The short intro: For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Old Time Radio is the phrase generally used to refer to the time when radio was (mostly) live, and was full of a variety of different shows, as opposed to simply being a means for record labels to use robots to promote the top records of the day. Old Time Radio Thursdays is my chance to explore some of those old radio shows, their connections (both old and new) to movies, and hopefully to encourage some of the rest of you to take a look at a probably unfamiliar source of entertainment that I truly love. If you want more info on OTR, and some examples of the variety of shows that were made, be sure to check out this introductory post.
There are certain voices that stand out pretty much no matter what the context. One of those voices belonged to today’s spotlight star, Boris Karloff. No matter what role he was playing, from urbane gentleman to mad scientist to his most famous role as The creation of Victor Frankenstein, Mr Karloff’s voice always stood out.
Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t quite as identifiable when he was playing Frankenstein’s monster, but in all fairness, he really didn’t get a whole lot of lines to work with there, either.
Nonetheless, it was this voice that made him a welcome presence not only in movie theaters, but in many diverse roles throughout the Golden Age of Radio. Therefor, I thought that today, instead of focusing on a particular show, we’d turn the spotlight on Mr. Karloff and sample a number of his roles in a variety of shows over the years. So just sit back and enjoy this visit with the always wonderful Mr. Boris Karloff.
The short intro: For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Old Time Radio is the phrase generally used to refer to the time when radio was (mostly) live, and was full of a variety of different shows, as opposed to simply being a means for record labels to use robots to promote the top records of the day. Old Time Radio Thursdays is my chance to explore some of those old radio shows, their connections (both old and new) to movies, and hopefully to encourage some of the rest of you to take a look at a probably unfamiliar source of entertainment that I truly love. If you want more info on OTR, and some examples of the variety of shows that were made, be sure to check out this introductory post.
Escape!
In some ways, the title itself evokes the very reason for being of Old Time Radio. Along with, of course, movies, television, books, stage plays, and whatever other forms of entertainment you might enjoy. Sure, these forms can be used for other purposes, especially education (though often even there, the two purposes often intermingle and entwine), but quite often, they are purely meant to provide us with a chance to get away, to live outside of ourselves for awhile, to enter someone else’s life or to travel to some exotic setting and leave behind our own troubles if only for a little while.
Or, as one version of the popular opening script to the radio show Escape put it:
Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you … ESCAPE!
I’ve referred to Escape here before as a “sister show” to the series Suspense, but in doing so, I don’t mean to denigrate either show. Actually, I consider them to be on a fairly equal footing, with Escape at times even moving forward in my estimation, purely based on its willingness to include more science-fiction and other fantastical elements than Suspense.
Okay, so let’s shelve the comparisons for a moment and take a look at the show itself, shall we?
Escape was created as a sustaining show on the CBS Radio Network, and had its first official broadcast on July 7, 1947, with an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King”. Over the course of the next seven years, it would present a total of approximately 250 shows, most of which are still in circulation today. (Exact figures appear to be a matter of some debate, depending at least partially on how one counts the various rebroadcasts and east-west variants.) The final show was titled “The Heart of Kali”, written by Ross Murray, and broadcast on September 29, 1954.
The show was originally broadcast as a summer replacement for the second half-hour of the time slot then occupied by the Lux Radio Theatre on Monday nights. (The first half hour of the hour-long Lux slot was filled by a show titled CBS Is There.) Though Escape seemed to immediately grab hold of the listeners ears and imaginations, it never did really enjoy the comfort of having a regular, long-time sponsor, and for the largest part of its run, it continued on a sustaining basis. Unfortunately for listeners this meant that it also never really enjoyed the kind of long-running time-slot that many other shows had, and, in a kind of circular catch-22, that also meant that it was continually under budget constraints that were not as much of a concern for those shows that did have bigger budgets thanks to their sponsors.
This did, however, in a way prove to be a “less is more” type situation which forced the show to rely on adaptations of popular novels and short stories, and many of those proved to be true classics, As a matter of fact, I’d personally contend that some of these shows are amongst the best that were ever produced during radio’s golden age. Highlights include the William Conrad starring adaptation of Carl Stephenson’s “Leiningen vs. the Ants”, Vincent Price‘s incredibly stirring turn in “Three Skeleton Key”(which was taken from a short story that originally appeared in Esquire magazine by George Toudouze, and John Dunkel’s adaptation of John Collier’s story “Evening Primrose,”Other noteworthy adaptations include Algernon Blackwood’s “Confession”, Ray Bradbury’s “Mars Is Heaven,” George R. Stewart’s “Earth Abides”, Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” among many, many others.
Nor was the show lacking for star power, as, alongside the already mentioned voices of William Conrad (who not only starred in a large number of the shows, but also, for awhile at least provided the “voice of the show”, intoning the opening lines and introduction) and Vincent Price, but also such luminaries as Parley Baer, Harry Bartell, John Dehner, Howard McNear, Dan O’Herlihy, Jeanette Nolan, Alan Reed, Bill Johnstone, Sandra Gould, Marvin Miller, Frank Lovejoy, Berry Kroeger, Vic Perrin, Elliott Lewis, and Jack Webb.
Here, of course, is where I would usually leave you with some YouTube samples of the show, but to be honest, there unfortunately aren’t that many posted, and rather than simply repeat the selections from my last post, instead I’m going to direct you to this page at the Internet Archives where you can download a complete collection of the Escape shows known to still exist, along with some other ephemeral material to accompany them.
The short intro: For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Old Time Radio is the phrase generally used to refer to the time when radio was (mostly) live, and was full of a variety of different shows, as opposed to simply being a means for record labels to use robots to promote the top records of the day. Old Time Radio Thursdays is my chance to explore some of those old radio shows, their connections (both old and new) to movies, and hopefully to encourage some of the rest of you to take a look at a probably unfamiliar source of entertainment that I truly love. If you want more info on OTR, and some examples of the variety of shows that were made, be sure to check out this introductory post.
Last week in writing about the long-running CBS series Suspense, I mentioned that in its later years the show often reused scripts from its “sister show”, Escape, so it only seems appropriate to follow that post with a couple devoted to that show. So, much like I did with Suspense, this first post will simply be a sampler of some of the shows from the series, and I’ll be back next week with more info and more shows.
So, if you’re “Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you… Escape!”
The short intro: For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Old Time Radio is the phrase generally used to refer to the time when radio was (mostly) live, and was full of a variety of different shows, as opposed to simply being a means for record labels to use robots to promote the top records of the day. Old Time Radio Thursdays is my chance to explore some of those old radio shows, their connections (both old and new) to movies, and hopefully to encourage some of the rest of you to take a look at a probably unfamiliar source of entertainment that I truly love. If you want more info on OTR, and some examples of the variety of shows that were made, be sure to check out this introductory post.
Yeah, this is the logo from the opening of the TV show, but it was the best image I could find.
Yes, it’s true. US television’s longest running prime time live action drama actually began as a radio show.
Actually, the story behind the creation of Gunsmoke is rather fascinating. Here’s Wikipedia’s version which squares pretty well with the way I’ve heard it told over the years:
In the late 1940s, CBS chairman William S. Paley, a fan of the Philip Marlowe radio serial, asked his programming chief, Hubell Robinson, to develop a hardboiled Western series, a show about a “Philip Marlowe of the Old West.” Robinson instructed his West Coast CBS Vice-President, Harry Ackerman, who had developed the Philip Marlowe series, to take on the task.
The cast of radio’s Gunsmoke: Howard McNear (Doc), William Conrad (Matt), Georgia Ellis (Kitty) and Parley Baer (Chester)
Ackerman and his scriptwriters, Mort Fine and David Friedkin, created an audition script called “Mark Dillon Goes to Gouge Eye” based on one of their Michael Shayne radio scripts, “The Crooked Wheel”. Two auditions were created in 1949. The first was very much like a hardboiled detective series and starred Michael Rye (credited as Rye Billsbury) as Dillon; the second starred Straight Arrow actor Howard Culver in a more Western, lighter version of the same script. CBS liked the Culver version better, and Ackerman was told to proceed.
But there was a complication. Culver’s contract as the star of Straight Arrow would not allow him to do another Western series. The project was shelved for three years, when MacDonnell and Meston discovered it creating an adult Western series of their own.
MacDonnell and Meston wanted to create a radio Western for adults, in contrast to the prevailing juvenile fare such as The Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid.
Marshall Dillon? No, but it is William Conrad in a promotional photo for a later western show that he starred in.
From these converging ideas was born Gunsmoke which was set in Dodge City, Kansas during the thriving cattle days of the 1870s. As far as the goal of creating a more “adult” western, the creators definitely succeeded in that, as the show’s characters, themes, and episodes rarely flinched at presenting a much more realistic portrait of life in the “wild west”. This was not a show where Sheriff Dillon would always shoot the gun from the bad guy’s hand then cart them off to the pokey, nor did he always necessarily escape from certain situations unscathed. There was a reason why one of the main characters and one of Matt’s best friends was the town doctor.
Of course, for anyone who grew up with or who knows Gunsmoke only from it’s TV version, squaring William Conrad’s voice with the image of James Arness may take some work, but really this is one of those cases where you have to set aside your preconceived notions and listen to the shows as they unfold. Or perhaps consider this an “alternate universe” version of the show. You know, it’s kind of like when a book is adapted for television or the movies. Just let it be what it is on its own terms.
For those interested in learning more about or hearing more of radio’s version of Gunsmoke, I’d suggest downloading this OTRR (Old Time Radio Researchers group) certified set of shows from the Internet Archives. The set contains all except six episodes, which are not known to exist. It consists of eleven zipped CDs. The first CD contains many bonus materials, including the Tribute Show, the first TV episode, all known Australian episodes, and a lot of other great stuff.
The short intro: For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Old Time Radio is the phrase generally used to refer to the time when radio was (mostly) live, and was full of a variety of different shows, as opposed to simply being a means for record labels to use robots to promote the top records of the day. Old Time Radio Thursdays is my chance to explore some of those old radio shows, their connections (both old and new) to movies, and hopefully to encourage some of the rest of you to take a look at a probably unfamiliar source of entertainment that I truly love. If you want more info on OTR, and some examples of the variety of shows that were made, be sure to check out this introductory post.
So for the past three weeks I’ve taken a look at the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. (You can find those posts here, here, and here.) During the course of those articles I noted that series creator/director Himan Brown was also the creator of the classic radio series Inner Sanctum Mysteries (or, as it is more widely and popularly known, simply Inner Sanctum), so I thought that today we’d spend a little more time with that series.
As noted, Inner Sanctum was created in 1941 by Himan Brown. The series ran for a total of 526 episodes, closing the creaking door for the last time on October 5, 1952.
The series was an anthology, each week presenting a tale of mystery, horror, or suspense, all of which were presented by a mysterious host with a very wry sense of humor. Early on, the host was played by Raymond Edward Johnson who on the show simply went by the name “Raymond”. In 1945, Johnson left the show to join the army, and was replaced by Paul McGrath, who most of the time simply referred to himself as “Your Host”.
The show’s most iconic feature, however, was its start and finish, which were signaled each week by the opening and closing of a very, very badly creaking door, which had the effect upon listeners of making them feel as though they were entering and leaving a very private place, perhaps a room in a haunted house or even a dungeon. Or perhaps, yes, a sanctum where the only occupants were their host, and their imaginations.
The title Inner Sanctum was actually created and owned by book publisher Simon and Schuster which used it as an over-arching title for a series of mystery novels.
Of course, like many of the anthology series of the time, the show often featured Hollywood stars of the time as guest stars, as seen in the above ad. There is, however another Hollywood connection with the series. From 1943 to 1945, Universal licensed the Inner Sanctum title from Simon and Schuster to produce a series of six movies, all of which were presented under the Inner Sanctum Mystery banner, and all of which starred Lon Chaney Jr. Oddly, however, these films did not utilize the iconic creaking door imagery, and though they did have a host to introduce them, he was represented by a head speaking from a crystal ball.
There was also an Inner Sanctum television series which ran for only one season in 1954 and did feature Paul McGrath as the host.
Okay, that’s enough background/introduction, I think. Let’s get to the real reason we’re all here and see exactly what’s lurking behind that creaking door as we listen to a few episodes of one of the all-time great shows from the golden age of radio.
For more information on Inner Sanctum, I’ll refer you to Jerry Haendiges’ log of all known episodes of the show and to the list of episodes still known to exist as compiled by OTR researcher and author Martin Grams Jr. Also, a complete set of the available episodes, as certified by the Old Time Radio Researchers Group can be downloaded from the Internet Archives here.
The short intro: For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Old Time Radio is the phrase generally used to refer to the time when radio was (mostly) live, and was full of a variety of different shows, as opposed to simply being a means for record labels to use robots to promote the top records of the day. Old Time Radio Thursdays is my chance to explore some of those old radio shows, their connections (both old and new) to movies, and hopefully to encourage some of the rest of you to take a look at a probably unfamiliar source of entertainment that I truly love. If you want more info on OTR, and some examples of the variety of shows that were made, be sure to check out this introductory post.
So for the past couple of weeks we’ve been taking a look at the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. (You can find part one here and part two here.)
One aspect I wanted to spend a little more time is the person behind the show, Mr. Himan Brown.
Mr. Brown was born in 1910, and during his 65 active years on the radio he purportedly produced over 30,000 radio shows. Of course, that number includes almost 1400 original episodes of the CBSRMT. Obviously, however, his involvement with radio went far beyond that.
One of the first things listeners to CBSRMT notice is the creaking door which opens and closes the show. (Just as a side note, I’ve always personally thought the closing door especially sounds just like a person moaning, and the voice is shut off by the clack-clack of the lock.) That creaking door motif was actually something that Mr. Brown originated with another of his series, Inner Sanctum Mystery.
Inner Sanctum ran for 562 episodes from 1941 to 1952, and is really the show that Mystery Theater was based on. The two biggest differences between the two being that Inner Sanctum’s episodes were only 30 minutes long, and instead of E.G. Marshall as host, IS at first featured Raymond Johnson who identified himself as “Your host, Raymond”, and later by Paul McGrath who simply identified himself as “Your Host”.
Here’s an episode of Inner Sanctum:
Other radio shows produced, created and/or directed by Himan Brown include The Adventures of the Thin Man, Bulldog Drummond, City Desk, Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, The General Mills Radio Adventure Theater, Grand Central Station, Green Valley, USA, The Gumps, Joyce Jordan, M.D., Marie, the Little French Princess, The NBC Radio Theater, The Private Files of Rex Saunders and, Terry and the Pirates along with a number of daytime soap operas.
Another aspect of the show that I wanted to touch om very quickly is the music that is heard extensively throughout the episodes. If it seems familiar, there’s a reason for that. Instead of having an in-house band or musician as was often the case during the golden age of radio (when it made sense to have such musicians because they could be used for a variety of different shows throughout the day), Mr. Brown chose to use stock cuts from the CBS library. This goes for most of the sound effects, too, which were often pre-recorded. Even the theme music was taken from another CBS show – it is adapted from the soundtrack of the Twilight Zone episode “Two”.
Himan Brown directs an episode of CBSRMT
In the first part of this series I wrote about host E.G. Marshall and his relationship with the show and Hollywood, but he was far from the only past or future star who would be featured or make an appearance on the show. As a matter of fact, the first episode starred Agnes Moorehead in a story called “The Old Ones Are Hard To Kill”. As far as other movie/television connections, well, just take a look at this list of people who made appearances in various episodes: Richard Crenna, Joan Hackett, Margaret Hamilton, Casey Kasem, Jerry Orbach, Sarah Jessica Parker, Mandy Patinkin, Kathleen Quinlan, Jerry Stiller, Roy Thinnes, John Lithgow, Mason Adams, Kevin McCarthy, Howard Da Silva, Keir Dullea, Morgan Fairchild, Fred Gwynne, Larry Haines, Kim Hunter, Mercedes McCambridge, Tony Roberts, Alexander Scourby, and Marian Seldes among many, many others.
One final note, which is actually a bit of trivia for my younger readers out there. if you listen to a number of these shows you’ll note that they have the original commercials and news broadcasts that would round out the hour cut out from them, and often they are slightly edited or the opening/ending title music cut short so that they will fit into a 45 minute time. Why 45 minutes? Because, since these shows have never had any kind of official release, for the most part these episodes come to us from off-the-air recordings made by fans of the show at the time, and those recordings were often made on home cassette players, and at the time, those cassettes typically came in three standard lengths: 30, 60, or 90 minutes. Now, of course, many fans would use 60 minute cassettes, and those are the source for the more intact shows, but as a cost cutting measure, a lot of people would use 90 minute tapes, manually starting and stopping the recordings as the show would go to and come back from their commercial breaks. That way they could get two shows on one tape. And, of course, doing the math shows that 90 minutes divided by two results in 45 minutes per side. Of course, whatever format they used for recording these shows, we definitely owe a debt of gratitude to these original home-tapers for preserving and passing along this great show for us to enjoy today.
Okay, that’s definitely enough words from me on the subject, so here’s another selection of episodes for you to listen to and enjoy, beginning with the afore-mentioned first episode “The Old Ones Are Hard to Kill”.
Again,for more information on CBSRMT as it’s popularly known, including a complete episode guide to the series along with streaming episodes and downloads, one good place to begin is here. And be sure to let me know below about your own thoughts on the show, and other shows you’d like to see featured here.
The short intro: For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Old Time Radio is the phrase generally used to refer to the time when radio was (mostly) live, and was full of a variety of different shows, as opposed to simply being a means for record labels to use robots to promote the top records of the day. Old Time Radio Thursdays is my chance to explore some of those old radio shows, their connections (both old and new) to movies, and hopefully to encourage some of the rest of you to take a look at a probably unfamiliar source of entertainment that I truly love. If you want more info on OTR, and some examples of the variety of shows that were made, be sure to check out this introductory post.
Now you might think that a radio show with a name like Academy Award (also known as Academy Award Theater) would, like last week’s entry, Lux Radio Theatre, be presenting adaptations of films, but this time they would all be, in some way, Oscar winners. And you would be forgiven for that. However, you would also be wrong.
Instead, the show’s logline actually was to present “Hollywood’s finest, the great picture plays, the great actors and actresses, techniques and skills, chosen from the honor roll of those who have won or been nominated for the famous golden Oscar of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.” Thus, as long as they could get someone who had at least been nominated for an Academy Award involved, they could present pretty much any show they wanted to.
Also, in contrast to Lux, most of the adaptations presented lasted only 30 minutes instead of an hour, though the first show, adapting the movie Jezebel and starring Bette Davis, did run for an hour. The compressed time period does tend to give the dramas presented a bit of a compressed feeling, though they were generally well done.
One other factor that was not in the show’s favor was the cost. Along with having to pay the stars $3000 to appear, they had to pay the Academy a $1600 fee to use the name. All of these factors quickly added up to the show’s sponsor, pharmaceutical maker Sqibb to decide that it simply wasn’t cost-effective, and the show wound up lasting only 39 episodes.
Fortunately, all of those shows still exist, and are available for listening to at various sites around the web. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be many that have been uploaded to YouTube so that I can embed them here, but I do have a couple, including that initial presentation of Jezebel.
So there you go, another trip back in time and another look at the intersection between Hollywood and the golden age of radio. Next week, one of Hollywood’s greats takes us on a tour of a very dark place.
The short intro: For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Old Time Radio is the phrase generally used to refer to the time when radio was (mostly) live, and was full of a variety of different shows, as opposed to simply being a means for record labels to use robots to promote the top records of the day. Old Time Radio Thursdays is my chance to explore some of those old radio shows, their connections (both old and new) to movies, and hopefully to encourage some of the rest of you to take a look at a probably unfamiliar source of entertainment that I truly love. If you want more info on OTR, and some examples of the variety of shows that were made, be sure to check out this introductory post.
The soap brand Lux is probably unfamiliar to most American consumers today. Instead, they are likely more familiar with manufacturer Unilever’s other product, Dove. This was not always the case, however, as it was not only once one of the top-selling American brands, but also the sponsor of one of the longest-running and most popular shows on the radio.
Lux Radio Theatre actually began its life in New York in 1934. At that time it broadcast hour-long adaptations of popular Broadway plays. The way the show was set up was to begin with an introduction and interview with the show’s stars conducted by the “producer”, a fictional character known as Douglass Garrick. Garrick was initially portrayed by John Anthony, before the role was taken over in 1935 by Albert Hayes who stayed in the role until the middle of 1936.
On June 1, 1936, the show took a very dramatic turn. At that point, it moved from its New York base to Los Angeles, and began adapting movies instead of plays. Also, the role of the producer changed, and instead of being the fictional Garrick, it was taken over by real-life producer and director Cecil B. DeMille.
DeMille would remain in that role until 1945 when he, and the rest of radio, were rocked by a clash with the American Federation of Radio Artists over closed-shop union rules. After that, the show had a number of different hosts, but none of them were as well-known, nor as popular, as DeMille.
The show was, as is evident from its longevity, extremely popular, as it was a great chance not only for Hollywood to promote very popular pictures, but for audiences to feel as though the stars were actually there in their homes and performing just for them. The format of the show also provided a way for the stars to connect with their audience and to promote not only the film they were there to perform that night, but whatever upcoming projects they might have.
As far as the adaptations themselves, they were generally very well done, and the hour-long format provided just enough time to give the radio audience a good taste for the film without making them feel as though they had already seen it if they eventually did catch it in their local theater.
A total of 926 shows were produced during the show’s nearly 20 year run, and a list of all of the plays and movies adapted can be found here. Most of the shows have survived, and can be found in various formats at different sites that focus on old time radio. Fortunately, quite a few of them have also been uploaded to YouTube. I’m only going to give you a small sampling today, but trust me when I say there are many, many more to be found.
Of course, since the heyday of both radio and Hollywood overlapped so much, Lux was not the only show providing adaptations of popular films, and next week we’ll take a look at another, quite similar show with a more Award winning focus.
The short intro: For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Old Time Radio is the phrase generally used to refer to the time when radio was (mostly) live, and was full of a variety of different shows, as opposed to simply being a means for record labels to use robots to promote the top records of the day. Old Time Radio Thursdays is my chance to explore some of those old radio shows, their connections (both old and new) to movies, and hopefully to encourage some of the rest of you to take a look at a probably unfamiliar source of entertainment that I truly love. If you want more info on OTR, and some examples of the variety of shows that were made, be sure to check out this introductory post.
Those who have been following this blog for any length of time will know that I have a special affinity for Mr. Vincent Price. Known today mostly as a horror film icon, Mr. Price was every bit a renaissance man who was involved in an incredible number of ventures, both on- and off- screen. One of his lesser-known ventures, I feel sure is his charming portrayal of Leslie Charteris‘s character Simon Templar, also known as “The Saint”, who Price portrayed on a weekly radio show for four years, from 1947 to 1951.
The Saint, as noted, was the creation of pulp novelist Leslie Charteris who wrote a long-running series of books starring the character beginning in 1928. The lead character in the stories, Simon Templar, is described in the opening of the radio show – and elsewhere – as “The Robin Hood of Modern Crime” as he was basically a thief who would target other crooks, evil politicians, gangsters, and other “ungodly” characters, bringing them down or retrieving stolen goods, then, after extracting a ten percent “tithe” (after all, a man like Templar did have a certain lifestyle to uphold) either returning what he got to its rightful owner, contributing it to a worthy charity, or splitting it among those who worked for him.
As far as Templar’s nickname goes, whenever he would finish a caper, he would leave a calling card or other drawing, depicting a stick figure with a halo above its head, as seen in the drawing at the right. This, combined with the character’s initials (S.T. = St = saint), led to him being known as “The Saint”.
The character had many incarnations over the years, expanding from the pulp stories to comics, films, television shows, and, of course, the radio. There were actually a number of different radio incarnations of The Saint, the first actually appearing on Ireland’s Radio Eireann division Radio Athlone in 1940. In America, the character first appeared, interestingly, on two different networks in 1945. On the NBC network, the character was portrayed by Edgar Barrier, while Brian Aherne filled the role for CBS.
The longest running radio incarnation of the character on the radio, however, was the portrayal by – yep, you guessed it -Vincent Price. As noted above, this particular series ran for five years, and was actually, over the course of those years, carried at various times over three different networks as it moved from NBC to Mutual to CBS.
As always, Price brought his unmistakable voice, charm, and charisma to the show, and no matter how lacking the plots and writing might be at times (let’s face it, in a weekly show that lasted that long, there are going to be some clunkers), he always elevated the material simply by his presence.
After Mr. Price left the show, it did carry on for awhile, with Tom Conway in the lead, but that version only lasted a few months.
There were, as noted, other radio incarnations of the character, and he was also brought to life on television in various series, most famously, of course, in the long-running series which starred Roger Moore (yes, the same Roger Moore who would go on to portray James Bond). As recently as 1997, Val Kilmer starred in a film take on the character, however, that may be a case of the less said about it, the better.
Anyway, for now, once again I invite you to sit back and travel back with me to a time when radio was the king, and enjoy listening to the adventures of The Saint.
The short intro: For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, Old Time Radio is the phrase generally used to refer to the time when radio was (mostly) live, and was full of a variety of different shows, as opposed to simply being a means for record labels to use robots to promote the top records of the day. Old Time Radio Thursdays is my chance to explore some of those old radio shows, their connections (both old and new) to movies, and hopefully to encourage some of the rest of you to take a look at a probably unfamiliar source of entertainment that I truly love. If you want more info on OTR, and some examples of the variety of shows that were made, be sure to check out this introductory post.
Bold Venture! Adventure! Intrigue! Mystery! Romance! Starring Humphrey Bogart! And Lauren Bacall! Together in the sultry setting of tropical Havana and the mysterious islands of the Caribbean. Bold Venture! Once again, the magic names of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall bring you Bold Venture and a tale of mystery and intrigue…
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall together on the radio? In a weekly dramatic adventure show? Set in the Caribbean? Yep, that’s exactly what Bold Venture promised, and that’s exactly what it delivered.
1951 had to have been a busy year for one of Hollywood’s most popular couples. Bacall was pregnant with the couple’s second child, and they would soon be off to “deepest darkest Africa” where Bogie would be filming his Academy Award winning turn as Charlie Allnut in The African Queen. Nonetheless, the couple managed to record 30 episodes of the radio show before their departure, and supposedly another 48 upon their return.
Bold Venture is the story of Slate Shannon (Bogart), who runs a hotel and fishing boat rental service in Havana and his “ward”/sidekick/possible love interest Gail “Sailor” Duval (Bacall) as they scrape and scrap their way through stories involving everything from spies to lost love. The setting obviously was designed explicitly for the couple, as “Shannon’s Place” might just as well be “Rick’s Cafe” from Casablanca, and the fishing boat set-up is obviously a combination of To Have and Have Not and Key Largo.
In reality, however, the show probably could have been set almost anywhere, because the real draw for listeners, and the real appeal, is obviously the interaction between the two stars, and in that aspect the show definitely doesn’t disappoint. The natural chemistry between the two shines through, even when the scripts are on the weak side or when the plot becomes somewhat muddled. This is definitely a show where the leads were able to bring even a mediocre script – and there were, unfortunately, more than one of those, though when the writing shines, it really does shine – to a much higher level. Which is exactly what one would expect from stars of this calibre and level of intimacy.
Speaking of stars, special note also has to go out to supporting actor Jester Hairston who played “King” Moses on the show. If Bogart was reprising Rick Blaine, then King was his Sam, and one of the more intriguing aspects of the show was that after the first commercial break, King would provide the listener with an up-to-this-point plot summary in the form of a calypso verse, which was an interesting way to play up the Cuban setting even when the script really didn’t otherwise call for or allow much reference to the island nation.
One thing that you may have noticed earlier when I noted the number of episodes recorded before and after the shooting of The African Queen is that I said “supposedly another 48 upon their return”. Bold Venture is what was known as a syndicated series, meaning that rather than going out live, the episodes would be recorded before hand and then sent out (usually on lacquer disks) to the local stations who would then slot them into their schedules with local sponsors buying individual spots. Unfortunately, this has led to some confusion over just how many episodes were actually produced, the sequence they were aired in, the dates they would have originally aired, and even the titles given to the episodes. This is unfortunately the case with many radio shows of the period, especially since the disks themselves were often supposed to be destroyed after their broadcast – remember, this was a time when there was no secondary market for these programs, and there was no value seen in the shows beyond their initial broadcast.
This has led to the unfortunate situation where many of these early radio shows are simply lost to our generation, and many of the ones that do survive exist only in the form of recordings made of the actual on-air broadcasts by enthusiasts who would set up tape machines to capture their favorite shows. Also it means that those trying to research these shows often have to piece together snippets of information or advertisements from various newspapers or magazines in order to try to make some sense of exactly which shows do still exist and other information about them.
In the specific case of Bold Venture, the syndicator’s records indicate that a total of 78 shows were recorded, but of those only 57 have been verified to still exist and are “in circulation” – meaning they are available to collectors and/or listeners. There may very well be more recordings out there, but if so, they are either in the hands of private collectors or may even simply be sitting on a shelf without the owner even realizing the treasure they have.
This is, of course, yet another thing that these old radio shows have in common with early films and television shows.
Anyway, we fortunately do have those 57 shows available to listen to, and the full collection of them can be found here.
And now, once again, I invite you to sit back, close your eyes, and let the magic of Bogart, Bacall, and Old Time Radio take you on your own Bold Venture.
As always, I hope you’ve enjoyed this little trip into radio’s past, and today’s focus on Bold Venture. Next week? Well, next week we’ll take a look at one of Hollywood’s most notable horror icons as he steps into a much more… “saintly” role.
This did, however, in a way prove to be a “less is more” type situation which forced the show to rely on adaptations of popular novels and short stories, and many of those proved to be true classics, As a matter of fact, I’d personally contend that some of these shows are amongst the best that were ever produced during radio’s golden age. Highlights include the William Conrad starring adaptation of Carl Stephenson’s “Leiningen vs. the Ants”, 
The title Inner Sanctum was actually created and owned by book publisher Simon and Schuster which used it as an over-arching title for a series of mystery novels.
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