Radio Recap: Jason and the Golden Fleece

Jason and the Golden Fleece aired for just one season on NBC radio from October 29, 1952 to July 19, 1963. The series starred MacDonald Carey as Jason, the owner of a bar in New Orleans. He also chartered a boat called the Golden Fleece and each episode he would take a patron out to sea for an adventure. His bartender and sailor was Louis, portrayed by William Conrad. At the time, Conrad had already been playing Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke for a year, yet he was still gamely taking on odd supporting jobs such as this.

We have only three episodes of Jason and the Golden Fleece. What I've described above makes the series sound like a weekly version of the Bogart film To Have and Have Not, yet that's not quite what the series was like - at least, so far as the three surviving episodes are concerned. In each episode, Jason is more-or-less an observer to the drama going on in the lives of his passengers. On each voyage of the Golden Fleece, some minor crisis emerges in which his passengers' personal dramas are tested and in some manner overcome. For instance, one episode concerns a young man who is trying to win the approval of his stern father. In another, a district attorney finds himself aboard the Golden Fleece at the same time as the sister of a woman he convicted of murder.

Jason and the Golden Fleece is definitely unusual and it's a shame we only have the three programs to judge it by. Those three shows have pretty crisp audio, well-written stories and a supporting cast of players such as Bill Johnstone, Jeanette Nolan and Herb Ellis. You can hear the 3 surviving episodes of Jason and the Golden Fleece at the Internet Archive.

Radio Recap: The Hermit's Cave

"*cackling* Ghooooost stories! Weeeeird stories! And murders, too! *cackling* The Hermit knows of them all! Turn out your lights! Turn them out. Ahhh. Have you heard the story of...?"

The Hermit's Cave was a horror anthology program which was almost certainly inspired by the Witch's Tale; both featured an elderly, cackling host; both featured stories of the supernatural; both ran on a low budget.

The series was originally produced on WJR, a local CBS affiliate in Michigan and lasted from September 13, 1936 to May 18, 1947. This would make it one of the longest-running horror anthology programs, with potentially more than 500 broadcasts - but we have just a few episodes from here and there in the series' run.

Like the Witch's Tale, The Hermit's Cave was committed to the supernatural. The conclusions didn't walk back the supernatural with "all a dream" explanations or reveals that someone was playing a trick to force a confession from a killer. Further, the series committed so strongly to its premise that occasionally evil would triumph (like the later series Hall of Fantasy). I think it's fair to say the Hermit's Cave lacked restraint; much like the Witch's Tale, the dramas were played over-the-top.

The greatest problem I have with the Hermit's Cave is that the production values were lacking. They relied on music for many of their effects and otherwise had very limited audio effects. Consequently, so much of the Hermit's Cave is characters talking - usually at each other, as opposed to narrating or monologuing. There's no sense of how a moment of dread might be created through a moment's silence - it's talk, talk, talk. I'm afraid between the low production values and constant chatter I don't find the Hermit's Cave terribly scary. Heck, I'd say the Witch's Tale offers better creeps than this show and I find the Witch's Tale to be terribly campy.

Apparently at one point the series was produced by actor William Conrad. That seems kind of unbelievable to me as I don't know of any other producing credits under Conrad's name and it isn't even the type of material he normally performed in, but it would have been early in Conrad's career so perhaps he was just taking any opportunity for experience. One does occasionally hear familiar voices on the Hermit's Cave, such as Elliott Lewis, but most of the actors must have been locals who never had a "big break."

You can hear the surviving episodes of the Hermit's Cave on the the Internet Archive.

Radio Recap: CBS Radio Workshop

The CBS Radio Workshop - "dedicated to man's imagination; the theater of the mind" - aired from January, 1956 to September, 1957, fairly late in the life of radio drama. But before I can describe what the series was like, I need to describe the Columbia Workshop, its predecessor.

There's not really anything on radio quite like the Columbia Workshop (or the CBS Radio Workshop). The Columbia Workshop was a CBS program which bounced around their schedule from time-to-time between 1936-1947. It was a very experimental program - it took a lot of chances and not all of them worked. The Columbia Workshop was a space for producers, directors, writers, musicians, sound effects men and actors to try out material that wouldn't have fit anywhere else. The risks which CBS took in running such a program certainly paid off for them in the years ahead - Suspense is one such program which owes a lot to the Columbia Workshop for testing new ways of telling stories.

Like the Columbia Workshop, CBS Radio Workshop had no particular genre or even style of content; sometimes it presented drama, other times comedy, sometimes a "colloquy" which were opportunities to editorialize on a certain subject; there were musical episodes, slice-of-life programs and a bit of journalism. Not every episode will be to a person's taste (I find the music program "The Stronger" to be a chore), but I think every radio fan can find at least a few episodes they'll enjoy.

For instance, there was a lot of airtime given to science fiction, which CBS didn't delve into too often (such stories were more common on NBC). CBS Radio Workshop kicked off with a two-part adaptation of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and later adapted his novel "Jacob's Hands." There's a Ray Bradbury episode which adapted "Season of Disbelief" and "Hail and Farewell"; they adapted Heinlein's "The Green Hills of Earth"; John Cheever's social commentary "The Enormous Radio"; the humourous Robert Nathan story "A Pride of Carrots"; Antoine de St. Exupery's "The Little Prince"; a two-part adaptation of C. M. Kornbluth's "The Space Merchants"; and the fun fantasy story "Housing Problem" by Henry Kuttner.

Other interesting adaptations included a number of great humour stories: "Roughing It" by Mark Twain; "The King of the Cats" by Stephen Vincent Benet; "You Could Look It Up" by James Thurber; and a very funny adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "Never Bet the Devil Your Head."

The show looked at the process of writing for radio in "A Writer at Work" and at microphone technology in "I Have Three Heads"; the series explored psychic research in "Report on ESP"; an examination of Hawaiian culture in "Malahini Magic"; and a portable tape recorder presentation of famous cities: "The Voice of New York," "This Is Paris," and "Portrait of London."

It was a fairly highbrow show at times - Shakespeare comes up a lot. The first colloquy is an "interview" with Shakespeare; there's a Hamlet play called "Another Point of View"; and a look at Shakespearean acting in "Lovers, Villains and Fools." There's also a look at the titular "Oedipus Story," some Japanese theatre in "Noh Plays of Japan," a dramatic reading of Christ's passion in "The Son of Man" and an episode in which William Conrad read poetry: "1489 Words."

You can hear adaptations of novels and short stories on any 'playhouse'-type program. What sets CBS Radio Workshop apart from other dramatic shows are the programs which probably couldn't have been done anywhere else. To that end, there are four episodes I want to single out:

• "A Matter of Logic": Writer/producer Antony Ellis appears as himself as he tries to convince William Conrad of his take on a far-out concept; Conrad disagrees with Ellis' premise and the two try to hash it out through a friendly argument. One wonders if Ellis was inspired by similar arguments he'd had with performers over the years.
• "I Was the Duke": A remarkable conversation with a juvenile delinquint. It certainly supports everything one fears about teenage criminals, but it is surprising to hear how casually the real-life criminal discusses his crimes, with some uncensored profanity littering his speech! It's probably your only chance to hear some profanity in old-time radio.
• "Nightmare": An interesting drama about a man (Elliott Lewis) struggling with a heart attack and the odd nightmare he experiences while clinging on to life. It's a beautifully surreal stream-of-consciousness play.
• "The Silent Witness": A one-man play performed by Raymond Burr; not up to the standard of Suspense's "The Waxwork" but a very solid drama.

So that's what sets CBS Radio Workshop apart from other dramatic shows, but what set it apart from its predecessor, the Columbia Workshop? I think the difference is that the Columbia Workshop was testing unproven ideas and concepts, pushing the boundaries of what could be done in radio. CBS Radio Workshop arrived at the end of dramatic radio and seemed to comprehend that it would be among the last of its kind; rather than strive towards a future that wasn't there, it simply demonstrated what was possible with the technology of the time. For that reason, I think CBS Radio Workshop is much easier to listen to than the average episode of the Columbia Workshop, but I think I've written enough to give you an idea of whether this show would appeal to you.

The Old-Time Radio Researchers Group has a collection of the CBS Radio Workshop at the Internet Archive.

OTR Holiday Month Day 17: Gunsmoke

Earlier I looked at a somber Christmas episode of Dragnet. Another radio program from the same era which also strived for realism was Gunsmoke, but their Christmas episodes are feel-good programs. And so it is with the one I've chosen from December 20, 1952. It features Marshal Matt Dillon (as played by William Conrad) trying to get home to Dodge City for Christmas by hitching a lift with a very taciturn man. As Dillon tells his new acquaintence what Christmas is like in Dodge he gradually begins to win the man's friendship.

You can hear the episode on archive.org here.

31 Days of Suspense: "Kaleidoscope"

With 10 days of October remaining, I'm now counting down my top ten favourite episodes of Suspense! Let's visit #10!

Ray Bradbury was still a young author when he began writing for Suspense; the series not only adapted several of his popular stories for radio, but some of his stories appeared on Suspense before turning up in print (ie "Riabouchinska" & "The Screaming Woman")! Although Bradbury was adept at penning mysteries and thrillers, he's best remembered as a science fiction author. My tenth-favourite episode of Suspense is the July 12, 1955 adaptation of Bradbury's "Kaleidoscope," the story of a smashed-up rocket and its crew who are now drifting in space with almost no hope for survival. William Conrad is the show's featured player. You may download the episode from archive.org here.

Although Bradbury had a pretty good relationship with the producers of Suspense (especially with William Spier), "Kaleidoscope" was first heard on the radio on September 15, 1951 as an episode of Dimension X. If you like, you can hear their adaptation from archive.org here.

Tomorrow: "You're not hunting that cat anymore. That cat's hunting you."

31 Days of Suspense: "The Waxwork"

The stable of professional radio performers who turned up again and again in the 1940s & 50s were a tremendous asset to Suspense, a large part of how the series endured twenty years so gracefully. Not every performer was fantastic - personally, I can't bear to listen to Larry Thor's monotone for very long - but the majority of them brought colour and personality to their parts.

William Conrad was definitely one of the best; of course, he also had a film career and a bona fide leading role as Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, but in his many parts on Suspense (sometimes as cops, other times as robbers), he could bring savage, thundering tones to villains or invest police officials with wearied, laconic voices.

Conrad's tour de force on Suspense had to be the May 1, 1956 broadcast of "The Waxwork," wherein Conrad provides all of the voices heard! It's an appropriate choice, as the story is that of a reporter who shuts himself inside a wax museum by night to inspire his writing efforts. Unfortunately, in the quiet museum full of lifelike characters, one's imagination can run wild. You can download the episode from archive.org here.

"The Waxwork" had earlier been produced as a Suspense episode on March 20, 1947 with Claude Rains starring, but unfortunately the episode appears to have been lost to the ravages of time. Suspense adapted it a third time on March 1, 1959 with Herbert Marshall in the role and the story (by A.M. Burrage) was also adapted to television's Alfred Hitchcock Presents that same year. However, the television version by its very nature couldn't serve as a one-man show and while I like the episode quite a bit, I think Conrad's Suspense version is the superior product.

Tomorrow: "The unlit cigarette turned to garbage in my mouth. I spit it out and stamped it to pieces on the cement floor."