The Resurrection of the radio star

 

The Radio Years

CLICK IMAGE

Paul over at the CBS Radio Theatre website was so impressed by the Archive that he asked me to add a link. I was only too glad to do this -  I love old time radio and often have a show on in the background while browsing the web. I've placed a link in the sidebar of the Archive or you can click on the image here.

Enjoy.


In 1974 long-time radio producer Himan Brown convinced CBS to green-light a new anthology of Radio Dramas, CBS Radio Mystery Theater (CBSRMT). 

Radio Drama had been declared "dead" twelve years before.
CBS Radio Mystery Theater was meant to appeal to an audience that remembered when radio drama was a popular form of family entertainment. Riding on the wave of nostalgia fever, the radio show attracted many younger listeners who would stay up late, hidden under their covers to hear the program on their bedroom radio (and many of them were not able to go to sleep after listening to the frightening program!)
CBSRMT was able to attract a wide array of talent. Many of the voices that were popular during the Golden Age of Radio made appearances on CBS Radio Mystery Theater, and younger talent, often from CBS Daytime Television and NY area stage was used as well.

All 1,399 episodes of CBS Radio Mystery Theater are presented at CBSRMT.com with listings by actor and writer. Please feel free to browse all the old time radio shows and listen to and download your favorite radio show episodes in MP3 format.

Gunsmoke: The Radio Series

I guess some people are always going to look back - and I'm one of those people. Give me the hi-tech marvels of the world wide web and what do I do? I'm discovering entertainments that were popular before I was even born. I've always enjoyed radio , listening to comedies and plays on BBC Radio Four but thanks to the Internet I can explore shows from a time when radio was the main form of entertainment for millions and Television was a medium yet to take over.

Being a western fan it was natural for me to check out as many of the old radio western dramas as I could find, and believe me there are many, but out of them all Gunsmoke has become a firm favourite. I started off listening to shows on websites such as the excellent Old Time Radio Archive and from there started buying DVD's off ebay which contained MP3's of complete runs, where the episodes survive, of radio shows. The recordings are in the public domain and enterprising fans are able to make a little money by making their collections available to anyone interested.

Gunsmoke of course made the transistion to televsion and I was familiar with some of the TV episodes but the radio show was first, and also featured a different actor in the lead role of Matt Dillon. William (Canon) Conrad was Marshall Matt Dillon for the entire run of the radio series, 1952-1961 and there are some great episodes in existence just waiting to be discovered or rediscovered by western fans and radio drama enthusiasts. I've got 400 plus episodes on both my hard drive and iPod and I'm pretty much addicted.

Gunsmoke was originally pitched as being the first truly adult western and it certainly delivered on the promise - some of the episodes were solemn in tone, and Marshall Matt Dillon was played as a lonely man who believed in the law above all else, and showed great courage in standing up against everything thrown against him. John Dunning, the noted author and old time radio expert wrote,' "Gunsmoke is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind and any time.'

I have embedded an entire episode above,in which Marshall Dillion meets up with an old flame. I selected this episode because it  shows the loneliness of the US Marshall, effectively portrayed by William Conrad and a great supporting cast.


Other episodes can be found online at the various Old Time Radio websites across the web or do an eBay search on old time radio. I recently bought 430 episodes for £2 - now that's incredible value. And once you've tried Gunsmoke I've no doubt you'll want to explore other radio westerns available - Six Shooter for instance stars James Stewart, while other shows feature a list of Hollywood luminaries as long as your arm. There are all sorts of radio westerns available - from the pulpy adventure of The Long Ranger, to the historically accurate shows like Gunsmoke and Hawk Durango.

Check out this page HERE which features several episodes from a variety of shows.

The Radio Years

CLICK IMAGE

Paul over at the CBS Radio Theatre website was so impressed by the Archive that he asked me to add a link. I was only too glad to do this -  I love old time radio and often have a show on in the background while browsing the web. I've placed a link in the sidebar of the Archive or you can click on the image here.

Enjoy.


In 1974 long-time radio producer Himan Brown convinced CBS to green-light a new anthology of Radio Dramas, CBS Radio Mystery Theater (CBSRMT). Radio Drama had been declared "dead" twelve years before.
CBS Radio Mystery Theater was meant to appeal to an audience that remembered when radio drama was a popular form of family entertainment. Riding on the wave of nostalgia fever, the radio show attracted many younger listeners who would stay up late, hidden under their covers to hear the program on their bedroom radio (and many of them were not able to go to sleep after listening to the frightening program!)
CBSRMT was able to attract a wide array of talent. Many of the voices that were popular during the Golden Age of Radio made appearances on CBS Radio Mystery Theater, and younger talent, often from CBS Daytime Television and NY area stage was used as well.
All 1,399 episodes of CBS Radio Mystery Theater are presented at CBSRMT.com with listings by actor and writer. Please feel free to browse all the old time radio shows and listen to and download your favorite radio show episodes in MP3 format.

D-DAY: 24 HOURS

D-DAY, 6TH June 1944, the day when the Allied armies invaded the Normandy beaches.

We've all seen the movies and read the books, but what must it have been like to live through the day?

Well below, the embedded player contains the full day's radio broadcasts concerning the invasion. Note the confusion of the first reports - no one is sure if the landings are actually happening. But as the day went on listeners on the home front started to believe that the long awaited invasion of mainland Europe, designed to destroy the German war machine, had truly begun.

To anyone with even the vaguest interest in 20th-Century history these recordings are a truly an amazing archive. One hears in 'real time', moment by moment, the actual breaking news of the June 6 1944 D-Day landings--the beginning of the invasion of Europe by Allied Forces--just as CBS studios on the other side of the Atlantic received it. From rumor to the first (and accurate) reports by German (Nazi) wireless broadcasts, to shortwave radio news crossing the Atlantic, to the official Allied announcement of invasion, this cataclysmic and momentous event unfolds hour by hour with fission and thrill, and it is told to us by surprised and excited CBS announcers who were experiencing events firsthand.

RADIO SAINT - FULL EPISODE

The Saint started his radio career in 1940 with Terence De Marney in the role of Simon Templar, the Saint. Later both NBC and CBS produced Saint radio shows, these starred Edgar Barrier and Brian Aherne respectively. These were the days when radio was king, when entire families huddled around the radios, often huge monolithic looking sets, and listened to dramas, comedy, sci-fi, horror and even soap operas. Incredible to think in these digital times that the radio was once the chief provider of entertainment.

There is a full listing of all Saint radio adventures and a detailed essay on the radio exploits of Simon Templer at the saint.org but out of all the radio Saints, and there have been many, the most popular was Vincent Price - the actor, best known for his horror films and the spoken word section of Michael Jackson's Thriller was Simon Templar from 1947 - 1951. By this period television was starting to take over as the predominant form of entertainment but several more actors would play the Saint on radio - go to saint.org for that full listing.

Vincent Price played the Saint as a super cool lounge lizard - he would often wrap his lines around his tongue and release them in a cat-like purr. And the public took the character and Price to their hearts so much so that there was a demand for the actor to return to the role after he had initially quit. Price once said, that the main problem with such a long running series was thinking up new ways to get bashed over the head each week.

And now in full The Tainted Podcast present a full episode of The Saint starring Vincent Price. The podcast can be listened to via the embedded player here or it is available on Itunes and other podcast providers.

Enjoy The Previewed Murder:

Listen to this episode

Download this episode (right click and save)

DICK BARTON SPECIAL AGENT

Dick Barton was British radio's first ever super hero - the original idea came from Norman Collins, then head of light entertainment with the BBC, when in 1946 he sent a memo to all departments asking for ideas to develop a kind of daily cloak and dagger soap opera. The idea quickly progressed and soon a series called, Bill Barton was being worked on. However the name was later changed to Dick Barton.

The first series of ten episodes was began on 7 October 1946 and, typically of the BBC at the time, the episodes were wiped soon afterwards. However in 1972, as part of the BBC's Golden Jubilee Celebrations the original team returned to the studio and re-recorded the original run of ten episodes. Incredibly the BBC once again didn't archive the series and the current CD Audiobook of the show came from fan recorded tapes. The entire show is in the public domain and the first series of ten episodes can be listened to in the player above.

There is also a double CD available as part of the BBC Radio Crimes series of audio dramas. It's great to listen to now and some of the lines are humorous when listened to with modern ears.

'I like my women out of dangers way. At home in the kitchen.' Says Barton at one point.

In its heyday the show was attracting 15 million listeners daily and was spun off into books, movies, comics, a short lived TV series and even a stage play that toured to great acclaim. It was considered too thrilling for young children and the Times newspaper famously ran an headline that read, 'Dick Barton too exciting for girls? Headmistress says, yes"

It's great nostalgic listening and still thrilling when you get into the story. Expertly voice acted, brilliantly directed and with incredible sound quality - I listened to the CD version while on a long car journey and I enjoyed every minute of it. The Radio Crimes series of CD's are well worth buying - other shows are Farewell my Lovely, The Maltese Falcon, Monk's Hood, A series of murders and Father Paolo Baldi. But if you want some immediate thrilling adventures then who not listen to the entire ten episode run of Dick Barton Special Agent in the embedded player above.