Radio Recap: The Witch's Tale

"A hundred years old I be today; yes, sir, a hundred years old..."

The Witch's Tale was one of the earliest radio horror programs in the history of the genre. Although it doesn't bear up especially well today, the series holds immense historical interest. It ran on New York's famous WOR station from 1931-1938, initially as a local show, then moving to the Mutual network in 1934. The show had it's own pulp magazine in 1936, but it only lasted two issues.

The series was written by Alonzo Deen Cole; Cole also wrote a few episodes of the Shadow, but the other series he's best-remembered for is Casey, Crime Photographer.

One of the program's pioneering traits was its host, Old Nancy "the witch of Salem," portrayed by Adelaide Fitz-Allen, Miriam Wolfe and Martha Wentworth, accompanied by her black cat "Satan" (apparently Cole himself was the voice of the cat). Old Nancy played the role of horror host straight, but in the following decade Inner Sanctum Mysteries would play up the role for camp humour. Horror hosts (be they radio, comic book, TV or film) in general tend towards the campy side, but it all goes back to Old Nancy.

Although the Witch's Tale took itself very seriously, I'm afraid it doesn't hold up as a horror program. Part of the problem with the series is that it was testing out new ground, blazing new trails. Radio of the early to mid-30s simply wasn't very sophisticated and the Witch's Tale didn't make much of audio effects; music usually only appeared between dramatic sequences, sound effects were few and far between. Consequently, when something terrifying appears in an episode of the Witch's Tale it can't be conveyed in any manner except exposition. Much of what makes the Witch's Tale campy to my ears is that no matter how horrible the circumstances, no matter how histrionic the person in danger may be, they still find the words to describe what's happening. Characters attempting to convey exposition while screaming at each other is never not funny to me, I'm ashamed to say.

So yes, Cole's program no doubt helped demonstrate to the likes of Wyllis Cooper and Arch Oboler that there was *ahem* a little room for improvement in radio horror. Someone had to be the trailblazer, and that man was Alonzo Deen Cole.

My go-to as campiest of the camp is the episode "Hairy Monster," in which a heroic Irish cop defends the episode's female protagonist from the hairy monster menacing her. The actor portraying the Irishman seems to have a very tenuous grasp on his accent that results in his performance being even more stilted than a typical Witch's Tale actor. I'm afraid the more I listen to that one, the harder I laugh.

But this is not to say that the Witch's Tale holds nothing but camp value. If you enjoy stories of the supernatural and you can accept the limitations these shows were created under, I think you can still enjoy yourself. For instance, the show made an adaptation of Prosper Merimee's "the Bronze Venus" that I think is pretty good. I found the episodes "the Devil Doctor" and "the Statue of Thor" to be okay programs too.

Surviving episodes include a number of 1930s episodes from the Mutual run and a number of Australian versions from circa 1941 that used the same scripts as from the US version.

Here's a playlist a fan made of surviving episodes of the Witch's Tale on YouTube: