Out of the glamorous, mystic east, out of the desert's burning sands, the voice of ancient Persia speaks, to the heart of him who understands. Through the crunch of the camel's padded feet, 'neath the purple glow of scarlet skies, four travelers in life's caravan meet, in their quest for earthly paradise. A sign on the mystic scroll of fate, the moving finger writes in gold, do you hear the call of Omar, think, as it is written, let the tale be told.
Omar, the Wizard of Persia was a 13-episode syndicated series, each episode running less than 15 minutes. I've done my best to research this series but even though all 13 episodes are available, no one seems to have uncovered much information about the program. It was apparently created in 1934; one source claims it aired over Mutual. The cast included Maurice H. H. Joachim, Ralph Schoolman, Ethel Everett, Edward MacDonald and Jeff Sparks.
The series' protagonist is an American jewel dealer named Henry Mason. At the start of the series, he comes into possession of an emerald. Unfortunately for him, the emerald is cursed (darn the luck) and he is warned by the titular Omar to rid himself of the emerald before disaster befalls him. Eventually convinced of the supernatural menace of the emerald, Mason and his family set off to surrender the emerald. Throughout the series, Omar "speaks" to Mason by sending messages through bells (usually vague remarks such as "the watchful shall not sleep tonight") and by placing Mason into a trance so that he can communicate with Mason's family (usually one bell ringing and one trance per episode).
You won't be surprised to hear that Omar, the Wizard of Persia indulges in orientalism, though only the first few episodes take place in Persia. As the RadioGoldindex notes, once Mason returns to the USA in the 5th episode and begins interacting with his family, the series takes on a different flavour and sounds a lot like an episode of Chandu the Magician; Chandu similarly had a singular protagonist with a bunch of relatives serving as his sidekicks who would get into trouble every 15 minutes.
Omar, the Wizard of Persia suffers from being an early example of radio adventure. It's hard to put over the idea that the cast of characters are in constant peril when mostly they seem to be sitting around and talking. The sound effects are very limited, such as when a snake attacks them yet the snake makes no noises to enhance the menace - it all has to be put over by characters yelling exposition at each other.
Mason is usually accompanied by his daughter's fiance Jerry, who is a pretty useless character, similar to Jack in Moon Over Africa he's there have things explained to him by Mason. Jerry only manages one decent moment of heroism in the series, that being when he triumphs over the snake.
The finale is utterly underwhelming. In the 13th episode, Omar's bells inform the Masons that, "the search has ended; return the emerald to the man with the scar." 1 minute later, a secret passage opens and a hand with a scar on it reaches out from the shadows. Mason exclaims, "happiness is now before us." And, um, that's it, that's the end. I guess they gave that mysterious scarred hand the cursed emerald and everything worked out okay. How nice for them.
You can hear Omar, Wizard of Persia at the Old-Time Radio Researchers' Library.
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