Category: Old Time Radio

Sound insights from Mr. Jack Webb

Orson Welles & The Mercury Theater

One of the greatest radio anthology series of the 1930s was The Mercury Theatre on the Air, featuring the talents of the New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air featured an impressive array of talent, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. The show is most notable for its notorious War of the Worlds broadcast on October 30, 1938, but the troupe presented many other memorable programs.

And indeed, the premiere episode aired on July 11, 1938, presenting Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula. I’m presenting it here for your enjoyment!

Sam Spade Is On The Case

Back in the old days, radio networks would often broadcast adaptations of major motion pictures, refined for the radio format. In this case, CBS adapted the classic 1941 film, The Maltese Falcon.

And they did an outstanding job, bringing in the film’s primary cast of Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, and the legendary Sidney Greenstreet to reprise their big-screen roles.

So sit back and enjoy the the exploits of detective Sam Spade in the radio adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s classic, The Maltese Falcon.

The Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Any way you cut it, The Lone Ranger is an American cultural icon. An unmistakable, compelling figure that brought justice to the old west. His exploits were brought to radio, television, and movies.

So sit back and enjoy this great radio drama, Gambler Draws A Blank, originally broadcast on May 5, 1941.

Remember, it’s Halloween

Well, it isn’t Halloween. Halloween was a couple of weeks ago. But way back in 1938 Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater broadcast an original presentation of HG Wells science fiction classic, War of the Worlds.

The broadcast was historic in that the dramatic nature of the broadcast had actually fooled many listeners into believing that aliens from Mars had actually launched an invasion of the earth.

So sit back and enjoy a broadcast that moved and shook listeners way back in October, 1938!

To Cloud Men’s Minds

Two of my great passions are old pulp thrillers like Doc Savage, and old time radio like The Lone Ranger and Dragnet. Well, these two passions intersect with one of my favorite fictional characters of all time, The Shadow.

In 1930, magazine publisher Street and Smith sponsored a radio show promoting stories from their Detective Story Magazine. The radio program featured a fictional narrator known as The Shadow, and he became very popular with the listeners. Numerous requests from people for “that Shadow Detective Magazine” compelled Street and Smith to bring the character to the magazine world in his own adventures.

The first novel, The Living Shadow, hit newsstands in April of 1931. Its success meant that more stories were needed, and now The Shadow would be featured in his own monthly magazine, which was so popular that it became biweekly starting in 1932.

The Shadow continued hosting Detective Story Hour, but he became more prominent in the 1937 season of what had become The Shadow radio show, which featured a 22-year-old actor named Orson Welles.

The Shadow radio program and pulp magazines were very successful and soon the character would make it to the big screen: 1937′s The Shadow Strikes, and 1938′s International Crime, though The Shadow would find greater success in the 1940 movie serial simply titled The Shadow.

At around this time, The Shadow returned for a sixth season of his popular radio show, starring Bill Johnstone as The Shadow and his alter ego, Lamont Cranston, and Agnes Moorehead as his confidant, Margo Lane. The sixth season premiere was broadcast on Sunday, September 24, 1939 at 5:30pm, with the classic adventure “Dead Men Talk.”

So sit back this Sunday in 2007 and enjoy the classic radio drama, “The Shadow: Dead Men Talk.”

Jumpstarting ‘Fridays For Friday’

Here at the world headquarters for The Silver State Chronicles, things are always happening! I decided to dedicate the remaining Fridays of 2007 to one of my great heroes, Joe Friday and the series Dragnet!

We’ll start this week off with a Dragnet Doubleheader! While Jack Webb and Dragnet are often identified with great television, a lot of folks don’t know that Dragnet originated as a very successful, long running radio drama.

So how about a little dose of old time radio? Sit back and enjoy the August 14, 1952 episode of radio’s Dragnet, “The Big Drive.”