OTR Halloween Day 7: Dimension X

Dimension X was one of the first great radio science fiction series and the first be truly dedicated to courting an adult audience (or at least, an adult pulp magazine reading audience). Many of the greats from science fiction (and also L. Ron Hubbard) had their stories presented on Dimension X between April, 1950 and September, 1951. It was followed by X Minus One, of which more shall be written later.

Robert Bloch was a great pulp writer in his day but very little of his work was presented on radio. It was his association with television's AlFred Hitchcock - and especially a little film called Psycho - that really introduced him to the layman. But an early episode of Dimension X, "Almost Human" from May 13, 1950 demonstrates that his work suited radio.

"Almost Human" concerns a newly-built robot who is very adaptable and eager to learn. A criminal sees in this the opportunity to mold a great henchman for himself. You can hear this episode at the Internet Archive.

OTR Halloween Day 6: Dark Fantasy

How to describe Dark Fantasy?

This was a NBC radio horror series from Oklahoma City aired between November, 1941 and June, 1942. Almost all of the episodes still exist. They were written and directed by Scott Bishop, a man who is also known for... nothing else.

Opinions on Dark Fantasy vary. Some think it was a fine horror anthology; others find it ridiculously campy. Personally, I appreciate that Scott Bishop was committed to horror - to stories delving into the supernatural. His tales have murderous trees, werewolves, lost cities, and yes, ghosts. All of it was wrapped up in a very pulpy sensibility. There were times when his characters monologued that I would think Bishop was striving to be like Arch Oboler. But well, Dark Fantasy was not Lights Out.

You may find the quality variable, but I believe there are a few gems. For instance: "The Headless Dead" from January 23, 1942. In this tale, a man visiting the chapel of the Tower of London becomes unwilling spectator to a congregation of the headless dead. Now that he has beheld them, they insist he join their ranks. You can listen to this episode at the Internet Archive.

OTR Halloween Day 5: Creeps by Night

Creeps by Night seems to have been a very good horror series - but it was extremely short-lived. The series lasted only 6 months in 1944 and even then, we only seem to have 6 episodes still existing today. Still, those surviving episodes are as good as anything found in the OTR horror genre. This same year, Dashiell Hammett's 1931 prose anthology of horror titled Creeps by Night was re-released but I haven't found evidence that they were related. It would have been good brand synergy, regardless.

A major aid to the series is that Boris Karloff was very involved in the program, probably the most involvement he had in OTR (moreso than his better-known Lights Out and Inner Sanctum appearances). And that's what I'd like to share today - "Those Who Walk in Darkness" from June 20, 1944 and starring Karloff!

In "Those Who Walk in Darkness," a physician is treating the husband of his ex-girlfriend. The ex isn't certain how much she should trust him when he insists her husband may lose his eyesight, especially when he insists that they replace her husband's eyes with those of a dead man. Remember yesterday's Grand Guignol story? This is very much like a Grand Guignol plot, isn't it?

Unfortunately, this episode is preserved as an episode of the Mystery Playhouse. It's hosted by Peter Lorre, so the original host segments are missing. As well, the ending is a bit abrupt, so I think some minutes were shaved off the climax. But we don't have much of Creeps by Night and this is very good!

You can hear "Those Who Walk in Darkness" on the Internet Archive!

OTR Halloween Day 4: Columbia Workshop

Today I'm looking at the Columbia Workshop, the legendary CBS series where creators delved into what was frequently unusual and experimental techniques in radio drama. For our purposes, this also includes the horror genre!

This program is the story "Double Exposure" from March 7, 1940. In 1940, horror on radio was still very primitive but on the verge of breaking out in a big way, as Lights Out had indicated. Compared to the rather juvenile writing in the Witch's Tale, "Double Exposure" is much more adult and more indicative of where radio horror was headed.

The reason for that is that "Double Exposure" is an adaptation of a play from Paris' Grand Guignol theater. Although the theater ended in the early 1960s, the Grand Guignol has held a special place in horror history for being a theater who only produced horror plays. To this very day, critics of horror films call the very theatrical and bloody horror films "Grand Guignol" whether they've heard of the Paris theater or not.

"Double Exposure" is similar to many other Grand Guignol plays I've read about, but it opens very slowly. A man's wife has just died and he's mourning her. The first third of the program comes across as pure melodrama - but then, he learns his wife had a secret lover and he's on his way to the man's house.

You can hear "Double Exposure" on the Old Time Radio Researchers Library.

OTR Halloween Day 3: The Clock

The Clock started out as an ABC anthology program in 1947-1948. Today, most of what we have of the Clock comes from an Australian version made during the 1950s. A few of those program used the same scripts as the ABC version so it does give us a picture of what the show was like - because, unfortunately, we only have a little of the 1947-1948 version.

What makes the Clock stand out, though, is the talent behind it. It was produced by William Spier, best-known for giving us Suspense. Most episodes starred the husband-wife team of Elliott and Cathy Lewis and there were many other familiar names from Suspense. For this Halloween, I'm concerned with the episode dubbed "Nicky." It starts out sounding very much like other radio programs: a gangster's girlfriend is plotting to fake his execution on death row; the undertaker who learns of the plot blackmails his way in. And then events get a bit surreal and very supernatural!

"Nicky" featured a few other Suspense names, including William Conrad as the host/narrator and Hans Conreid as the undertaker. You can hear "Nicky" at the Old-Time Radio Researcher's Group.

OTR Halloween Day 2: The Chase

I've written about the program The Chase before in a radio recap. The Chase ran on NBC from the spring of 1952 to the spring of 1953. I found the series as a whole not as remarkable as it might have been, but the series does have some highlights.

Perhaps the best episode of the Chase is the first one: "The Big Cat." The story involves a leopard escaping from the zoo. A mild-mannered man hears about the escape and it causes him to reflect that he's like a leopard and that he should similarly break free from the confinement of his normal life.

It's a very unusual thriler story and quite well done; you can hear it at the Old-Time Radio Researchers Group.

OTR Halloween Day 1: Arch Oboler's Plays

As I've often done in the past, all this month I'm going to make a daily feature on this blog where I examine spooky old-time radio shows in honour of Halloween. It was from listening to spooky Halloween shows on my local radio station that I first became a fan of old-time radio, so it's well worth honouring. Often I would select a particular series and look at 31 examples of its run but this time I'm going to choose a single episode from 31 different programs. Were there even 31 decent spooky old-time radio series that still have at least one surviving episode? Let's find out!

First up is Arch Oboler's Plays. This was Oboler's 'prestige' program, a dramatic anthology usually centered on social issues of the day. But of course, Oboler was also known for running the horror series Lights Out for many years and that program has overshadowed the rest of his body of work (and he was rather prodigious back in the day). In fact, a number of episodes of Arch Oboler's Plays are - even now - in circulation as episodes of Lights Out.

And to be fair, some episodes of Arch Oboler's Plays really do sound like an episode of Lights Out; take for instance "Crazytown." Like other episodes of the series, it focuses in a contemporary matter; being 1939, World War II was at the top of Oboler's mind. In "Crazytown," two members of an Italian bomber crew find themselves in a town inhabited by, well, crazy people. Hence, "Crazytown." From there it definitely plays out like an episode of Lights Out!

You can hear "Crazytown" on YouTube.