Showing results by author "Hollywood 360" in All Categories

Taking its name from a popular series of mystery novels, Inner Sanctum Mysteries debuted over NBC's Blue Network in January 1941. It featured one of the most memorable and atmospheric openings in radio history: an organist hit a dissonant chord, a doorknob turned, and the famous "creaking door" slowly began to open. Every week Inner Sanctum Mysteries told stories of ghosts, murderers, and lunatics.

It's 1875, and Paladin lives at the swanky Carlton Hotel in San Francisco, where he dresses in formal wear, eats gourmet food, attends the opera, has a Chinese valet named Hey Boy, and enjoys the company of beautiful women. When working as a gun for hire, he dresses entirely in black, uses calling cards, and wears a holster decorated with a chess knight emblem—a symbol that refers both to his name and to his occupation as a champion for hire.

Set in Los Angeles and starring Jack Webb as the stoic Sergeant Joe Friday, Dragnet is perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural drama of all time, having made extensive runs on both radio and television. Webb, also the producer of the show, took the series to new highs, insisting on realism in every facet of the program. The dialogue was clipped and sparse, taking its cue from hard-boiled crime fiction à la Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

Here are 12 of the greatest American comedy shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio. You'll hear Ozzie and Harriet Nelson in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

Hosted by Cecil B. DeMille and starring numerous icons of the screen, this collection of old-time radio classics includes six episodes of The Lux Radio Theatre - one of the longest running, most extravagant shows from radio's golden age. The show featured the greatest stars in Hollywood appearing in hour-long radio adaptations of their biggest motion pictures, making this lavish production a veritable checklist of many of Hollywood's best films from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s.

Every week, Inner Sanctum Mysteries told a story of ghosts, murderers, and lunatics. Taking its name from a popular series of mystery novels, Inner Sanctum Mysteries debuted over NBC radio's Blue Network in January 1941 and featured one of the most memorable and atmospheric openings in radio history, as an organist hit a dissonant chord, a doorknob turned, and a creaking door slowly began to open.

Michael Shayne, "the reckless, redheaded Irishman", was a popular hard-boiled detective created by crime novelist Brett Halliday. In the novels, Michael Shayne settled in Miami just after WWII, making crime pay by fighting it with a license and an attitude. Like Mike Hammer and Philip Marlowe, Shayne was a loner. The backstory on Mike is that he was happily married, but it hit him hard when his wife was tragically murdered. Grief stricken, Shayne loses himself in his work as a private eye, prowling the dark streets of the city.

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll made their radio debut on January 12, 1926, as the comedic blackface characters Sam 'n' Henry. On March 19, 1928, they introduced Amos 'n' Andy, which went on to become one of the most popular and longest-running programs in radio history. During the height of its popularity, almost the entire country tuned in to their adventures.

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll made their radio debut January 12, 1926, as the comedic, blackface characters Sam 'n' Henry. On March 19, 1928, they introduced Amos 'n' Andy, which went on to become one of the most popular and longest-running programs in radio history. During the height of the show's popularity, almost the entire country listened to the 15-minute adventures of Amos and Andy that aired Monday through Friday.

Made as a prequel to the hit film The Third Man, this radio show was created to follow the adventures of the popular character Harry Lime, played here and in the movie by Orson Welles. The 1949 film The Third Man won an Academy Award and was an international success, called "magic" by Roger Ebert and "one of the finest films ever made" by The New York Times.

Here are 12 episodes of the horror and mystery series written and produced by radio announcers beginning in 1946. There were several series under the Hall of Fantasy banner, all produced by Richard Thorne. The first originated from radio station KALL in Salt Lake City. Richard Thorne and Carl Greyson were announcers for the station and coproduced the bare-bones horror series beginning in 1946. Written or adapted by Robert Olson and directed by Thorne, the stories were mostly murder mysteries with traditional endings.

Many of these episodes, which included both original stories and adaptations, centered on a protagonist facing a life-or-death situation. Numerous actors made appearances on the show, including Elvia Allman, Eleanor Audley, Parley Baer, Harry Bartell, William Conrad, Ted de Corsia, John Dehner, Sam Edwards, Virginia Gregg, Lou Merrill, Howard McNear, Jeanette Nolan, Alan Reed, Bill Johnstone, Marvin Miller, Frank Lovejoy, Berry Kroeger, Vic Perrin, Elliott Lewis, Jack Webb, Peggy Webber, and Will Wright.

The Black Museum was a weekly radio crime drama produced for the BBC in 1951 and based on real-life cases from the files of Scotland Yard. Orson Welles, who was living in London at the time, was both host and narrator for these dramatized stories based on Scotland Yard's Black Museum, which housed its collection of murder weapons and various ordinary objects once associated with historical crime cases.

This collection contains 12 of the greatest Christmas radio shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio!

In the March 1934 issue of the legendary pulp magazine Black Mask, Jack "Flashgun" Casey, crime photographer, made his debut. His creator was former newspaper and advertising executive George Harmon Coxe Jr., who wrote more than 60 crime fiction novels in his lifetime. Casey's keen eye for detail served him well on the job, helping him to solve the crimes he was assigned to photograph for the newspapers.

Radio westerns were strictly for kids until 1952, when Gunsmoke hit the radio airwaves. The stories were grim, the deaths brutal, and life on the plains was harsh. Radio audiences had never heard anything like Gunsmoke, and they made it the number one western on the radio.

Conceived as a potential radio vehicle for Alfred Hitchcock to direct, Suspense was a radio series of epic proportion. It aired on CBS from 1942 to 1962 and is considered by many to be the best mystery drama series of the golden age. Often referred to as "Radio's Outstanding Theater of Thrills", it focused on suspenseful thrillers starring the biggest names in Hollywood.

Created by Blake Edwards of The Pink Panther fame, Richard Diamond, Private Detective came to NBC radio in 1949 starring film actor and singer Dick Powell. Powell had recently played Philip Marlowe in the popular RKO film Murder, My Sweet and jumped at the chance to play a suave detective on radio.

Candy Matson was a response to all the hard-boiled detectives on the radio, like Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and Pat Novak, and all those other detectives who were beaten up on a regular basis. Candy, played by Natalie Park, was hard-boiled in her own way. She never compromised her femininity, but she did know how to use a gun and didn't hesitate to use it when it was necessary. She didn't take any guff from the guys - the good guys or the bad guys. With a snappy comeback, she could take anybody's head off.

Although "Ol' Blue Eyes" would conquer records, film, and television, it was radio that first made Frank Sinatra a star. Spanning the years 1943 to 1954, this collection showcases Sinatra from such shows as Suspense, The Frank Sinatra Show, The Jack Benny Program, The Burns and Allen Show, and more. Included is the final episode of Sinatra's action/detective series, Rocky Fortune, a low-budget radio series that he decided not to continue after winning his Academy Award.