Friday, October 21, 2022

OTR Halloween Day 21: Quiet, Please

I think I've indicated on this blog many times that I truly cherish Wyllis Cooper's program Quiet, Please. I think if you have any appreciation for radio horror programs then you too are a Quiet, Please fan. Of course, not every episode was horror - there was fantasy, science fiction and fair helping of humour. Wyllis was a very literate writer with a knack for both beautiful phrases, descriptions and wry remarks. Quiet, Please ran from June, 1947 to June, 1949, first on Mutual, finally on ABC. Every episode starred Ernest Chappell as "the man who spoke to you." Chappell didn't have tremendous range as a performer but he was a solid everyman and Cooper wrote scripts that were perfectly suited to his talents.

For this Halloween series I think we need a fine Halloween episode: "Calling All Souls," which first aired on October 31, 1948. The story itself is set one night on Halloween. Chappell portrays a man on death row with no chance left for appeal unless he finds exonerating evidence. With nowhere else to turn he reaches out to the souls of the couple he was alleged to have murdered. Can he bring back evidence from the spirit world?

You can check out "Calling All Souls" at the Internet Archive.

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