Every Thursday this October, I'm going to write a recap on an old-time radio horror program as we gear up for Halloween!
"No, stay where you are; Do not break the stillness of this moment; for this is a time of mystery, a time when imagination is free and moves forward swiftly, silently... This is: The Haunting Hour!
When I first bought John Dunning's book On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio in 1998, one of the first things I did was look up each of the horror programs I enjoyed so I could learn more about them. I was a bit annoyed that there was nothing in his book about The Haunting Hour; it was one of the first horror anthology programs I ever heard, but no one seemed to know anything about it; who produced, directed or starred in it? When did it air?
Thanks to the sorely-missed Digital Deli website, I finally got some answers. They identified it as an NBC syndicated program produced in Philadelphia. It was produced by Herbert Wood and featured Rosa Rio on the organ and music by Tilden Brown. Berry Kroeger was the show's narrator and it drew from familiar voices like Frank Lovejoy and Jackson Beck. According to the Deli, it ran for 52 episodes from June 8, 1945 to May 26, 1946.
In some ways the show reminds me of the Weird Circle, which was also from NBC syndication (1943-1945); I even wonder if The Haunting Hour were in some sense a continuation of that program - they featured many of the same actors. There's one episode of The Haunting Hour called "Revenge" that's inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Annabel Lee" which reminded me of how the Weird Circle's stories were inspired by the works of Poe and others (although they usually made drastic changes to the original texts).
It's not entirely accurate for me to call The Haunting Hour a horror program because, taken as a whole, it was simply a mystery anthology. The word "haunting" invites you to think of an underlying supernatural menace to the stories, but the supernatural seldom looms that large. Some stories are simply detective tales; others are crime stories which delve more into suspense than mystery.
When The Haunting Hour was at it's best, it was pretty good; I highly recommend the episode "The Uptown Express," which concerns a woman who suddenly finds herself living five years into her future. I also recommend "Breakdown," about a woman who seems to be losing her grip on sanity.
The most interesting story to me is "Ptolemy's Grave," about a woman haunted by a mummy whose face resembles her husband. Amazingly, this is a story I knew from a 1943 comic book adaptation! I blogged about it before at this link; but when it appeared in Super-Magician Comics, it was introduced as an adaptation from Inner Sanctum Mysteries. I'm left wondering if this episode of The Haunting Hour recycled a script from Inner Sanctum Mysteries and if so, are other stories on The Haunting Hour recycled scripts?
The Old-Time Radio Researchers have 40 episodes of The Haunting Hour at this link.
Next Thursday: The Mysterious Traveler!
