CBC Nightfall:

“The Monkeys Paw”

(7-11-80).

***

Suspense:

”The Body Snatchers”

(11/24/42).

***

The Columbia Workshop:

“The Fall of the City”

(1937).

***

The Mysterious Traveler:

“The Accusing Corpse””

().


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In segment one is the often produced short story “The Monkey’s Paw”. This time it is from the Canadian Broadcasting Company Via the Program Nightfall. it aired on July the 11th of 1980.

Nightfall, was a radio drama series produced by CBC Radio from July 1980 to June 1983. While primarily a supernatural/horror series, Nightfall featured some episodes in other genres, such as science fiction, mystery, fantasy, and human drama. The series became one of the most popular shows in CBC Radio history, running 100 episodes that featured a mix of original tales and adaptations of both classic and obscure short stories.

You know this one. “The Monkey’s Paw” is a horror short story by author W. W. Jacobs. It was published in England in 1902.

The story is based on the famous “setup” in which three wishes are granted. In the story, the paw of a dead monkey is a talisman that grants its possessor three wishes, but the wishes come with an enormous price for interfering with fate.

For segment 2 Suspense gives us Robert Louis Stevenson’s, “The Body Snatchers” from October the 24th of 1942.

The guiding light of this show was William Spier, whose formula of human drama set in interesting situations attracted the best of Hollywood and radio actors. Orson Welles was in many episodes. Cary Grant said, “If I ever do any more radio work, I want to do it on Suspense, where I get a good chance to act.”

Spier’s method with actors was to keep them under-rehearsed, and there-by a bit uneasy. He got great performances, and the show gained great popularity.

All the production values were first class. With Bernard Hermann, who had worked with Orson Welles on the Mercury Theater and would work with Alfred Hitchcock, doing the musical scores.


A medical student studying anatomy gets entangled with murderers and psychos in order to attain the cadavers he needs to complete his studies. Yep, it’s the Robert Louis Stevenson classic given the once over by John Dickson Carr. Hey…They could have done worse by old Bobby Louie.

The Fall of the City, a 1937 CBS radio drama by Archibald MacLeishn.

The Columbia Workshop is high art radio at its finest with expert writing and direction by a slew of talented, but relatively unknown people of the moment. The goal of Columbia Workshop old time radio shows included separating itself from popular radio’s overuse of film celebrities and general triviality of commercial orientated old time radio shows. This lead to several revolutions in the method in which a show is made including the development of a soundboard with complicated noises now considered essential to radio production.

Irving Reis created Columbia Workshop after working as a sound engineer and as a radio director.  Reis was excited about using Columbia Workshop as a platform for radio sound and narrative experimentation.  He believed that radio was a distinct and novel medium where sound effects could vividly bring the radio show to life in the homes of radio listeners.  In one Columbia Workshop episode there were more than 30 different distinct characters and hundreds of sound effects as a demonstration of radio’s possibilities .

Staring  Orson Welles and Burgess Meredith this is considered one of the most socially significant – and boldly experimental – works in the history of radio. Written in response to the rising tide of fascism in Europe, the production included innovative key sound effects, some of which, ironically, were later employed by Joseph Goebbels in rallies he orchestrated for Adolf Hitler..


A close cousin to the Whistler and the Strange Dr. Weird, The Mysterious Traveller was another memorable radio host. Easy to imagine yourself on a train, at night, seated next to a curious gentleman who invites you “to join me on another journey into the strange and terrifying. I hope you will enjoy the trip, that it will thrill you a little and chill you a little. So settle back, get a good grip on your nerves and be comfortable — if you can!”

The Mysterious Traveler was the second outing for pulp writers Robert Arthur and David P. Kogan. Their first effort, a show called  Dark Destiny, ran for parts of 1942 and 1943 on The Mutual Broadcasting System. This show was, unfortunately. not particularly successful. Surviving for only 27 episodes of which only one is known to still exist.

For this, their next effort, they teamed up with producer/director Sherman ‘Jock’ MacGregor, and actor Maurice Tarplin to create a show that would have a very successful run on  Mutual  between 1944 and 1952. Eventually becoming one of the highest rated programs of the era and spawning a handful of spin offs.

These included:

The Strange Dr. Weird (1945),The Sealed Book (1945),Dark Venture (1946),Murder By Experts (1949) and The Teller of Tales (1950).

This doesn’t happen every day.These old scams usually don’t lead to accusations from a dead body.

Sometimes the secretes of the dead are best left with the dead.