Inner Sanctum Halloween Month, day 1 of 31: "The Amazing Death of Mrs. Putnam"

Welcome to my October 2020 Halloween Old-Time Radio theme month! This year I've decided to feature 31 episodes of the series Inner Sanctum Mystery, which was broadcast 1941-1952. It was also the name of a line of mystery books which were promoted on the radio show, and it lent its name (but little else) to a Universal film series. It briefly became a television series in 1954.

Inner Sanctum Mystery is disdained by some fans of old-time radio because among horror fans, it has a reputation for cop-out endings. There are definitely quite a few episodes which hint towards there being some dark supernatural menace which is ultimately revealed as a hallucination, dream or carefully-orchestrated plot by the police to trick the killer into confessing his crimes. But it's not fair to chacterized the series as entirely 'cop-outs'. There are many episodes with no supernatural elements at all and there the show would commit to its content.

We might as well begin with the first episode of Inner Sanctum Mystery: "The Amazing Death of Mrs. Putnam", broadcast January 7, 1941. If you're already familiar with the show you'll find this episode is a little 'off'. The content is mostly a crime-detective story, complete with a bumbling sidekick for the hero. But this modest little program is where it all began!

This episode features Raymond Edward Johnson as the host; the cast includes Alan Devitt, House Jameson and Everett Sloane. The commercial sponsor is Carter's Little Liver Pills. You can listen to this episode at archive.org by clicking here.