Radio Recap: Stay Tuned for Terror

I keep thinking I know everything about old-time radio horror... then a new discovery puts me in my place.

When I first got on the internet in 1998 there were a number of old-time radio sites that stated with an air of authority that what they recorded as still existing represented all that still existed or ever would. And time and time again, that research has been usurped.

Stay Tuned for Terror was a syndicated old-time radio horror program that was distributed in 1945. Apparently it didn't do very well or circulate very far. The entire series was written by Robert Bloch and adapted (by him) from a variety of his short stories previously published in Weird Tales. The existence of the program has been known of for a long time but it was thought to be gone for good.

Yet a few years ago, two episodes of Stay Tuned for Terror popped up! The episodes are titled "The Bogey Man Will Get You" and "Lizzie Borden Took an Axe." Having listened to them, I found they held up quite well. Stay Tuned for Terror didn't have familiar performers but the actors in both dramas did quite well, in my opinion. It certainly helps that Bloch wrote great horror stories - although his are a bit more gruesome than even a typical Inner Sanctum Mysteries episode of the time (perhaps the grisly contents contributed to the short run).

Since two episodes have now appeared, perhaps more will come. In researching this series, I was surprised to learn that half of an episode of the Weird Tales' own 1932 radio series has turned up! It's the 2nd half of an episode "The Curse of Nagana." It sounds a lot like episodes of the Witch's Tale from that time, consisting primarily of people yelling dialogue at each other in an attempt to fabricate tension. It's not really any good, but it is an interesting historical fragment. The research suggests there may have only been 3 episodes recorded and that the series was never actually sold or broadcat. You can hear that fragment on the Internet Archive.

You can hear Stay Tuned for Terror at the Internet Archive! Their page includes a lot of additional information about the series!

OTR Halloween Day 15: Molle Mystery Theatre

As I mentioned before, pulp author Robert Bloch didn't have many of his works adapted in the days of old-time radio, but an exception is his story "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper," which was performed on the Molle Mystery Theatre on February 27, 1945.

Bloch seemed to have a great fascination for the subject of Jack the Ripper, as outside of this story the character figured in a number of other short stories, novels and even his Star Trek script "Wolf in the Fold." Bloch introduces some supernatural elements to the legend of Jack the Ripper, which will come as no great surprise to anyone who's read later works such as Alan Moore's From Hell.

The Molle Mystery Theatre ran from 1943-1948 on NBC. For most of its run it featured adaptations by famous mystery and crime authors, everyone from Sax Rohmer to Cornell Woolrich, from Agatha Christie to Aldous Huxley, along with many original scripts. The most famous original script from the program is "The Creeper," which I've blogged about at length. Molle Mystery Theatre lacked the polish of Suspense but still featured plenty of talented writers and performers.

You Can listen to "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" at the Internet Archive. Unfortunately the surviving copy is from the series Mystery Playhouse so it's a bit truncated.

OTR Halloween Day 7: Dimension X

Dimension X was one of the first great radio science fiction series and the first be truly dedicated to courting an adult audience (or at least, an adult pulp magazine reading audience). Many of the greats from science fiction (and also L. Ron Hubbard) had their stories presented on Dimension X between April, 1950 and September, 1951. It was followed by X Minus One, of which more shall be written later.

Robert Bloch was a great pulp writer in his day but very little of his work was presented on radio. It was his association with television's AlFred Hitchcock - and especially a little film called Psycho - that really introduced him to the layman. But an early episode of Dimension X, "Almost Human" from May 13, 1950 demonstrates that his work suited radio.

"Almost Human" concerns a newly-built robot who is very adaptable and eager to learn. A criminal sees in this the opportunity to mold a great henchman for himself. You can hear this episode at the Internet Archive.

"There are times, I confess, when the reader will shudder over the style rather than the content of these stories." - The Opener of the Way

During my recent review of Weird Tales issues, the stories of Robert Bloch I found reminded me how much I'd enjoyed his work in the past and had been meaning to find a copy of his first collection of short stories, the Opener of the Way. So I did.

This book first saw publication in 1945 by Arkham House and many of the stories came from Weird Tales; the copy I obtained is a (much more affordable) 1976 paperback reprint by Panther. I feel sorry for anyone who chased the 1945 original - they're missing out on this fantastic back cover blurb:

Although Bloch kept writing horror to the end of his career, the latter-day stories I've read veered away from the supernatural; here, near the start of his career, we have quite a bit of supernatural terror. Let's delve in!

• "The Opener of the Way" The titular story (which inspired the cover above) involves a father and son unearthing one of those (uh-oh) lost Egyptian tombs; the dad has been acting strangely and when he starts talking about projecting his consciousness into a statue you just know it won't end well...
• "The Cloak" This was (loosely) adapted into the Amicus film the House That Dripped Blood - in fact, this is so different that if you've seen the film, you might still be surprised by the original version. This involves a man seeking out a Halloween costume, asking the costumer to give him "the real thing." The vampire cape the costumer provides seems to be precisely that - it turns the wearer into a vampire!
• "Beetles" More fiddling around with Egyptian tombs (uh-oh). A man who unearths a mummy fears flesh-eating scarab beetles are after him for vengeance; he's right, but he didn't foresee how the beetles would get into his home...
• "The Fiddler's Fee" What is it with the Devil and violins, anyway? Here we have a violinist who sells his soul to become a virtuoso, but being the world's greatest violinist doesn't guarantee people will find you likeable - or loveable.
• "The Mannikin" A man deformed by a tumor so that he appears to be a hunchback seems to hold an unhealthy interest in the occult; wait, did I say tumor? To quote the great philosopher, "It's not a tumor!"
• "The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton" An interesting science fiction/horror blend; a lone pilot sets off to Mars on a ship which will take 10 years to find Mars, then 10 years to return. Within the ship, the throbbing of the vessel begins to wear upon the lone occupant and he begins to lose his mind. How can he possibly survive 20 years in such an environment?
• "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" This is one of Bloch's better-known tales and I'd seen it dramatized (faithfully, as it happens) on Boris Karloff's Thriller (it was also adapted into comics format by Gil Kane). If you aren't familiar with it, it's the story of one man's dogged pursuit of Jack the Ripper, believing the killer still walks the Earth by having made occult sacrifices for eternal youth. Despite the subject, it's fairly lighthearted - until the climax.
• "The Seal of the Satyr" A tourist in Greece hears legends about how mortals could be transformed into beings such as centaurs and satyrs through human sacrifice; naturally, it's all true, but he's a little slow to discern just how true.
• "The Dark Demon" A very Lovecraftian piece (where Lovecraft himself and several related creatures are name dropped) about a horror author whose ideas come to him in his dreams; unfortunately, his most recent dreams involve him bringing about the incarnation of Asmodeus; that doesn't sound good.
• "The Faceless God" Yet more gamboling around in Egyptian tombs (uh-oh). This one is pretty sedate and way too-familiar but it involves the Lovecraftian being Nyarlathotep, so I'm sure someone likes it.

Bloch is my favourite of the Weird Tales-type authors because he not only has fiendish ideas of terrible things to inflict on his characters, but also a gift for dialogue and descriptive imagery and a twisted (yet often pleasing) sense of humour. I've said before that I don't have much time for Lovecraft - but Bloch? Oh my, yes.

Review: Weird Tales, July 1950

My first foray into Weird Tales proved a little disappointing, but let's see how the July, 1950 issue stacks up:

Right off the bat we have a much more interesting cover, care of horror cover maestro (and frequent comic artist) Matt Fox. But how are the stories?

"The Weird Tailor" by Robert Bloch. Once again, a great Bloch tale visits the pages of Weird Tales, but this time it leads the contents, rather than being lost in the middle. Horror aficionados probably know this one - it was adapted to the TV horror series Thriller in 1961 and served as one segment of the anthology film Asylum (1972). The title is actually something of a misnomer - the tailor isn't weird; his client might be described as weird; the cloth the client gives to the tailor is the textbook definition of weird!

"The cloth was gray. No, it couldn't be gray, because it had little flecks that reflected the light. It was gold. But gold does not shimmer in rainbow hues. It was a peculiar offshade of tan. But tan is not green, and there was green in this cloth, also some red and blue. No, it was gray. It had to be gray."

I love that paragraph; anyway, it's a great story about a mysterious bolt of fabric, the odd suit made from it, one man's quest to conquer death and some cosmic comeuppance.

"Shallajai" by Arthur J. Burks seems to barely qualify for Weird Tales; it's a gentle fantasy, not horror, holding more in common to Hans Christian Anderson's "the Garden of Eden" than anything. Anyway, two men find paradise in the middle of the Gobi desert and the head man in paradise drones on and on about how great it all is but how so few get to appreciate it... it has the sense to namedrop James Hilton's Lost Horizon, but not enough chops to craft a paradise as enveloping as Hilton's Shangri-La.

"The Rhythm of the Rats" by Eric Frank Russell is a decent, but obvious tale; a man survives a plane crash and finds himself in a quiet German town where the entire population is afraid of what goes on at night. Matt Fox's accompanying illustration of a demonic Pied Piper basically tells you the story's secret right off the bat.

"Rebels' Rest" by Seabury Quinn is an odd duck. It turns out to be the story of a woman who falls in love with a ghost, but for some reason the story ends on that point during the last page - the build-up involves the life story of the woman's mother. Perhaps it was puffed up to fill pages.

"Woe Water" by H. Russell Wakefield tells a decent story pulled from the diary of a man who's taken a new property to escape the many unsavory rumours about him killing his wife, only to wind up killing his manservant and being haunted over it all.

"Cordona's Skull" by Mary Elizabeth Counselman delves into an out-of-work stage magician who befriends a medium who uses a specially-rigged human skull to deliver his phony prophecies. The magician plans a hostile takeover of the medium's business, but the skull has other plans

"The Closing Door" by August Derleth is kind of a mess - a mystery about a vanished priest being solved by a sexton... it has a very choppy ending.

"Mrs. Hawk" by Margaret St. Clair tells it's story quickly; why do Mrs. Hawks' hogs seem so anthropomorphic? Fortunately, the story soon drops Circe's name so the reader isn't ahead of the character for too long, although he still winds up being extremely foolish.

"Fly Down Death" by Cleve Cartmill involves a scientist who made himself and one other man immortal; after hundreds of years, the scientist finds a cure for immortality so he can die with dignity, but feeling the other man has squandered his years, decides not to share it, instead intending the other to live forever as a monument to his science. It's a good premise which doesn't have quite enough room to explore the idea.

Poems in this issue were "the City" by H.P. Lovecraft and "Pattern" by Dorothy Quick; unlike the previous issue's space-fillers, these are given plenty of space for their lines.

One more issue of Weird Tales remains...

Review: Weird Tales, January 1949

In addition to my aforementioned work on comic strips leading me to delve into Captain Easy and Alley Oop, I've also spent some time admiring our library's collection of pulp magazines. Then, inspiration struck me: could I afford to own a few pulps? A quick check of prices online confirmed: if all I want is a reading copy, yes I can. Thus, I picked up three issues of Weird Tales which I'll blog about here as I finish them.

The January, 1949 issue of Weird Tales features these stories:

"Four From Jehlam" by Allison V. Harding leads things off with a fairly typical story; four men have their deaths prophesied by an old woman and the story goes about the business of their deaths without too many surprises. The manner of their deaths come as a surprise to the victims (the one supposed to drown doesn't fall in the ocean but rather has a build-up of fluid in his lungs), but once the reader figures out these are "ironic" deaths, it's not very interesting going through the motions.

"Food for Demons" by E. Everett Evans involves a professor who conjures up a demon which possesses his body and uses him to feed on others (it consumes intellect and feasts on highly intelligent people); the great bother with this story is the professor's love interest helps save him and guide the demon toward old men (rather than the young) to feed on, but why does this professor deserve a happy ending? Surely those who tamper in the Devil's domain have earned a horrific ending? Not in this instance.

"The Thirteenth Floor" by Frank Gruber is one of roughly four million stories about phantom "thirteenth floors," usually titled "the Thirteenth Floor." This one is set in a department store where a man makes a date with a clerk on the 13th floor, then when he's stood up finds out there is no 13th floor; like many of the stories in this pulp it follows a route plot, but the prose has pep.

"Open Season on the -Bottoms" by Snowden T. Herrick. Here's a frustrating one - it explains an odd mystery about people whose surnames end with "bottom" each disappearing but the tale seems to run out of space and never fulfills on this unusual premise. Boy, Nelson S. Bond could have made hay with this one!

"The Great Stone Death" by John D. MacDonald. A man finds a giant monster living amongst the rocks unnoticed because it seems to be like a rock itself. It opens with fairly Lovecraftian ideas about old things slumbering, but this particular monster turns out to be quite vulnerable.

"Lover in Scarlet" by Harold Lawlor. Another familiar story type, the old "expectant heir tries to force his uncle to an early grave, only to meet an ironic fate." At least it's brief.

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Robert Bloch. Now here's the reason I bought this issue! This tale is well-known in Bloch's canon because of the notorious Alfred Hitchcock Presents adaptation; it concerns a simple-minded young man serving a stage magician; all too-easily made to believe in magic and unable to discern which people are trustworthy, it leads to a gruesome finish when he tries to saw a woman in half. This is much stronger in its original form than the TV adaptation - Bloch tells the story from the killer's perspective, which works very well - albeit, I wondered how someone with such a rough grasp of spoken English could faithfully reproduce the proper English read by other characters.

"The Big Shot" by Eric Frank Russell. A tough gangster dies and has to face the afterlife. It doesn't have much to say about the afterlife, it's more of a character study.

"Balu" by Stephen Grendon (aka August Derleth) concerns a boy and his cat, the titular Balu. Being an Egyptian cat, naturally Balu bears a terrible supernatural side.

"The Bonan of Baladewa" by Mary Elizabeth Counselman tells of soldiers stationed in Java during World War II and the commanding officer who despises the locals, crosses the line by killing one and meets with supernatural justice. Again, a pretty familiar tale.

Finally, "Our Fair City" by Robert A. Heinlein offers something quite unusual - a wind which is to all appearances sentient and can carry papers aloft for up to 50 years; when a newspaperman learns of this, he begins writing stories about the wind ("Kitten") and using it against his political enemies. It's definitely not "typical" or "route!"

There were also two poems: "A Curse" by Page Cooper and "The Heads on Easter Island" by Leah Bodine Drake. Both were designed just to fill space in the magazine and they do that part admirably.

It's easy to see why the names of Roberts Bloch & Heinlein live on while the others have mostly faded away (Derleth endures for appropriating Lovecraft later in his career). Most of the stories are too familiar - they don't shock, surprise or amaze.

On to the next issue!