"Madames et monsieurs - place your bets!"
The Croupier was an ABC mystery anthology program that aired from September 21 to November 16, 1949. It seems as though ABC were constantly looking for a decent mystery anthology series in the post-war era; there was Dark Venture; the Clock, Quiet, Please, Starring Boris Karloff - they even hosted Lights Out and Inner Sanctum Mysteries, each for one season.
The Croupier was written and directed by Milton Geiger, who had a lengthy career in radio, mostly writing for Hollywood Star Time, the Adventures of Philip Marlowe and Screen Directors Playhouse. Just as the Clock was hosted by Father Time, the Croupier was hosted by a, uh, croupier, who would pontificate on people's fate, as depicted on radio as the result of a roulette wheel spinning: "I am the croupier. I spin the wheel of life; you, the players, make your fortune, your future what you will. It is for you to choose the path: jealousy, envy, hatred, fear, happiness, love, peace - these are the bright and the dark colors of the soul. So, madames et monsieurs, the wheel of life spins; place your bets!"
The Croupier's sole surviving episode is the first broadcast, "the Roman," and it leans heavily into the supernatural - but as fantasy, not horror. The story concerns a couple who find themselves on a haunted aircraft carrier commanded by an ancient Roman, doomed to wander the seas until he experiences forgiveness. It's basically a variation on the legend of the Flying Dutchman. Vincent Price stars as the ghostly Roman and he's terrific in the part; if this is truly representative of what the Croupier was like, then it was a great pity that the rest of the series was lost.
You can hear the first and sole surviving episode of the Croupier - "the Roman" - in this file, from the Old-Time Radio Researchers' Group "Singles and Doubles" collection on the Internet Archive.
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