Showing results by author "Original Radio Broadcast" in All Categories

The voice of Orson Welles - smooth and sure, but edged with danger – speaks to you from London. He’s here to tell you about a repository of death, a warehouse of homicide “in the grim stone structure on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard.” Welles will draw your attention to small artifacts from murders most foul, each of which provide a vital clue to a killer’s identity. An international cast - including Joan Lord, Harp McGuire, and Joe McCormick – breathe life into these twelve tales of death.

He stood just three feet tall, but his wit was larger than life! Charlie McCarthy was made of wood, but to millions of radio listeners, he was as real as Edgar Bergen - and much, much funnier. Impudent, irreverent, and positively irrepressible, here are 16 rare and classic radio episodes featuring Charlie himself.

An unprepossessing little man in a sweatshirt and sneakers set the world of radio ablaze in the late 1930s with a startling new vision of what radio drama could be. Eight decades later, his work is still fresh, powerful, and brilliantly original.

And now let's see what's going on down in Pine Ridge. It looks like con man B. J. Webster is about to get what's coming to him, Grandpappy Spears is in need of a new place to live, and Lum finds himself trapped on the wrong side of the law! There's plenty of intrigue, plenty of scheming, and plenty of laughs in these 36 consecutive episodes! Radio's lovable old fellers from the hill country, Chester Lauck and Norris Goff, star in these entertaining broadcasts from 1944.

Wherever there's someone in need of help, you'll find the man in black they call Paladin. The character first appeared on television, but later made his way to radio in one of the medium's last great adult Westerns. The hero's travels from his home base in San Francisco to serve clients throughout the West ensured a wide range of new characters for listeners. John Dehner rides as the enigmatic gunslinger in 20 unforgettable radio adventures, with Ben Wright as Hey Boy and Virginia Gregg as Miss Wong.

Radio Spirits brings you classic tales of mystery, crime, and suspense featuring everyday individuals caught in a web of their own making and tripped up by a twist of fate in the end. And heard throughout each radio play, as the events become a tangled web of crime, is that shadowy voice-of-fate, your host, The Whistler! Dripping with sarcasm, The Whistler follows the murderers’ slow descent into destruction while cautioning listeners about the futility of the criminal act they just heard.

Celebrate Christmas along with radio's greatest performers, characters and programs. These timeless holiday classics include moving and mirthful comedies, wholesome dramas, and adventurous missions of mercy. Laugh along with comedians like Jack Benny and Red Skelton (in a rare previously uncirculated performance), and with funny families on Fibber McGee & Molly, The Phil Harris - Alice Faye Show, Burns & Allen, The Great Gildersleeve, and The Life of Riley.

Spend your yuletide with the greatest stars of radio's Golden Age! Trim the tree, wrap the presents, and deck the halls as festive broadcast favorites like Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello, and The Great Gildersleeve keep you entertained! Hark to the voices of Christmases past - including Frank Sinatra and Will Rogers, Jr. - as they bring you merry mysteries and endearing dramas.

Box Thirteen is your address for radio mystery at its best! Alan Ladd stars in sixteen intriguing episodes as former newspaper reporter turned freelance fiction writer Dan Holiday. His excursions into mystery and crime for the characters in his books lead him to thrill-packed adventures all his own! At his side is a scatter-brained secretary named Suzy (played by Sylvia Picker), and in his way is the gruff Lieutenant Kling (portrayed by Edmund McDonald) and Inspector Black (Luis van Rooten).

"If the job's too tough for you to handle, you've got a job for me." Whatever your problem, he's the solution! George Valentine is sardonic yet sympathetic as he solves mysteries, unravels crises, and gets to the bottom of whatever's complicating the lives of his paid-up clients. Bob Bailey made his first big impression on radio audiences in this series of tightly-packed, thought-provoking thrillers! Here are 16 of his most fascinating exploits, with Virginia Gregg co-starring as Claire "Brooksie" Brooks.

Widely acclaimed as the greatest writer-director-producer of the Golden Age of Radio, Norman Corwin perfected his own unique recipe for success: Begin with the human mind and knead gently; add a dash of poetry, wit and wonder; add a cup of raw passion and stir vigorously; garnish with sound effects, and marinate in a musical score. Season liberally with intelligence and digest slowly. Corwin’s works - musicals, fantasies, satires, and dramas - were presented on CBS in prestige series under his own direction.

The Halls of Ivy presents real-life husband and wife Ronald Colman and Benita Hume as the first couple of Ivy College: William Toddhunter (“Toddy”) Hall and his wife, Victoria (“Vicky”) Cromwell Hall, a former actress of the British comedy stage. Although President Hall is an erudite and polished professor, he is completely unpretentious and truly concerned for the well-being of the students and faculty. Vicky - who is always at his side, and on his side - keeps her husband in check with her playful and down-to-earth ways.

What's more entertaining than a witty, snappy-talking detective? How about two witty, snappy-talking detectives? Publisher Jerry North and his always inquisitive wife Pamela are sophisticated sleuthing spouses who solved cases everywhere from magazine fiction, to novels, the stage, movies, radio and television. In these eight digitally remastered episodes from their long running radio series, the Norths can't seem to avoid mysteries and murders. In spite of Jerry's best attempts to put aside corpses and confessions - even quiet evenings at home and romantic ocean cruises turns deadly!

Let a little atmospheric organ music lead you into tales of mystery and murder! Glenn Langan stars as writer and raconteur Barton Drake, who takes you through each piece of the puzzle in twelve killer cases. Drake knows that death can descend in the most peculiar of places: in the snow, in the sand…in a locked room. Listen closely to the clues and see if you can guess whodunnit!

Some people collect coins, some people collect stamps, but Barton Drake collects murders! He's an author, a bon vivant, and an expert in the dark corners of the criminal mind. There's no homicide he won't investigate, no killing he can't solve! Glenn Langan stars as Barton Drake, with Norman Field as Inspector Danton. Together, they crack 16 classic cases of radio mystery from 1945 to 1946!

Dan Holiday learned about crime as a hard-boiled newspaper reporter and writes about it as a best-selling mystery novelist. How does he find his plot ideas? He advertises for adventure! Sound like a man you'd like to know? Drop him a note care of Box Thirteen.

A soft-spoken paragon of virtue on the range, Hopalong Cassidy brought law, order, and justice to the frontier. He was a model of integrity, courage, hard work, tolerance, patriotism, chivalry, and good-natured decency - and he attempted to instill these values in his young listeners - all while delivering action-packed entertainment. Cassidy, the creation of Clarence E. Mulford, who dreamed of the West he had never visited, was brought to life by former silent-movie matinee idol William Boyd.

The pen is mightier than the sword, but is it mightier than the .45? That's the dilemma faced by hard-nosed crime reporter Randy Stone each week in one of radio's most memorable newspaper dramas: Night Beat. While guns blaze and thugs prowl the back alleys of Stone's Chicago, the solving crimes is almost incidental to the unraveling of compelling human problems. Frank Lovejoy stars as the enterprising Chicago newspaperman, whose stories focus not on the essential corruption of humanity, but on its basic decency.

Racketeers beware! Ganglords watch out! That buzzing scourge of the underworld is on your case! Make way for The Green Hornet in twenty thrill-a-minute adventures from 1949—including many rare episodes! Jack McCarthy stars as Britt Reid—daring young publisher by day, masked avenger of crime by night! Leonore "Lee" Allman co-stars as Lenore "Casey" Case, with Gilbert Shea as Michael Axford, Michael Tolan as Kato, Jack Petruzzi as Ed Lowry, and Patricia Dunlap as "Clicker" Binney.

For gamblers, burlesque queens, murderers and innocents, comedy and tragedy were found in equal measure on the streets of Damon Runyon's Manhattan. Runyon, one of the most popular and widely-read figures of the Golden Age of the American Short Story, found his work was cut to measure for success in the most verbal medium of all: radio drama. John Brown stars as the glib Broadway, whose scene-setting brings a distinctive unifying touch to these fourteen digitally remastered episodes of the classic Damon Runyon Theatre radio series.