Old-Time Radio Retrieved, Part 1: Inner Sanctum Mysteries

I have been an old-time radio fan since around the early 1990s but it was only around 1998 when I first got on the internet that I began to understand just how vast the hobby was - and what the limits were. There are simply many, many shows without even a single surviving episode and few indeed are the programs who have a complete run of episodes still available.

Certainly missing programs turn up from time to time but my interests aren't that broad. For instance, Suspense is one of my favourite old-time radio programs and has been since I began to be an OTR fan. And how many recovered episodes of Suspense have turned up in the last 25 years?

So... about that. Recently I noticed collector Jerry Haendiges was posting rare programs from his collection online. He was posting a lot. He had "missing" episodes from many popular OTR shows, some of them of major historical significance, others merely fascinating curios.

Among them I found three episodes from my favourite series. I'm going to look at those three episodes here over the next 3 days. After all, how often do I have something "new" to say about these programs?

We'll begin with Inner Sanctum Mysteries' October 19, 1941 episode "Hell Is Where You Find It," starring Burgess Meredith. I had it in my mind that the Lipton Tea era was the point where Hollywood really came calling on the old creaking door, but here's an episode to prove me wrong - Meredith was considered a major up-and-coming actor at the time - he'd already starred in Of Mice and Men, probably the biggest film he earned starring credit for. And here he is on the Inner Sanctum!

In "Hell Is Where You Find It," Meredith portrays a wealthy cad who toys with women's affections, not caring if they kill themselves. One day he meets a fascinating "prince" who encourages his caddish behaviour and steers him towards murder. Could this be the prince of... Hell?

If you're a typical internet Inner Sanctum naysayer then you'll assume the Devil is not a character in this show and that there'll be a cop-out ending. In that case, you'd better listen... you might be surprised.

You can find "Hell Is Where You Find It" here!

Tomorrow: A folktale.