Africa – The Fantasy Game part 1.

The Avengers Radio Program was produced and transmitted in South Africa between 6th December 1971 and 28th December 1973 It featured adoptions  of scripts first aired on the very successful British T.V. show The Avengers. The show starred Donald Monat as John Steed, and Diane Appleby as Emma Peel. Two top  agents of  the British  secret service. 

The radio show was served up pretty much following the style and tempo established by the  BBC Television series during it’s run  from 1961 to 1969. Just like the television series the South African radio presentation features outlandish, quirky villains, mad scientists and secret organizations .  A little James Bond, a touch of SMERSH and SPECTRE, some Napoleon Solo and Illya  Kuryakin a hint of U.N.C. L.E. and THURSH.

Oh, and just a little Max and 99.

It’s all quite, quite fantastic as Steed and Emma romp through other people’s fantasies to thwart a plot to assassinate the cricket-playing prince of an obscure, oil-laden country. While Steed gets chummy with the prince, Emma is “sold” into his harem to flush out the assassins, who are using the QQF, a “fantasy fulfillment” service, to devise the assassination plot for them.

The Avengers South Africa – The Fantasy Game part 2.

The Avengers South Africa – The Fantasy Game part 3 and the short story The Back Dog by Stephen Crane.

The Witch’s Tale – The Truth of Death (37-03-11).

The Witch’s Tale is credited with being the first horror themed radio show in history. This happened in 1931 when writer- director Alonzo Deen Cole somehow convinced WOR (in New York) to try a series devoted entirely to the supernatural. Not really predictably The series became the premier radio program of its day running until 1938 and is fondly remembered by it’s fans to this day.

Only about three dozen episodes survive. According to Dave Siegel’s book The Witch’s Tale, Cole destroyed his recordings when he moved from New York to California. The three dozen or so surviving recordings exist due to the efforts of others. It was just that by 1961 Cole had come to believe that there was no commercial value to the actual radio transcriptions. He did keep bound copies of his 332 scripts which he protected by copy write.

Syndicated by Mutual. The program was hosted by Old Nancy, the Witch of Salem, who introduced a new story each week.

                  Not Old Nancy!

Crime Classics:
Madeleine Smith, Maid Or Murderess (01/20/54)

Suspense:
The  Bride  Vanishes (12/01/4)

Mindwebs :

The Pain God (03/11/77)

The Whistler:

Retribution (5/16/42)

(05/16/42)

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Crime Classics produced today’s episode – Madeleine Smith, Maid Or Murderess for airing on January 20 of 1954.  

Crime Classics is sometimes called a, “Docudrama“( I know I’ve been guilty of that myself). But I have come to think that this is a bit too grand a claim. To start off with you have, in the person of the host, a completely fictional “expert”. There is not now nor was there ever a ,”Thomas Hyland” (played by Lou Merrill ). Also, I have found while researching backgrounds of individual programs the historical content to be a bit dodgy; with the show willingly repeating legends and interesting anecdotes as well-established facts. Nonetheless, I will rise in defense of the program (of which I am very fond), to remind you that the entertainment industry of the 1950s was not different from that of our own time when inconvenient facts are simply not allowed to interfere with a good story.

I do not think that producer/writer Elliott Lewis intended for these shows to be taken as historical documents. He was, after-all, a producer of popular entertainment using the vehicle of tongue-in-cheek re-creations of some of history’s more interesting crimes.
The fact is Crime Classics freely mixes fact and fiction and tosses in apocryphal and anecdotal details as garnishments. I don’t think the producers were attempting to create an historically accurate account but entertainment. In this they succeeded, for entertaining they were and are.

Today’s program is a good example of Crime Classics somewhat eccentric dark humor involving as it does the 1857 murder of Emile L’Angelie who is identified for purposes of the program as a Frenchman (although to be historically accurate he was born in the Channel Islands) by22-year-old Glasgow resident Madeleine Smith. 

All in all the program is a reasonably accurate portrayal of the murder and of the events surrounding it and the aftermath. It is produced with a very light touch is often quite amusing.Your going to smile at this one. If nothing else you will smile at John Dehner‘s attempt at a French accent.

Wikipedia has a reasonably good article located here.

Segment two is an episode of Supense called, “The Bride Vanishes” which originally aired on December 1 of 1942.

Suspense is one of the classics of old time radio. Some fans have special favorites in the thriller/chiller/macabre genre, but most agree that Suspense is right at the top.

The guiding light of this show was William Spier, whose formula of human drama set in interesting situations attracted the best of Hollywood and radio actors. Orson Welles was in many episodes. Cary Grant said, “If I ever do any more radio work, I want to do it on Suspense, where I get a good chance to act.”

Spier’s method with actors was to keep them under-rehearsed, and there-by a bit uneasy. He got great performances, and the show gained great popularity.

All the production values were first class. With Bernard Hermann,who had worked with Orson Welles on the Mercury Theater and would work with Alfred Hitchcock, doing the musical scores.

In “The Bride Vanishes,” a married couple must solve a mystery involving a disappearing bride and a haunted sea cave.

As the episode opens, a steamship is chugging along on its way to the island of Capri. Onboard are two Americans, Tom and Lucy Courtney. They are happy newlyweds who have come to spend a month in an oceanside villa.

Everything appears to be wonderful, but Lucy is worried about one thing. All of the other passengers stare at her and mutter. In fact, they seem to be frightened of her! Tom tells her that she is being silly, but soon they realize that the problem is real.

When they take a side-trip to visit the famous Blue Grotto, a boatman explains that Lucy looks just like a young bride who mysteriously disappeared on her wedding day. He also tells them that the villa they have rented is the same one where the strange disappearance occurred. He warns them that they must not stay there or Lucy may disappear too!

Will Tom and Lucy listen to the boatman? Or, will they unravel the mystery with the help of their friends…

Mindwebs presents from March 11 of 1977 the Harlan Ellison short story – “PainGod”.

MindWebs, was a program of Science fiction stories that ran on WHA radio in Madison, Wisconsin from 1976 to 1984. The programs are actually more like audio books than audio drama, or really, maybe, someplace in between. The producers of the show took some of the very best science fiction short stories and gave them a dramatic reading with multiple performers taking the parts of various characters. These performances are rounded off with the addition of good, atmospheric background music and excellent, realistic sound effects.

This program although hampered by its local nature and low budget is nonetheless in my humble opinion as good as it gets. There is no better, no truer, presentation of science fiction material to be found anywhere. Not on TV. Not on the radio. Not on the web.

We are all indebted to Mr. Michael Hansen who is these days a well regarded and active jazz musician in the environs of Madison Wisconsin.

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This one is a story by Harlan Ellison.

You see this alien is appointed by the gods to dispense pain and in the pursuit of his assignment briefly inhabits a human being where he discovers that without pain there is no contrast to show what happiness is

The story was published inHarlan Ellison‘s 1965 collection of short stories “Paingod and Other Delusions” a collection of short stories published in paperback by Pyramid Books. Pyramid reissued the collection four times over the next fifteen years. Ace Books also issued an edition of the book in1983.

I like to point out that if you have Netflix streaming you can check out, “Dreams with Sharp Teeth” a fairly recent documentay on Harlan Ellison as both a writer and personality that is worth your time.

For the last segment there is an episode of The Whistler – “Retribution”, originally aired on May 16 of 1942.

The radio program “The Whistler” which was at first, heard only on the west coast of the United States began it’s run on May 16 of 1942.

It’s early broadcast restriction was due to the original sponsors wishes. Signal Oil, you see, was only available on the West Coast and saw no reason to pay for air time on stations in areas that it did not market it’s products.

However the CBS network did know a good thing and would soon find another sponsor to go nationwide for the next thirteen years until September 22, 1955.

At the end (1954/55) it was also a television show for 39 episodes.

The stories of The Whistler follow an effective formula where criminals fortunes are usealy undone by some overlooked but important detail, or, just plain and simple stupidity.

Oh, there are some rare occasions (some odd stories) when a twist of fate will allow an undeservedly happy ending for the bad guy.

Irony and twist endings abound in these episodes.

The Whistler (played mostly by Bill Forman) was not actually a character in any of the stories – but the host. A sinister, omnipresent observer. A teller of murder stories who saturated the stories with his foreknowledge and moral unambiguity; Often commenting directly upon the action like the voice of a Greek chorus, taunting the criminal from an omniscient prospective.

Each episode of The Whistler begins with the sound of footsteps and whistling, (The Saint radio series with Vincent Price used a similar opening). The haunting signature theme was composed by Wilbur Hatch who was also responsible for the mood music.

The iconic whistle itself was voiced by Dorothy Roberts, who whistled the 37 notes, 13 at the beginning and 11 leading into the story, then the final13.

“The Whistler” was adapted into a film noir series of eight films (1944-1948) by Columbia Pictures. The first seven featured actor Richard Dix (playing a different character in each). The “Voice of the Whistler” was provided by an uncredited Otto Forrest. also worthy of note is that most of the films were directed by William Castle.

Also of note is Jack Benny’s spoof of The Whistler, called “The Fiddler” which is linked to Here.

This is the first show of the series the audition show actually.

John Hendrix has killed his wife and feeble-minded step-son with an axe while trying to steal their money. Years later after escaping from jail he returns to to the now dilapidated, spooky, old house to retrieve the money he had hidden he undergoes a series of strange events.

The Sealed Book:
Death Spins a Web (45-04-01).

CBS Radio Mystery Theater:
The Walking Dead (05/76)

Robert L. Ripley’s Radio Scrapbook:
Witchcraft (08/04/47)

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Strange Wills from July the 13th of 1946 “Treasure to Starboard”. 

Strange Wills was made for syndication in 1946 by Teleways and is  an interesting twist on the mystery drama fare of the late 1940s. Co created  by Teleways and the star of the program, Warren William  (who was at the time a significant stage and film star but who is now little remembered except for his portrayal of Perry Mason in four Warner Bros. features between 1934 and 1936).This program held unusually high production values. At it’s core is an ensemble cast of high caliber. Headed by the host and star, Warren William, and co-starring Howard Culver and Carleton G. Young. Lurene Tuttle also appeared in many of the episodes, as well as William Conrad, Peggy Webber, Will Wright and John Brown. In short, some of the best West Coast’s voice talent on tap at the time.

The series premise  is the investigation of the fascinating–but often overlooked–drama that arises from many last wills and testaments. With Warren William providing a first-person accounting as either the attorney of record or as an investigator of some extraordinary will.

In the opening set-up of each episode some effort is made to assure us of the authenticity of these stories. Perhaps it’s just a function of my own innate skepticism, but be that as it may, I would admonish you not to take these proclamations as gospel. I will say that  this show waswell made with excellent sound quality and performances.

“This is a story of sunken treasure. Of blood red rubies, sparkling diamonds, and lustrous pearls. But these were but a part of this priceless treasure trove. There were golden statues of pagan gods encrusted with precious stones. There were amethysts, opals, and gold … gold … GOLD …“

Another adventure story, started out all too similar to “The Lady and the Pirate” with Captain Fernandez of the treasure ship Toledo making out his will … in 1703. But quickly over 200 years pass before whereabouts of the ship fall into the hands of O’Connell’s friends Paul and Jean. The hunt is on but will the intercession of German treasure hunters foil Paul and Jean’s quest? The post-WWII Germans, who are I assume Nazis in exile, are what makes “Treasure to Starboard” interesting.

The Sealed Book, “Death Spins A Web”, April 1, 1945.

As with The Mysterious Traveler that preceded it, The Sealed Book was an anthology of supernatural drama, produced and directed by Jock MacGregor for the Mutual network, and written by the extraordinary team of Robert Arthur and David Kogan. Indeed this same entire team of network, director, and writers were responsible for the entire run of The Mysterious Traveler. Going even further, The Sealed Book reprised 26 of the Arthur/Kogan scripts written for The Mysterious Traveler. And in yet another similarity, Philip Clarke performed as an actor in five of the original Mysterious Traveler episodes.

Where the series’ differed was in the ‘hook’ or novelty intro to each week’s new episode. With The Mysterious Traveler, the atmospheric element was the mournful whistle of the train, and Maurice Tarplin’s equally exaggerated exposition at the beginning of each episode. With The Sealed Book, each episode opened with the sound of the great gong, followed by Philip Clarke’s observation that the Keeper of The Book had once again opened the door to the secret vault, within which was contained the ‘great sealed book’ recording ‘all the secrets and mysteries of mankind through the ages.’

At the end of all but the last episode, Clarke would tell listeners to tune in the following week when “the sound of the great gong heralds another strange and exciting tale from… the sealed book.”

Granny should be dead soon. I mean she’s really old. Got lots of money and as far as her grandchildren can see no reason to live. No reason she should live. Maybe the cousins, a girl, a girl and a boy can fix that. Real quiet like.

If they can get along long enough to get the job done that is.

CBS Radio Mystery Theater – “The Walking Dead”.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater was an ambitious effort by veteran radio producer Himan Brown to revive interest in American radio drama. Every night from 1974 to 1982, host E.G. Marshall (later Tammy Grimes) ushered listeners through a creaking door — for 52 Min of “the fear you can hear.” Brown produced nearly 200 new episodes of Mystery Theater every year, using both original scripts and adaptations of classic stories by Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain,Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Mystery Theater brought many veterans from radio’s golden age back before the microphone, including Agnes Moorehead, Richard Widmark,Celeste Holm, Mercedes McCambridge and Howard Da Silva. The show also featured performances from many up-and-coming stage and film actors, including Tony Roberts, John Lithgow, Morgan Fairchild, Mandy Patinkin and Sarah Jessica Parker.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater won the George A. Peabody Award in 1974.)

Fondly Fahrenheit is Alfred Bester’s superlative achievement in short Science Fiction. Apparently the story was based an account of an U.S. Antebellum Era slave owner who refused to surrender his murderous chattel because the man was just too valuable. In Fondly Fahrenheit Bester makes brilliant use of the psychological concept of transference, literally smacks you in the forehead with an allusion to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and employs POV shifts that effortlessly blow your consciousness right out of your mind (and into someone else’s)!

The story was adapted as a telepay in 1959 under the title Murder And The Android, an episode of NBC’s Sunday Showcase. But the version I want to tell you about is one that I hadn’t realized existed, until just a few days ago! Bester had again adapted his story, and again changed it’s name! Here is Alfred Bester’s own radio drama adaptation of Fondly Fahrenheit, from 1976 He called it The Walking Dead!.

Robert L. Ripley’s Radio Scrapbook – August the 4th of 1947 – “Witchcraft”.

Robert Ripley began his career as a sports cartoonist on the New York Globe, where in October of 1919 he created the print version of Believe It or Not.

In April 1930, Ripley brought   Believe It or Not to radio, the first of several series that would wander the airwaves and be heard in different incarnations on NBC, CBS and Mutual . These broadcasts varied in length from 15 minutes to 1.

Ripley’s debut on The Collier Hour  brought a strong reaction from the listeners . Knowing a good thing when they heard it, NBC gave Ripley a Monday night spot beginning on April 14, 1930. By 1931 He was airing spots twice a week on NBC’s Saturday Party.

Ripley would host The Baker’s Broadcast from 1935 to 1937. Between 1937 and 1938 He bounced around several different NBC time slots and then took to the road with, See America First with Bob Ripley (1939–40) on CBS. This program would mutate and expand into a 1942 program featuring Latin music, See All the Americas.

During World War II Ripley would be heard five nights a week on Mutual in shows with an emphasis on the war. Then came Romance, Rhythm and Ripley airing on CBS in 1945. From  1947 to 1948.  Pages from Robert L. Ripley’s Radio Scrapbook.

The program ended in 1948 as Ripley and Believe It Or Not migrated to Television.

Finally the show was  resurrected in the 1970s. When there were produced a series of over 400 one minute episodes for use as fillers.

Robert Ripley is known for several radio firsts. He was the first to broadcast nationwide on a radio network from mid-ocean, and he also participated in the first broadcast from Buenos Aires to New York. Assisted by a corps of translators, he was the first to broadcast to every nation in the world simultaneously.

The Ape Song (03/31/47 )

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The Screen Guild Theater - Arsenic and Old Lace from November 25, 1946.

The Screen Guild Theater was a popular radio anthology series during the Golden Age of Radio, broadcast from 1939 until 1952, with leading Hollywood actors performing in adaptations of popular motion pictures such as Going My Way and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

The show had a long run, lasting for 14 seasons and 527 episodes. It initially was heard on CBS from January 8, 1939 until June 28, 1948, continuing on NBC from October 7, 1948 until June 29, 1950. It was broadcast on ABC from September 7, 1950 to May 31, 1951 and returned to CBS on March 13, 1952. It aired under several different titles: The Gulf Screen Guild Show, The Gulf Screen Guild Theater, The Lady Esther Screen Guild Theater and The Camel Screen Guild Theater.

Actors on the series included Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Eddie Cantor, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, Bette Davis, Jimmy Durante, Nelson Eddy, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Johnny Mercer, Agnes Moorehead, Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore. Fees these actors would typically charge were donated to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, in order to support the creation and maintenance of the Motion Picture Country Home for retired actors.

      Badge of the screen Guild

Arsenic and Old Lace is an appaption of the 1944 Joseph Kesselring‘s play of the same name. The script adaptation was by twins Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein the film was accualy made in 1941, but it was not released until 1944, after the original stage version had finished its run on Broadway. The lead role of Mortimer Brewster was originally intended for Bob Hope, but he couldn’t be released from his contract with Paramount. Frank Capra also approached Jack Benny and Ronald Reagan before going with Cary Grant. Boris Karloff played Jonathan Brewster, who “looks like Karloff”, on the Broadway stage, but he was unable to do the movie as well because he was still appearing in the play during filming, and Raymond Massey took his place but did return for this radio play.

The Creaking Door – Day Of Truce October 12, 1964.

The Creaking Door was an old-time radio series of horror and suspense shows originating in South Africa 1964-65.

The show was South African Radio’s shot at thrillers with a supernatural bent. In the vein of  the Americans show Inner Sanctum. The Creaking Door , however, despite its obvious connection to the American series stands on its own as a unique, well-produced, engaging supernatural thriller series. The emphasis on high production values is perhaps the very reason that several early, morally challenged Radio traders felt they could get away with interspersing many of the Creaking Door episodes with their Inner Sanctum, Mysterious Traveler, and Strange Dr. Weird offerings to a still naive community of radio recording collectors. Although somewhat left-handed, it’s still a compliment to both SABC and Springbok Radio that those early ‘otr hooligans’ managed to get away with the practice for well over 20 years.

That takes nothing away from this excellent series in its own right. The expositions were deftly introduced and shaded with just the right amount of chilling narrative. Not quite as chilling and melodramatic as Raymond Johnson, perhaps, but Peter Broomfield rightly camped up his delivery for The Creaking Door, and it worked. Indeed, given the reported conservative budget of each episode, it’s a tribute to The Creaking Door’s producers that they managed to tease so much quality out of such relatively humbly funded productions. Circulating The Creaking Door productions remain a highly engaging tribute to the supernatural thriller genre and, as such, continue to be a highly sought after series. Definitely still a compelling, ‘lights-out’ listening experience for young and old alike.

It was sponsored by State Express 555 (pronounced “State Express Three Fives”) cigarettes, a British American Tobacco product.

(The above is mostly taken from the entry at Digital  Deli)

This story opens at the graveside of the funeral of a local gangster. Everyone’s there, his gang, his loyal soldiers, his rivals in the gang, the Coppers and members of a rival gang,everyone observing a “Day of Truce”. And subsequently, the greedy ambitions of one mobster in particular. Oh, and there’s a ghost. But maybe I shouldn’t mention that because, maybe there is and maybe there isn’t.

X Minus One – Junkyard, from February 22 of 1956.

X Minus One is considered the finest science fiction drama ever produced for radio. It was  not the first. That honor belongs to 2000+. It wasn’t the second, That would be Dimension X. In fact the first 15 episodes of it’s  1955 to 1958 run on NBC were new versions of  Dimension X  episodes. The remainder were all most entirely adaptations of recently published science fiction stories (Mostly from Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine) usually written by the leading writers of the time, including  Philip K. Dick, Fritz Leiber, J.T. McIntosh, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl and Theodore Sturgeon.

For all of us who were weaned on  The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone and for the Trekkies (er,Trekkers) among us, you should know that X Minus One is the forefather of the science fiction you grew up on. You will find that it still is some of the best Science Fiction ever aired.

this is the adaptation of a short story by Clifford D. Simak of the same name which was published in the May, 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.

It concerns a spaceship crew exploring a planet they’ve spied from afar, and what looks to them to be a pile of junk. upon investigation one after another the crew begins to exhibit memory loss, and soon can’t remember how to start the ship’s engines for take-off.

Clifford D. Simak (1904-1988) was one of the science-fiction’s most beloved writers. a longtime friends of Gordon R. Dickson and Poul Anderson, he was honored as SFWA’s third Grand Master in 1977 (for the year 1976 in this honor he was preceded  by Robert A. Heinlein and Jack Williamson. This is exalted company indeed! And Clifford D said Mac is not out of place among them. He also won the International Fantasy Award for his classic 1953 Novel City, and was given the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award in 1988.

His other awards include three Hugo trophies (“The Big Front Yard”–1959, Way Station–1964, and “Grotto of the Dancing Deer”–1981), and a Nebula Award, also for “Grotto of the Dancing Deer” in 1981. 

Murder at Midnight - The Ape Song first aired on March 31 of 1947.

Produced in New York, Murder At Midnight was heard  over the Mutual Network starting on Sept. 16th  of 1946 until Sept. 8th of 1947. Produced by radio station  WJZ.  The show was known to occasionally reproduce scripts that had been performed on  Inner Sanctum.  This practice allowed the show to feature tales of murder most macabre by some of radio’s top writers without paying top dollar.

The show was filled with tales of death and mayhem, not always at midnight. The show was hosted by Raymond Morgan who had a memorable introduction as he intoned, “… The witching hour, when night is darkest, our fears the strongest, our strength at it’s lowest ebb. Midnight when the graves gape open and Death strikes”.

The cast featured Elspeth Eric, Mercedes McCambridge, Barry Kroeger, Betty Kane, Carl Frank, Barry Hopkins, Lawson Zerbie. Charles Paul played the creepy organ music, and Anton M. Leader directed.
I have grown to love “Murder at Midnight”. Certainly I Know that the show is often silly. But it has cultivated the grace of Camp. The program is far more “Noir” than it’s sister program Inner Sanctum   taking as, it does,  a more hard-boiled approach to the supernatural.

Mr. Smith’s Hat. (47-01-23)

The Haunting Hour:

Homicide House.(1944 or 45

Vanishing Point:

Free to a good home.(1985)

Sleep No More:

The Waxwork & The Man and the Snake.(01/09/57)

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The Crime Club – “Mr. Smith’s Hat” From January first of 1947. 

Produced and directed by Willis Cooper (Lights Out, Quiet Please) The Crime Club was a series that ran in 1946 and 1947 featuring murder and mystery stories.

The radio series opens as a phone rings and a voice answers, “Hello, I hope I haven’t kept you waiting. Yes, this is the Crime Club. I’m the Librarian…” (Actually it’s Raymond Johnson (best known as the host of Inner Sanctum).

Although there exists no evidence of a contractual arrangement between the Mutual Network and Doubleday publishing even a casual exploration of the titles in  this series makes it clear that the inspiration for the series has to be  the literary imprint, The Crime Club.  As most of the stories told were adaptations from this Doubleday series.

This imprint of books began in 1928 with the publication of The Desert Moon Mystery by Kay Cleaver Strahan (creator of one of the first female fictional detectives).

The imprint continued to publish until 1991.

Mr. Smith’s Hat is The Crime Club’s 9th episode and was adapted from a Doubleday Crime Club selection written by Helen Kiernan Reilly in  1936 as a part of her popular series featuring  Inspector Christopher McKee.

Helen Reilly (1891-1962) was an American novelist. She was born Helen Kieran and grew up in New York City in a literary family. Her brother, James Kieran, has also written a mystery, Come Murder Me (1952). Two of her daughters, Ursula Curtiss and Mary McMullen, are mystery writers.

Reilly’s stories often concern themselves with formerly well-to-do New Yorkers who are downwardly mobile.  Sometimes these people are very open about their sea change as is the victim in Mr. Smith’s Hat. Who has abandoned his snooty relatives to live a life of drinking and bohemianism.

Reilly’s early books were police procedurals based on her research into the New York Homicide squad. One book The File on Rufus Ray (1937), contained facsimiles of evidence; buttons, photographs and ashes..

Reilly also used the pseudonym Kieran Abbey.

The Haunting Hour – Homicide House. from1944 or 45 .

The Haunting Hour was made. in 1944 and 1945 by local talent at the then Philadelphia NBC affiliate, KYW.

Fairly successful, the series went into syndication for the following thirty years over the Armed Forces Radio service. It is often featured in 1940s Radio retrospectives over various FM Radio stations and has found a new generation, as  it is popular with podcasters.

It is, nonetheless, like so many other old-time radio programs, a show  with a very shallow history. That is, there exists no credits for the show, or the folks who labored, both in front of and behind the microphones. They are now entirely unknown…taken up into the ether of Old-Time radio without a trace..

A pair of reporters from the “New York Clarion” newspaper  head out to investigate an old and abandoned house with a bad Reputation as a place where too many people have died by violence.

Well, they were told it’s abandoned although as it turns out. It’s not so deserted as advised.

Vanishing Point: “Free to a good home”.

Vanishing Point is a science fiction anthology series that ran on CBC Radio from 1984 until 1986. Declared by the shows introduction to be, “The point between reality and fantasy.
The series was produced by Bill Lane in the C.B.C.’s Toronto studios and produced some excellent radio.

A couple place an ad to give away kittens only to have a strange woman call to request a particular kitten, that she insists the couple not give her away. She knows far more about a particular kitten….and things are getting weirder…

Sleep No More – The Waxwork &The Man and the Snake.From Janusry ninth of 195

Nelson Olmsted was a national treasure. For more than 35 years, Olmsted’s extraordinary vocal performances were the basis for his exceptional success as a radio and TV performer .

In “Sleep No More”, Olmsted followed a rich tradition of broadcasting with his presentation of supernatural and suspense dramas for which he drew from some of the finest short literature the English language.

It is true that, “Sleep No More” arrived late in the Golden age of radio running from 1952 to November 1956.

This was a popular show; popular enough for Vanguard Records to produce a record, also called, “Sleep No More” containg six stories that never made it into the Radio series:

The Signalman, The Mummy’s Foot, Markheim, An Occurrence At Owl Creek, What Was It?, The Body Snatcher.

The recording enjoyed considerable financial and critical success.

The Waxworks is the very famous A.M. Burrage‘s 1931 story about a man who spends the night in a waxworks museum. During the night, the dummies of famous serial killers seem to come alive.

The Man And The Snake is a story by Ambrose Bierce from 1920 in which a natural fear for scaly, venomous creatures produces quite an unnatural end in Hitchcock fashion

.

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The Chase – “Terminate Professor Kolcheck” (6/15/52).

NBC first envisioned The Chase as a new Television feature. This was not uncommon during the later 1940s and early 1950s. Several Radio features straddled both media, with varying success. Developed as a psychological drama, the premise was that many life situations place their subjects in a ‘chase’ of one type or another. A chase for fame. A chase from peril. A chase to beat the clock. A chase to escape death. The added twist was the question of who is the hunter or the hunted in these situations.

The scripts were faced paced, starred quality east coast talent and were well written. The series’ plots and themes focused primarily on predominantly fear inducing pursuits of one form or another. Thus most of the scripts were fraught with tension of one type or another. Whether mental tension, physical peril or a mix of both, the abiding theme throughout the series was the the contrasts between the ‘hunter’ and the ‘hunted’ in such Life situations.

The show ran from April the fourth of 1952 until June the twenty-eighth  of 1953-04-27 to with a total of Fifty-five programs produced.

This one is a cold was story from 1952 about a  Hungarian secret policeman named Andre Provich has become disillusioned with “The Party.” You see Provich is ordered to liquidate his old friend Professor Kolcheck, rather then do this, the two decide to defect.

The Price Of Fear - “Not Wanted On This Voyage” from April 26, 1983.

The Price Of Fear was a Horror-Mystery program produced sporadically by BBC Radio. Enormously successful in the United Kingdom and abroad, it produced  a total of 22 episodes between 1972 and 1982.

For it’s writing talent the show drew from a pool of talented new writers, such as William Ingram (who wrote the majority of the scripts). Dramatizing the most chilling stories they could find the show often  did  adaptations of the works of established writers: Roald Dahl, A.M. Burrage, Bram Stoker and others.

The Show was hosted by, and usually starred Vincent Price. Price whose background in horror and suspense on radio,television and, of course, movies back dropped the series in a way only a handful of performers could. Mostly though it was the way Price narrated these tales (as though he himself had actually lived them) that was responsible for the success of the show.

  This is one of the rare ones where Price is not a character in the story but just the host and narrator of 6this story about a love triangle aboard an ocean liner, and murder for a crippled wife.

Mindwebs – “The Sentinel” (1/28/79.

MindWebs, was a program of Science fiction stories that ran on WHA radio in Madison, Wisconsin from 1976 to 1984. The programs are actually more like audio books than audio drama, or really, maybe, someplace in between. The producers of the show took some of the very best science fiction short stories and gave them a dramatic reading with multiple performers taking the parts of various characters. These performances are rounded off with the addition of good, atmospheric background music and excellent, realistic sound effects.

The Sentinel was written in 1948 for a BBC competition (in which it failed to place) and was first published in the magazine 10 Story Fantasy in 1951, under the title “Sentinel of Eternity”. It first appeared in the USA in The Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader published by Avon Periodicals, Inc. in 1951. It was subsequently published as part of a short story collection in Expedition to Earth in 1953. It is also collected in The Nine Billion Names of God and The Lost Worlds of 2001.

Despite the initial failure of the story, it changed the course of Clarke’s career.The story deals with the discovery of an artifact on Earth’s Moon left behind eons ago by ancient aliens. The object is made of a polished mineral and tetrahedral in shape, and is surrounded by a spherical force field. The first-person narrator speculates at one point that the mysterious aliens who left this structure on the Moon may have used mechanisms belonging “to a technology that lies beyond our horizons, perhaps to the technology of para-physical forces.”

The narrator speculates that for millions of years (evidenced by dust buildup around its force field) the artifact has been transmitting signals into deep space, but it ceases to transmit when, some time later, it is destroyed “with the savage might of atomic power”. The narrator hypothesizes that this “sentinel” was left on the moon as a “warning beacon” for possible intelligent and spacefaring species that might develop on Earth.

It was only a matter of time before we found the pyramid and forced it open. Now its signals have ceased, and those whose duty it is will be turning their minds upon Earth. Perhaps they wish to help our infant civilization. But they must be very, very old, and the old are often insanely jealous of the young.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the operation of the sentinel is reversed. It is the energy of the sun, falling for the first time on the uncovered artifact, that triggers the signal that creatures from the Earth had taken the first step into space.

The Whistler – “Bird of Prey”(3/31/48)

The radio program The Whistler which was at first, heard only on the west coast of the United States began it’s run on May 16 of 1942.

It’s early broadcast restriction was due to the original sponsors wishes. Signal Oil, you see, was only available on the West Coast and saw no reason to pay for air time on stations in areas that it did not market it’s products. However the CBS network did know a good thing and would soon find another sponsor to go nationwide  for the  next thirteen years until September 22, 1955.

At the end (1954/55) it was also a television show for 39 episodes.

The stories of The Whistler follow an effective formula where criminals fortunes are usually undone by some overlooked but important detail, or, just plain and simple stupidity.

Oh, there are  some rare occasions (some odd stories) when a twist of fate will allow an undeservedly  happy ending for the bad guy.

Irony and twist endings abound in these episodes.

The Whistler  (played mostly by Bill Forman) was not actually  a character in any of the stories – but the host. A sinister, omnipresent observer. A teller of murder stories  who saturated the stories  with his foreknowledge and moral  unambiguity; Often commenting directly upon the action like the voice of a Greek chorus, taunting the criminal from an omniscient  prospective.

Each episode of The Whistler begins with the sound of footsteps and whistling, (The Saint radio series with Vincent Price used a similar opening). The haunting signature theme was composed by Wilbur Hatch who was also responsible for the mood music.

The iconic whistle itself was voiced by Dorothy Roberts, who whistled the 37 notes, 13 at the beginning and 11 leading into the story, then the final  13.

“The Whistler” was adapted into a film noir series of eight films (1944-1948) by Columbia Pictures. The first seven featured actor Richard Dix (playing a different character in each). The “Voice of the Whistler” was provided by an unaccredited Otto Forrest. also worthy of note is that most  of the films were directed  by  William Castle.

J. C. Raven is a reclusive writer in Havana and the target of a desperate journalist. A talented secretary helps the hack writer assume Ravens identity.

“Money,Money,Money” (8/5/36).

The Black Museum:

“The Black Gladstone Bag” (1952).

Dimension X :

“The Lost Race” (5/20/50).

Murder at Midnight:

“Nightmare” (8/3/46).

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Lights Out, “Money,Money,Money” (8/5/36).

Light’s Out, Created by Willis Cooper in 1934, and passed on to Arch Oboler in 1936 was one of the most famous radio shows of all time. Pretty much everyone has heard of it. Although , I admit sometimes this awareness is limited to Bill Cosby’s Chicken Heart routine.

Lights Out as a radio series would finally succumb to its own mortality in 1947. The franchise did not end with the demise of the radio show. Lights Out would  turn up as a TV series from 1949 to 1952.

There have been occasional attempts to revive the series that never had any notable success.

From Lights Out , from August the 5th of 1936. “Money, Money, Money”: Quite Simply a story about money. A story about a winning sweepstakes ticket. Oh, and some gold bars. There are these gold bars.

These are just a few of our favorite things.

The Black Museum, “The Black Gladstone Bag” (1952).

The Black Museum was a 1951 radio crime drama produced for the BBC by Harry Alan Towers. Each story was based on a real-life case from the files of Scotland Yard’s Black Museum.

Ira Marion wrote the scripts.  Music was composed and conducted by Sidney Torch.

Orson Wells was the host and narrator for mysteries  based on Scotland Yard’s collection of murder weapons, usually ordinary objects associated with historical cases.

The show’s opening:

“The Black Museum, a repository of death. Here in a grim, stone structure on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard is a warehouse of homicide, a very strange room where everyday objects…  a woman’s shoe, a tiny white box, a quilted robe… all are touched by murder.”

Then from The Black Museum’s run in 1952, “The Black Gladstone Bag” As Orson Wells says:

“…A Gladstone bag. It’s a familiar object. Every railroad train carries several. Inevitably useful, compact, and expandable. They always hold more than they seem. Perfect for vacations. Perfect also for…”

Dimension X , “The Lost Race” (5/20/50).

Dimension X (April 8 of 1950 – September of 1951) was not the first Science Fiction anthology series on radio, (that distinction belongs to the short-lived and not particularly lamented 2000 plus ) It, however, was the first to utilize published stories from established Science fiction authors, mostly drawing from short stories appearing in Smith and Street’s, Astounding Science Fiction. The show made a practice of adapting the work’s of authors such as Murray Leinster, Ray Bradbury, William Tenn, Robert Heinlein and many others.
A footnote to history is that dimension X was one of the first shows to be recorded on tape. This was so new that one show, “Mars is Heaven”, had to be re-recorded 3 times because the engineer kept erasing the tape while editing it.

Shipwrecked on a world with the ruins of a long dead civilization a crew finds a deadly secret that could destroy again.

Based on a story by Murray Leinster from the April 1949 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. It was originally broadcast live on NBC on May 20th, 1950. Then still later in 1960 published as The Duplicators, by Ace Books.

Murder at Midnight, “Nightmare” (8/3/46).

Produced in New York, Murder At Midnight was heard over the Mutual Network starting on Sept. 16th of 1946 until Sept. 8th of 1947. Produced by radio station WJZ. The show was known to occasionally reproduce scripts that had been performed on Inner Sanctum. This practice allowed the show to feature tales of murder most macabre by some of radio’s top writers without paying top dollar.

The show was filled with tales of death and mayhem, not always at midnight. The show was hosted by Raymond Morgan with his memorable introduction, “… The witching hour, when night is darkest, our fears the strongest, our strength at it’s lowest ebb. Midnight when the graves gape open and Death strikes”.

The cast featured Elspeth Eric, Mercedes McCambridge, Barry Kroeger, Betty Kane, Carl Frank, Barry Hopkins, Lawson Zerbie. Charles Paul played the creepy organ music, and Anton M. Leader directed.

I have grown to love “Murder at Midnight”. Certainly I Know that the show is often silly. But it has cultivated the grace of becomeing Camp. The program is far more “Noir” than it’s sister program Inner Sanctum taking as, it does, a more hard-boiled approach to the supernatural.

The last half hour of the show  is a “Nightmare”. At least  for the woman who has a vivid dream that her husband is going to kill her!

This show blossomed into the summer air of August, 3rd, 1946.

Not To Be Sneezed At
Escape:
The Man from Tomorrow (8/23/53),
The Strange Doctor Weird:
Beauty And The Beast (7/16/45)

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The Avengers, South Africa, “ Not To Be Sneezed At”.

The Avengers Radio Program was produced and “ transmitted in South Africa between 6th December 1971 and 28th December 1973 It featured adoptions  of scripts first aired on the very successful British T.V. show The Avengers. The show starred Donald Monat as John Steed, andDiane Appleby as Emma Peel. Two top  agents of  the British  secret service.

The radio show was served up pretty much following the style and tempo established by the  BBC Television series during it’s run  from 1961 to 1969. Just like the television series the South African radio presentation features outlandish, quirky villains, mad scientists and secret organizations .  A little James Bond, a touch of SMERSH and SPECTRE, some Napoleon Solo and Illya  Kuryakin a hint of U.N.C. L.E. and THURSH.

Oh, and just a little Max and 99.

In this adventure “Mother” sends John Steed and Emma Peel on an assignment that is, “Not To Be Sneezed At”. This segment runs 80 minutes and was probably originally broadcast in 1972 (the exact air date is not known).

Part 2 of the adventure ““Not To Be Sneezed At”.

Escape for the August 23rd of 1953, “The Man from Tomorrow”.

A spin off from Suspense, Escape ran on CBS from 1947 to 1954, and dealt in a wide variety of stories: science fiction, horror, murder.
Good fun for the whole family.
The program displayed a fondness for adventure tales set in the tropics or on the high seas. As far as I have been able to find out, there were a total of 194 stories.
Many of the episodes were taken from the classics, but not all. Often the writers and producers of Escape  culled material from stories that were not then considered classics but have gained that status since. Not that the radio show had anything to do with that. This distinction was brought about by the excellence of the material itself and the garnishment of time.


This time, an episode from August the 23rd of 1953, “The Man from Tomorrow”. Wherein a ex-pilot answers the call for volunteers in a sensory deprivation experiment the point of which is to enhance ESP. I

think someone will regret this.

The Strange Doctor Weird, ”Beauty And The Beast”.

…Good evening. Come in, won’t you? Why, what’s the matter? You seem a bit nervous. Perhaps the cemetery outside this house has upset you. But there are things far worse than cemeteries…

Starring The Mysterious Traveler’s Maurice Tarplin as the host and title character. The Strange Dr. Weird lives in the “house on the other side of the Cemetery” and tells tales tinged with the supernatural and littered with  gore. The stories were  written by Robert Arthur and David Kogan both of who also worked on The Mysterious Traveler. The shows in this series are often reworkings of scripts from that show

This series ran from November 7, 1944 to May 22, 1945 and consisted of 29 15-minute shows.
Adam Hats paid the bills.

The fourth and last segment is from The Strange Doctor Weird, “Beauty And The Beast”. It’s from January 16th of 1945 and not really a fairy-tale.

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The First Segment is The Creeper from Murder By Experts and traces back to 07/18/49.

Murder By Experts was  an  anthology that ran in the United States between 1949 and 1951 on the Mutual Network. The program was at first  hosted by mystery writer  John Dickson Carr. Who would leave the show in 1950 to be replaced by Brett Halliday.

With a catalog of 130 episodes (unfortunately only a handful are known to have survived) the show revolved around the premise that each week a guest mystery writer would select a story from another writer (as in not themselves) to be presented as that  week’s show.  Sometimes at the end of the show (I guess as time permitted)  there would be a  critical postmortem of the episode, sometimes featuring well-known personalities.

Murder by Experts  was created by David Kogan. A man who is well remembered in old-time radio circles as the writer/creator of The Mysterious Traveler, The Strange Doctor Weird and, if not countless then at least numerous, other radio programs dotting the landscape the radio’s “Golden Age“.

It’s a story about a mad killer who strangles his red-headed victims.who leaves the same message each time “Catch me before I kill again”.

“The Creeper” written by  Joseph Russell was presented on four-separate programs, “Murder By Experts”, “Murder At Midnight”, “The Chase” and “The Molle Mystery Theater”.

Arch Obolers Plays, ”Him or Me” (12/26/64) 

In 1939, with his own money, Arch Oboler recorded an audition of his play The Ugliest Man In the World  In hopes of launching a new radio series. He rook this recording to NBC which was looking to launch an experimental radio series to rival CBS’s Columbia Workshop. NBC was also looking for a radio writer and director to rival CBS’s Norman Corwin. NBC gave Oboler his own series, without a sponsor and with complete creative control. It was NBC that named the series Arch Oboler’s Plays. It was an almost unheard of honor. The time slot was less auspicious, the series occupied the Sunday 7-7:30 period opposite Jack Benny.

This is the last show of the series. It concerns itself A battle to the death between a man and a rat.

Witch’s Tale: The Haunted Crossroads (10/17/32)

The Witch’s Tale is credited with being the first horror themed radio show in history. This happened in 1931 when writer- director Alonzo Deen Cole somehow convinced WOR (in New York) to try a series devoted entirely to the supernatural. Not really predictably The series became the premier radio program of its day running until 1938 and is fondly remembered by it’s fans to this day.

Only about three dozen episodes survive. According to Dave Siegel’s book The Witch’s Tale, Cole destroyed his recordings when he moved from New York to California. The three dozen or so surviving recordings exist due to the efforts of others. It was just that by 1961 Cole had come to believe that there was no commercial value to the actual radio transcriptions. He did keep bound copies of his 332 scripts which he protected by copy write.

Syndicated by Mutual. The program was hosted by Old Nancy, the Witch of Salem, who introduced a new story each week.

Not Old Nancy!

An invisible woman has stabbed a policeman in the back at an isolated crossroads. The stabbings had happened before, and happen again. The “phantom woman” appears to another cop, who then begs his fiancee to shoot him! The script was used on “The Witch’s Tale” on October 17, 1932, December 18, 1933 and October 12, 1937. This recording actually could have been from any of these dates.

Quiet, Please Adam And The Darkest Day (11/7/48)

Quiet, Please ran from June 8th of 1947 through June 20th of 1949. Appearing on the Mutual Network until September the 13th of 1948, then moving, for the rest of its run, to ABC.

Behind the series at Quiet, Please were Wyllis Cooper (creator, writer and director) and Ernest Chappell as the star and host. It was Cooper who created the popular horror seriesLights Out in 1934. There are many similarities between the shows. In each the listener is invited to shut off outside noise and turn down the lights to fully concentrate on the story.

Cooper and Chappell worked well together, having been close friends before the series began. Chappell’s sympathy with Cooper helped him to understand and portray the characters Cooper created. Knowing Chappell so well, Cooper was able to write characters tailored to his strengths as a performer. This level of partnership brought about a depth of characterization that was and is uncommon in any performance media.

Often intense with it’s tight writing Quite, Please challenged the usual formulas of entertainment.

Chappell would introduce the story to the strains of a dark and somber music that engendered a mysterious mood. Then the story would begin. Always a tale with a touch of the supernatural. Each episode concluded as atmospherically as it began, a few seconds of silence. Then the slow strands of Cesar Franck‘s Symphony in D Minor would swell up and the end came.

“I don’t know whether you ever heard of a place called Chicago or not but I knew it very well in my youth.
I’ve forgotten how long ago that was even.
There was a lake — beautiful, big, wide lake that could be bluer than the sky of a summer morning or gray as– Well, that’s odd. I can’t think of anything that’s gray the way the lake was on a stormy day. alive, like the gray of steel.
Steel? Oh, that’s a metal we used to have. Forget about it.”

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CBS Radio Mystery Theater , “The Permanent Man” from April 19 of 1979.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater was an ambitious effort by veteran radio producer Himan Brown to revive interest in American radio drama. Every night from 1974 to 1982, host E.G. Marshall (laterTammy Grimes) ushered listeners through a creaking door — for 52 Min of “the fear you can hear.” Brown produced nearly 200 new episodes of Mystery Theater every year, using both original scripts and adaptations of classic stories by Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain,Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Mystery Theater brought many veterans from radio’s golden age back before the microphone, including Agnes Moorehead, Richard Widmark,Celeste Holm, Mercedes McCambridge and Howard Da Silva. The show also featured performances from many up-and-coming stage and film actors, including Tony Roberts, John Lithgow, Morgan Fairchild, Mandy Patinkin and Sarah Jessica Parker.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater won the George A. Peabody Award in 1974.

After eight years and 1,399 shows, the show ended its run on December 30, 1982. And was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1990.

This recording includes the Newscast that was aired before the Mystery Theatre, from April 9, 1979, including information about the Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster in Pennsylvania.
On the planet Neptune, a scientist performs medical experiments on a human subject with terrifing results.
adapted from the William Morrow story by  Gerald Keane
Staring:
Robert Dryden. Teri Keane, Russell Horton

This is the continuation of The CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

The Clock, “Only Death Is Timeless” May the 11th, 1947.

Produced in Australia by Grace Gibson Productions The Clock was a  thirty-minute series featuring  stories of suspense and mystery . The introduction to each show was always the same; “Sunrise and sunset, promise and fulfillment, birth and death … the whole drama of life is written in the sands of tim.

The show debuted on  November the 3rd of 1946 and would run for a bit more than a year  closing out on May the 23rd of 1948 for a total of 65 shows.

Although the series was produced in Australia the locales for the stories were rather generic.

The actors and actresses spoke without a perceptible Australian accent which caused the program to sound, “American”. This marked the program as a natural for export to the American market where it would be  picked up by ABC.

The show must have been reasonably successful because ABC then continued for another 13 weeks with an All-American cast and crew producing 13 new scripts bringing the series to a total of 78 episodes.

Dark Fantasy, from April 10 of 1942,”The Edge Of The Shadow”.

Originating from WKY in Oklahoma City Dark Fantasy was a short lived program (producing only 31 episodes) dedicated to tales of the unknown on Friday nights for parts of 1941 and 1942.

Oklahoma City was far from alone in producing it’s own successful series. In point of fact many excellent programs were produced in places that today would seem surprising. Of course, thinking about it, the barriers to entry to radio production were and are much lower than for movies or television. All you really need is a little equipment and a few talented people of which there was then, and is now, no monopoly of in Hollywood.
Dark Fantasy had a shoestring of a budget which the show was able to rise above through the creative establishment of an effective but spare atmospheric ambiance resulting in an excellent show that was, in some ways, well ahead of it’s time.

Dark Fantasy was written by Scott Bishop, who would later write for The Mysterious Traveler and The Sealed Book.

Keith Paynton served as announcer.

Well, here’s a confusing thing. When you listen to the beginning of this show you are told that it is Dark Fantasy, Men of the Shadow, but at the end of the show they tell “You have heard The Edge of the Shadow, tonight’s original tale of dark fantasy by Scott Bishop.” Never mind. What’s in a name anyway?
Steven Fuller, discovers that one of his prize cows has what appears to be a barbed wire cut on its leg. But there is no barbed wire  near the corral and the cow has never left the corral. So Fuller is forced to come to the conclusion that somebody has deliberately hurt the beast.

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Is from November the 18th 1952. and the program, Whitehall 1212, “The Blitz Murder Case”.

NBC was the first network to  capitalize in 1952 with it’s  44, or maybe it’s, 52 episodes of  Whitehall 1212 (the exact number is in dispute. So far I have found 43. ). On what was at the time the recent opening of a raft of Scotland Yard’s files.

Whitehall 1212 was a thoroughly American production. Despite being both written and directed by the American Wyllis Cooper (Lights Out, Quiet, Please and a whole lot more). The production would be billed  as if it were a completely British undertaking.

I suppose this was an attempt to underscore it’s  authenticity.
Not that NBC was alone. By the time Whitehall 1212 was well under way the Orson Welles-narrated Black Museum had began airing. So,when I said that NBC was the first network to present crimes from the annals of Scotland Yard I did not mean to imply that they were the first radio show to do so. That was actually, The Secrets of Scotland Yard in 1950. But this was not a network program. In fact it was first broadcast from a pirate radio station in South-Eastern Africa, Mozambique to be exact. This was a production of  Harry Alan Towers and the Towers of London syndication company.

Later  (1952 to 1953) Harry Towers would produce, The Black Museum which he also, at first, aired out of a pirate station, Radio Luxembourg.

The three shows are very  similar using so many of the same cases that the episodes are often conflated, intermixed, in the memory of even the most knowledgeable Golden Age Radio collectors. The main difference seems to be  that Whitehall 1212 has a more police procedural  take on the cases. Focusing mostly on the day-to-day events surrounding the crime as it affected the police. The other two are more heavily dramatized and usually involve a recreation of the crime itself, whereas Whitehall 1212 did not.

What made Whitehall 1212 stand out from the other two is the presents of  the actual superintendent of the Black Museum (Chief Superintendent John Davidson) as the host. He may not have sounded as dramatic as Orson Welles or Clive Brook, but he didn’t have to pretend to know what he was talking about. He was, after all, a veteran of the force. Likewise, the researcher for the series was Percy Hoskins, the chief crime reporter for the  Daily Express.Hoskins was sometimes the newspaperman who had initially reported on some of the crimes being dramatized by the show.

Like Joe Friday on Dragnet, Cooper tried to “stick to the facts”. Oh, there was still plenty of blood and guts, but, only eluded to as the detectives stepped over the bodies looking for clues. So, although all three series are similar, Whitehall 1212 was oriented toward mystery rather than horror with a more intellectual approach to each crime.

But still there is plenty of satisfaction in listening to the investigators as they gradually tighten the noose.

In July of 1940 with the Battle of Britain at it’s height 3 woman are found dead at the Ames farm in  Royal Tunbridge Wells (usually shortened to Tunbridge Wells a town in west Kent, England. About 40 miles south-east of central London. The two women are a mother and daughter, both described by some of the locals as, “unpleasant”. As is not uncommon in these kinds of cases suspicion falls rather quickly on the estranged husband. But it will be up to the local police and the boys from Scotland Yard to prove this.

Is an episode of Inner Sanctum “Death Is an Artist”.
for December 3, 1945

Taking its name from a popular series of mystery novels, Inner Sanctum Mysteries debuted over NBC’s Blue Network in January 1941.

Inner Sanctum Mysteries featured one of the most iconic openings in radio history. First an organist hit’s a dissonant chord. Next a doorknob turns, and the “creaking door” slowly began to open. So impressive was this opening that when South African radio ran its own version of the show it was called The Creaking Door

Every week, Inner Sanctum Mysteries told stories of ghosts, murderers and lunatics, with a cast consisting of veteran radio actors. Although Produced in New York, there were occasional guest appearances by Hollywood stars such as Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Claude Rains.

Raymond”, the host, had a droll sense of humor, and an appetite for ghoulish puns. Raymond’s influence can be seen among horror hosts everywhere, from The Crypt-Keeper to Elvira, and even more so among his contemporaries on radio .”Raymond” was played untill 1945 by Raymond Edward Johnson. Then Paul McGrath took over and played “Raymond” until the show ended production in 1952 .

Producer Hiram Brown was so taken with the creaking door that when he produced and directed The CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the 1970s he would use it again.

Inner Sanctum Mysteries was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1988

Four dead cats and a man are found in an apartment…all with their throats slit or their heads cut off! The story of the human victim involves a hated wife and murder. A delightfully macabre story

Is from Alien words for  July 28, 1979,  “Time Clash”.
 

Alien Worlds was an American syndicated radio show that produced 26 episodes in 1979 beginning on January 7th. With its excellent soundtrack and production standards The successful series eventually would play on over 500 radio stations all over the country. Between 1979 and 1980 the series found even more success internationally after it was picked up in New Zealand and Australia.

The stories involve the governing body for the development and exploration of space, the I.S.A. (International Space Authority). Organized by all earth nations, the ISA advances the interests of humans in interstellar space. Their base is officially named “The Arthur C. Clarke Astronomical Observatory” but is mostly referred to as, “Starlab”. From here a small cadre of scientists diplomats and explorers and a computer named after Sherlock’s smarter older brother Mycroft, undertake awesome responsibilities as humanities emissaries to the stars.

Experiments with a prototype time machine are taking place on the planet Valeria, and the ISA is invited to observe. During the flight, there is a malfunction aboard the ship causing it to pop out of hyper-space. At that instant the two crewmen are transformed into eight-year-old boys. The Valerians offer their time machine to accelerate the boys back to their own ages and, on that trip, we witness some startling events.

Is Escape for February 2 of 1953, “A  Study  In  Wax “.

A spin off from Suspense, Escape ran on CBS from 1947 to 1954, and dealt in a wide variety of stories: science fiction, horror, murder.
Good fun for the whole family.
The program displayed a fondness for adventure tales set in the tropics or on the high seas. As far as I have been able to find out, there were a total of 194 stories.
Many of the episodes were taken from the classics, but not all. Often the writers and producers of Escape  culled material from stories that were not then considered classics but have gained that status since. Not that the radio show had anything to do with that. This distinction was brought about by the excellence of the material itself and the garnishment of time.

Escape’s “A Study in Wax” takes place in a snowbound cabin in the northern Canadian wilderness. The story is set at Christmas-time, but it isn’t a typical Christmas tale. This is a story about two coworkers, alone in the Arctic, who must endure each other’s company for seven months.
As the story opens in late October, the two men watch a government supply boat depart. They have been left behind to work on a Canadian geodetic survey, and now, they are on their own until the spring. Adding to their isolation is the accidental loss of their radio transmitter. With no connection to the outside world, one of them slowly goes mad.
“A Study in Wax” was written/produced/directed by Antony Ellis. William Conrad, played Jack and Stacy Harris played Larry Kovel. This episode aired on February 1, 1953.
Two years later, Antony Ellis presented this story again on Suspense. William Conrad and Stacy Harris again appeared as Jack and Larry. This episode aired on August 16, 1955.

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Before, during and after the Second World War people were fascinated by crime and criminals ( well, we still are aren’t we? Just look at MSNBC ).  The Secrets of Scotland Yard was a successful crime drama series, initially airing in Briton between 1949 and 1951 then on the Mutual Broadcasting System, for a short run in 1957. Like The Black Museum, this show had a well known actor filling the role of host and narrator. The Black Museum had Orson Welles and The Secrets Of Scotland Yard had Clive Brook (Okay maybe Clive was not so well known in the U.S.).

These shows were so similar that some of the same true crime cases were dramatized by both series (totally different scripts and casts of course).

The Secrets of Scotland Yard was a production of the Towers of London company. Each week people tuned in to hear true crime stories unfold as the detectives of the Yard investigated some of England’s most famous criminals and crimes.

Today’s episode is, “Smoke Clings To The Hair”  and probably comes from 1950.Mr. Dickerson enjoys his stay set the hotel Metropole. It’s a nice place, a comfortable place to relax. A place where they are reasonably picky about their clientele. You see they will not let just anyone in. So, you wouldn’t expect a murder in a place like this. Accidents happen, of course. Sometimes very unpleasant ones. People do die. Even nice old ladies. 

There was more than one series that aired under the Hall Of Fantasy banner. All were produced, written and directed by Richard Thorne who also acted in many of the shows. The first Hall Of Fantasy originated from radio station KALL in Salt Lake City, Utah. Where Richard Thorne had worked as an announcer late in 1946 and into 1947. This series consisted of 26 shows. The air dates of the shows are uncertain. Most of these shows were classic murder mysteries, culminating with the villain getting his due. Only six shows from this series are known to exist.

The next in carnation of the Hall Of Fantasy aired in 1949, in Chicago. This time, the series featured stories involving struggles against the supernatural where man was usually the loser. This series consisted of 112 shows and aired locally on station WGN .Then in 1953 Hall Of Fantasy went nationwide on The Mutual Network as a regular series for 39 shows. For this show Thorne wrote original stories, or adapted classic works, and played many of the lead characters. Eloise Kummer played many of the female leads. Mr. Thorne and Leroy Olliger directed the series. Original music was by Harold Turner.

Today from The Hall Of Fantasy we have an episode called, “The Black Figurine of Death”, which aired on January 26, 1983 .

This is a very spooky, atmospheric tale ( and by the way, a good example of this series). Uncle Amos is dying. Before he leaves this life he  takes the time to speak his mind to those who will inherit his fortune, his estate.  Along the way He  vows to come back from the grave to right wrongs done to him

X Minus One is considered the finest science fiction drama ever produced for radio. It was  not the first. That honor belongs to 2000+. It wasn’t the second, That would be Dimension X. In fact the first 15 episodes of it’s  1955 to 1958 run on NBC were new versions of Dimension X episodes. The remainder were all most entirely adaptations of recently published science fiction stories (Mostly from Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine) usually written by the leading writers of the time, including  Philip K. Dick, Fritz Leiber, J.T. McIntosh, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl and Theodore Sturgeon.

For all of us who were weaned on  The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone and for the Trekkies (er,Trekkers) among us, you should know that X Minus One is the forefather of the science fiction you grew up on. You will find that it still is some of the best Science Fiction ever aired.

Today’s show is based on James Gunn’s story,  ”Wherever You May Be ” and was adapted by Ernest Kinoy.Originally published in Galaxy for May of 1953 this is a story of a young woman gifted with witchcraft. It is likely to remind you of  a 1961 Twilight Zone episode, “It’s a Good Life”; where a young boy played by Billy Mummy terrorizes his family with his god-like powers.

Also slightly interesting is that the story from which the Twilight Zone episode is derived was written  by Jerome Bixby  for Star Science Fiction StoriesNo. 2 in 1953. The same year as the Gunn story.

Maybe it was something in the air.

I have never read a fantasy   by Gunn before this. I had no Idea that any existed. I must hasten to admit that while I have read most of his novels I have read few of his shorter works. It is quite possible that he did write more.By the Way the same story  was made into an episode of the USSR science fiction TV series This Fantastic World, in 1989 and entitled, “Psychodynamics of Witchcraft”

James Edwin Gunn (born 1923 in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American science fiction author, editor, scholar, and anthologist. 

His work from the 1960s and 70s is considered his most significant fiction, and his Road to Science Fiction collections are considered his most important scholarly books. He won a Hugo Award for a non-fiction book in 1983 :  Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction.

He has been named the 2007 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

James Gunn is a professor emeritus of English, and the Director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, both at the University of Kansas.

Personally I have fond memories of many of his novels, particularly his first novel  1955′s This Fortress World. A novel about a future church that has turned to using hidden technology to support its claims of the miraculous. When I read the book, probably around 1961 or 62, I thought this was an interesting and very novel idea. It wouldn’t be until much later that I learned that this was an old story, this usage of technology to convince  the masses of and support their belief in the miraculous. It turns out that many of man’s earliest and most ingenious inventions were used by a number  of priesthoods in this manner. Read up on Hero of Alexandria for example.

Segment four is, “July Fourth Picnic” from In the Name of the Law  for 06/28/36.

As often proves to be the case with these early radio shows not much useful information has survived the decades, This short run series opened with,” In the name of the law, we bring you another of the thrilling stories in this exciting series, taken from actual police case files.” And I guess it is not particularly distinctive in any sense except for its antiquity. It is, nevertheless, a peek into another time. Another place, another society, another America and it is worthy of attention on this basis if none else..

This story takes place in  Fort Smith, Arkansas on a fine festive day. It’s a Picnic where there is some family business. A marriage is in the air, so is a  little voyeurism.
There is a small kiss… and a long nap in the dirt.

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Murder By Experts was  an  anthology that ran in the United States between 1949 and 1951 on the Mutual Network. The program was at first  hosted by mystery writer  John Dickson Carr. Who would leave the show in 1950 to be replaced by Brett Halliday.
With a catalog of 130 episodes (unfortunately only a handful are known to have survived) the show revolved around the premise that each week a guest mystery writer would select a story from another writer (as in not themselves) to be presented as that  week’s show.  Sometimes at the end of the show (I guess as time permitted)  there would be a  critical postmortem of the episode, sometimes featuring well-known personalities.
Murder by Experts  was created by David Kogan. A man who is well remembered in old-time radio circles as the writer/creator of The Mysterious Traveler, The Strange Doctor Weird and, if not countless then at least numerous, other radio programs dotting the landscape the radio’s “Golden Age“.

Chet Chetter’s Tales from the Morgue is a series of short stories as told by an old obliging morgue attendant, licensed embalmer and resident story teller named Chet Chetter to a passing stranger of the night played by you the listener. The stories Chet relates to us are all quite fanciful. They deal with topics that would be classified supernatural and science fiction. They border on outrageous but that is how they are meant to be. Roughly half of the shows feature a nice, likeable, rural southern manure hauler by the name of Elmer Korn who always finds himself involved in some inane predicament. The creators of the series themselves admit the show is rather off-beat but, you will find, not without it’s own charm which lies within the humorous writing and the recurring characters.

MindWebs, was a program of Science fiction stories that ran on WHA radio in Madison, Wisconsin from 1976 to 1984. The programs are actually more like audio books than audio drama, or really, maybe, someplace in between. The producers of the show took some of the very best science fiction short stories and gave them a dramatic reading with multiple performers taking the parts of various characters. These performances are rounded off with the addition of good, atmospheric background music and excellent, realistic sound effects.

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Produced in Australia by Grace Gibson Productions The Clock was a  thirty-minute series featuring  stories of suspense and mystery . The introduction to each show was always the same; “Sunrise and sunset, promise and fulfillment, birth and death … the whole drama of life is written in the sands of tim.

The show debuted on  November the 3rd of 1946 and would run for a bit more than a year  closing out on May the 23rd of 1948 for a total of 65 shows.

Although the series was produced in Australia the locales for the stories were rather generic.

The actors and actresses spoke without a perceptible Australian accent which caused the program to sound, “American”. This marked the program as a natural for export to the American market where it would be  picked up by ABC.

The show must have been reasonably successful because ABC then continued for another 13 weeks with an All-American cast and crew producing 13 new scripts bringing the series to a total of 78 episodes.

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Theater 10:30 was a Canadian Old Time Radio show .The date of the broadcast for the episodes is generally unknown, but it is believed to be 1955 or so says Wikipeopia but the is good reason to belive that’s wrong. The shows are basically about the genre of horror, fantasy and mystery. It was a production of CBC Radio.
There appear to be 13 episodes in total. I haven’t listened to them all yet but  those that I have heard are uniformly excellent.

This episode of theater 10:30 features a story by a fairly prominent Canadian writer, Betty Lambert, Dr. MacGregor and the Case of the Curious Bone.
I noted above that Wikipedia  gives the production date for this series as 1955 and said that there is good reason to believe this could be wrong. The reason is contained in the online bibliography of  the author which gives a broadcast date for this play as November 14 of 1960. It doesn’t say, however, where or how it was broadcast. Causing me to be uncertain if the broadcast referred to was actually this one, or any indication that there might have been a previous print publication of the story. So there is still room for Wikipedia to be correct in the dating of this series.
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In any case it is an excellent story, with fine acting and paceing but most importantly, a really good story. It is the story of Dr. MacGregor and to whose care has recently fallen two elderly and eccentric women sisters Ester and Jenny.
Jenny far more reluctantly than Esther who is gravely ill.The story itself, is the story of an old house. Of an old rivalry between sisters. A long ago, Faded, Dusty, Romance. The story of some footprints in the dust.

Taking its name from a popular series of mystery novels, Inner Sanctum Mysteries debuted over NBC’s Blue Network in January 1941.

Inner Sanctum Mysteries featured one of the most iconic openings in radio history. First an organist hit’s a dissonant chord. Next a doorknob turns, and the “creaking door” slowly began to open. So impressive was this opening that when South African radio ran its own version of the show it was called The Creaking Door

Every week, Inner Sanctum Mysteries told stories of ghosts, murderers and lunatics, with a cast consisting of veteran radio actors. Although Produced in New York, there were occasional guest appearances by Hollywood stars such as Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Claude Rains.

Raymond”, the host, had a droll sense of humor, and an appetite for ghoulish puns. Raymond’s influence can be seen among horror hosts everywhere, from The Crypt-Keeper to Elvira, and even more so among his contemporaries on radio .”Raymond” was played untill 1945 by Raymond Edward Johnson. Then Paul McGrath took over and played “Raymond” until the show ended production in 1952 .

Producer Hiram Brown was so taken with the creaking door that when he produced and directed The CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the 1970s he would use it again.

Inner Sanctum Mysteries was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1988

Today we had an episode from April 3, 1945,  “The Meek Die Slowly”. This is in many ways a fairly typical episode of the Innner Sanctum and deals with a “Serial Killer” before the term serial killer was invented.
The term serial killer only dates back to the 1970s when former BIA agent Robert K. Ressler is credited with its coinage. I suppose this is a large part of why we tend to think of serial killers and a recent phenomenon. Of course this is not true. Certainly Jack the Ripper was a serial killer as was his American contemporary, H. H. Holmes. there was Albert Fish, Mary Ann Cotton and Gilles de Rais, Seigneur and Baron de Retz, Thug Behram And let’s not forget one for for the ladies, Elizabeth Báthory.
This ghastly story gets right to the bloody parts as it opens with Mr. Narco stabbing Jane Carter to death with a pair of garden shears.
The writing and acting is pretty good particularly Actor Arnold Moss sports a delightful German accent that will remind you of Peter Lore.
The script was again used on “Inner Sanctum” on September 7, 1952 once agan staring Arnold Moss as Mr. Narco.

Vanishing Point is a science fiction anthology series that ran on CBC Radio from 1984 until 1986 with 69 episodes in the original series.
Declared by the shows introduction to be, “The point between reality and fantasy”. The series informaly continued under various names and formats until 1990. Produced by Bill Lane in the C.B.C.’s Toronto studios. Vanishishing Point produced some excellent radio. Which has been favorably compared to Rod Sterling’s classic TV series, The Twilight Zone. All in all  these are finely tuned radio dramas provideing compelling excursions into the realm of mystery and fantasy.

As for today’s show, I’m not really certain that it is science fiction. There has been a movement in the last 30 years or so (notably led by science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin ) to rename the field of science fiction as,  “Speculative Fiction”. This episode is certainly is that. This the story of a young woman who, by my lights, somewhat unaccountably, is attracted to and becomes entangled with a man filling out a Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory on his way to a vacation. ”
Also of interest, I discovered that Tequila Mockingbird is a recognized shot by Cocktail Times. To make it properly, use the following ingredients:
- 2 oz Tequila- 1/2 oz Lemon Juice- 1 tsp Creme de Menthe (white)

From the LibriVox website..

“Established in 2005 by Hugh McGuire, LibriVox is a world wide group of volunteers who record, catalog and publish works as audio files to  provide audiobooks and readings of short stories and poetry at no cost to all comers.
The LibriVox mission is “the acoustical liberation of books in the public domain”.
By recording books that are in the public domain, LibriVox is giving people access to audio versions of classics such as books by Louise May Alcott through to Israel Zangwall, with hundreds more in between. These include works by Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and HG Wells. Books by a huge range of different authors are being recorded and published constantly.

The LibriVox catalog provides an up to date list of all the different audiobooks that are available currently.

The selection this week is the The Waters of Death, by Erckmann-Chatrian read by
Erckmann-Chatrian was the name used by French authors Émile Erckmann(1822–1899) and Alexandre Chatrian (1826–1890), nearly all of whose works were jointly written.This story also know as The Spider of Guyana was published for the frist time in Romantic Stories for Oct. 1893.
The warm mineral waters of Spinbronn, situated in the Hundsrueck, several leagues from Pirmesens, formerly enjoyed a magnificent reputation. All who were afflicted with gout or gravel in Germany repaired thither; the savage aspect of the country did not deter them. They lodged in pretty cottages at the head of the defile; they bathed in the cascade, which fell in large sheets of foam from the summit of the rocks; they drank one or two decanters of mineral water daily, and the doctor of the place, Daniel Haselnoss, who distributed his prescriptions clad in a great wig and chestnut coat, had an excellent practice.