Old Time Radio

Happy Birthday, War of the Worlds!

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I first heard the original War of the Worlds broadcast in Sister Barbara Jean’s 8th grade reading class. The first ten minutes or so gave me goose bumps and sparked my love of old time radio. It made such an impression on me that I set my first mystery, The Darkness Knows, in October 1938 to coincide with the original Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast on October 30, 1938 (a character is actually listening to the live broadcast near the end of the book).

Do yourself a favor and listen to the original (It’s brilliant and so far ahead of its time.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzC3Fg_rRJM

One of my current favorite radio shows, Radiolab, did a fascinating episode around the psychology of the broadcast – why it worked so well and what happened when it was repeated (spoiler alert – bad things): Radiolab War of the Worlds Live Episode 

There’s also a PBS documentary on the subject: American Experience War of the Worlds

Old Time Radio Wednesday – Halloween #6 Snow Shadow Area

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I’ve saved the creepiest of the lot for last. Today’s program is another not-so-old-time radio production. Snow Shadow Area is an episode of the Canadian show Vanishing Point from 1986. I’m not sure what draws me to horror stories about people being stranded by snow (see my earlier entry in this series, The Porch Light), but this one is by far the freakiest – especially because of the ambiguous ending.

Listen and hear for yourself.

Old Time Radio Wednesday – Halloween #5 Valse Triste

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Lights Out is head and shoulders above all other horror old time radio, in my opinion. It’s so original – and so dark.

I’ve previously shared an episode of Lights Out called It Happened. Today I’m sharing an episode from December 29, 1942 called Valse Triste that is the horrific story of two young women that get lost in the woods and come upon a hermit’s cabin. The hermit… well, he has plans.

Old Time Radio Wednesday – Halloween #4 The House in Cypress Canyon

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This episode from December 5, 1946 is a bit hard to describe, so bear with me. It’s a story within a story about a notebook found in a house that was just recently built telling of what happened to the people that lived in it before. That’s right – before. It’s truly spooky, and Suspense is just the best. Sidenote: The star of this episode, Robert Taylor, was the physical inspiration for hunky Graham Yarborough in my books. Hubba hubba.

Old Time Radio Wednesday – The BBC’s “Pet Sematary”

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I had originally planned on sharing four shows during the month of October in honor of Halloween, but I love horror radio drama so much that I couldn’t settle on just four.* So I’m starting the horror before October so I can squeeze six + in. With my first selection, I’m also breaking my own rules by recommending a radio drama that isn’t “old time”. These recordings are 20 years old now though, so I think they’re officially considered vintage.

I think this three-part version of Pet Sematary produced by BBC radio in 1997 is better than the movie. I’ve never read the book (one of the very few Stephen King books I haven’t read), but this adaptation seems closer to the feel of a Stephen King book than the movie. I don’t know about you, but movie special effects have got nothin on my imagination.

Click here to listen. 

You can also download all 3 parts from this site to your phone and listen on your commute (like I did).

*I’ve already shared 4 of my scary favorites – The Ravine, Zero Hour, The Creeper, and It Happened.

Old Time Radio Wednesday – Suspense “Sorry, Wrong Number”

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In honor of my upcoming birthday (next Monday), I’m featuring my absolute, hands-down favorite old time radio episode of all time – “Sorry, Wrong Number” from my all-time favorite radio show, Suspense.

This episode features Agnes Moorehead (You probably know her as Samantha’s interfering mother, Endora, from Bewitched) as a sickly woman who overhears a menacing telephone conversation. That’s all I’m going to tell you. I don’t want to spoil it.

This episode originally aired August 21, 1943 and was repeated several times throughout the twenty years Suspense was on the air.

The story, by Lucille Fletcher, was turned into a 1948  movie starring Barbara Stanwyck (one of a my favorite sass-mouthed dames). The radio show is far superior, in my opinion, due to the restrictions of the medium. It makes it so much scarier to not be able to see anything that’s happening…

Anyway, I hope you love it as much as I do.

Old Time Radio Wednesday – Little Orphan Annie

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Little Orphan Annie started out as a newspaper comic strip in the 1920s and jumped into radio in 1930 in Chicago. It was one of the few programs aimed at children in radio’s early days and was wildly popular.

You may be familiar with the program from its inclusion in a pivotal scene in that “A Christmas Story”. The main character, Ralphie, feverishly decodes the secret message at the end of the program to find… well, I won’t spoil it for those of you that haven’t seen the movie.

The episode of Little Orphan Annie in the above scene is a recreation, but below is an original from 1936 in two parts. The secret message part is at the end of part two.

Old Time Radio Wednesday – Murder at Midnight “The Creeper”

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Back to my favorite genre… suspense.

I picked this episode of Murder at Midnight because it’s seemingly based on a real series of murders in 1940s Chicago committed by The Lipstick Killer. The name comes from the message written in lipstick on a victim’s wall:

For heavens

Sake catch me

Before I kill more

I cannot control myself

 

Got the chills yet?

 

 

 

Old Time Radio Wednesday – Against the Storm

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My mom watched all the CBS soaps while I was growing up – Young & The Restless, Bold & The Beautiful, As the World Turns, and Guiding Light. (I think Search for Tomorrow was also in the lineup briefly.) That meant I watched them all too. Don’t get me started on Ridge and Brooke or Victor and Nikki…

Like most television genres, soaps actually got their start on the radio in the early 1930s. Florence Gill- Davison, the daytime drama grand dame that puts Vivian and Frances into a tizzy in The Darkness Knows, was based on a combination of real soap grand dames Irna Phillips and Anne Hummert.

Love & Glory, the soap in The Darkness Knows, is an amalgamation of all radio soaps I’ve ever heard, but I think this episode of “Against the Storm” from 1940 really nails what I was after – from the heavy organ throughout to the Ivory Flakes commercial (and contest to win a Pontiac!).

Daytime dramas* were usually about 15 minutes long including sponsor spiels. The overtaxed writers, writing multiple shows a week, could stretch out a scene for days or even weeks. That way a woman listening could miss a day or two and jump right back in without becoming hopelessly lost in the plot. (Something that’s been carried over to present day soaps.) I think you’ll get a taste of that when you listen to this episode.  I don’t mean to spoil it, but despite the title of the episode (Pascal Tyler rescues Lucretia), nothing much happens except a man talking soothingly to a horse.

*The term “soap opera” began being used in 1939 because of the heavy soap company endorsements on these programs.