Radio Recap: Mystery House

Mystery House was an unusual radio series that aired on Mutual from February 1944 toSeptember 1946. It was a mystery anthology series, but with a difference - quite an odd difference. Could it be argued that Mystery House was the Inception of old-time radio mystery anthologies? Now that I’ve written it, I suppose it could.

You see, Mystery House had a unique premise: as the opening of each episode would declare, this series was about the publishers of a series of mystery novels whose staff would act out a proposed new novel before approving it for publication. But that’s mere artifice; in reality, a cast of actors would perform as the staff of the Mystery House publishing firm (headed by Dan and Barbara Glenn) who would themselves perform the characters who appeared in each week’s stories.

The premise is particularly odd because there really were old-time radio shows that were based on popular mystery publishers. After all, we famously enjoyed Inner Sanctum Mysteries on the radio for many years; I don’t think they ever actually adapted an Inner Sanctum novel into a radio drama, but each week they would remind you of the latest print releases. The same method was employed on the series Crime Club, and its the latter series that Mystery House most resembles in terms of production values.

Mystery House wasn’t great radio, but it wasn’t bad either. Like many Mutual programs it had a lower budget and had to make do with an organ, but their organist was versatile and did their best to use the instrument as a means of covering up the paucity of audio effects. The dramas themselves are very familiar potboilers, full of mysterious deaths, scheming wealthy people and star-crossed lovers who would make it as a couple if the man could just get his big break. The characters tended to be very familiar archetypes with the occasional colourful accent thrown in. But the plots moved at a fast pace with quick dialogue to maintain momentum.

All that really sets Mystery House apart from Crime Club is the odd structure where they pretend the dramas are being performed by a mystery publishing house. But outside of the opening of the program where the two leads Dan and Barbara briefly banter about the script they’re about to perform, it doesn’t factor into the series at all. Still, the odd premise is interesting enough that I think mystery fans should sample at least one episode - any episode (they all sound about the same, though sometimes the audio is low). If you love Crime Club and wish there were more of it, well, Mystery House is more-or-less the same thing.

The Old-Time Radio Researchers’ Group has a YouTube playlist of all the surviving episodes here.