Boxcars711 Old Time Radio

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Boxcars711 Saturday Matinee Three - Mystery Playhouse (Dark Venture) "The Boarder" (1947) Nov 25, 2007

Show notes

Have you ever wondered what it might be like inside the mind of a criminal? The stories of Mystery Playhouse (Dark Venture) try to imagine. In this thrilling drama series, you will be drawn in to the murky calculations behind sinister acts. How much money would make stealing worthwhile? If your business partner caught you stealing $50,000 from your company, would he turn you in to the authorities? Would you let yourself be blackmailed? Or, would you let yourself commit another, more serious crime? On the verge of breaking the law, or taking a life, all risks and dangers must be considered.

Boxcars711 Saturday Matinee Two - Mystery House "Murder For Laughs" (11-04-45) Nov 25, 2007

Show notes

That strange publishing firm owned by Dan and Barbara Glenn - where each new novel is acted out by the Mystery House staff, before it is accepted for publication. Mystery House was a program in the 1950âs, but not your run of the mill type program. Actually it was more of a proving ground for novels. Dan and Barbara Glenn owned a publishing company named âMystery Houseâ located at 70 Park Avenue, New York City. Dan and Barbara decided to test some of their novels on a real listening audience. Each episode was taken from a novel they were planning on publishing. The entire staff at Mystery House was involved, everyone doing their part, whether it was rewriting to adapt it to radio, playing the parts or doing sound effects, everyone joined in. Sadly, not a lot is known about this series. Only 15 are known to exist.

Boxcars711 Saturday Matinee One - General Mills Radio Adventure Theater "Adventures Of Oliver Twist" (6-11-77) Nov 24, 2007

Show notes

General Mills Radio Adventure TheaterThe series had it origins in the meeting of two minds: the ad agency for General Mills at the time, Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample was looking for a different means to reach a child audience besides television, which was decreasing commercial minutes and increasing costs; and Himan Brown, producer-director of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, who wanted to introduce new audiences to the dramatic form on radio. Tom Bosley was chosen as the host because of his television recognition from a kidâs oriented series, Happy Days. CBS chose to produce 52 original broadcasts followed by 52 repeat broadcasts. I believe they had hoped to maintain General Mills sponsorship during the complete 104 episodes, but General Mills dropped their sponsorship after the original broadcasts. The series continued for the next 52 repeats as the CBS Radio Adventure Theater.

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - The FBI In Peace And War "The Scientific Touch" (9-07-55) Nov 24, 2007

Show notes

The FBI in Peace and War was a radio crime drama inspired by Frederick Lewsis Collins' book, The FBI in Peace and War. The idea for the show came from Louis Pelletier who wrote many of the scripts. Among the show's other writers were Jack Finke, Ed Adamson and Collins. Airing on CBS from November 25, 1944 to September 28, 1958, it had a variety of sponsors (including Lava Soap, Wildroot Cream Oil, Lucky Strike, Nescafe and Wrigley's) over the years. Martin Blaine and Donald Briggs headed the cast. Theme music was "The Love for Three Oranges" (Prokofiev)

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - The Creaking Door "Day Of Truce" (1949) Nov 23, 2007

Show notes

In 1964, South Africa began The Creaking Door, using original scripts which included stories with a heavy emphasis on the supernatural. The topics ranged from haunted houses to a woman who turns into a giant cat, and of course, the typical paranoid murderer so often presented on the original Inner Sanctum. The host for this series was Peter Bloomfield. There are at present anywhere from 34-37 extant episodes in MP3 circulation, yet no currently available program logs for the series indicate the year of the series' broadcast (though it was likely sometime in the 1950s, given the generally high audio quality of the available shows), or the total number of episodes, and only a handful of them are known by their broadcast order. The stories are thrillers in the Inner Sanctum vein, and generally thought of favorably by most fans of OTR.

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes "Murder Under The Big Top" (11-06-44) Nov 23, 2007

Show notes

Sherlock Holmes described himself as a "consulting detective", an expert who is brought into cases that have proven too difficult for other (typically official) investigators; we are told that he is on many an occasion able to solve a problem without leaving his home. Naturally, this aspect is minimized in the stories themselves, which tend to focus on the more interesting cases that require him to do actual legwork. He specializes in solving unusual cases using his extraordinary powers of observation and logical reasoning, and frequently demonstrates these abilities to new clients by making on-the-spot deductions about their personalities and recent activities. This simple marketing strategy rarely fails to impress and build confidence in his services.

Boxcars711 Holiday Matinee Three - Space Patrol "The Space Shark" (12-06-52) Ep.10 Nov 23, 2007

Show notes

Space Patrol. ABC net origination, AFRTS rebroadcast. Commander Corry and Cadet Happy are stranded a half-million light-years from home, but are helped by a friendly alien. Ed Kemmer, Lyn Osborn. 25 minutes.THIS EPISODE:Space Patrol. December 6, 1952. ABC network. "The Space Shark". Sponsored by: Ralston Cereals. While attempting to rescue Tonga from food poisoners, Commander Corry and Cadet Happy are nearly fried by heat mirrors on Venus. Later, Commander Corry dodges a guided missile through the rings of Saturn! Bela Kovacs, Dick Tufeld (announcer), Ed Kemmer, Ken Mayer, Larry Robertson (producer, director), Lou Houston (writer), Lyn Osborn, Mike Mosser (creator), Nina Bara. 29:28.

Boxcars711 Holiday Matinee Two - Cloak And Dagger "Windfall" (10-22-50) ep22 Nov 23, 2007

Show notes

"Are you willing to undertake a dangerous mission for the United States, knowing in advance you may never return alive?" Cloak and Dagger first aired over the NBC network on May 7, 1950. It had a short run through the Summer on Sundays, changing to Fridays after its Summer run. The last show aired Oct. 22, 1950. This is the story of the WWII special governmental agency, the OSS, or Office of Strategic Services. Its mission was to develop and maintain spy networks throughout Europe and into Asia, while giving aid to underground partisan groups and developing espionage activities for Allied forces overseas.The show is based on the book of the same name by Lt. Col. Corey Ford and Major Alastair MacBain (who were associated with the OSS from its early days.) The dramas are not Hollywood-style, in that they sometimes end with plans foiled or leading characters dead.

Boxcars711 Holiday Matinee One - Theater Guild On The Air "Jacobowsky & The Colonel" (9-16-45) Nov 22, 2007

Show notes

Theater Guild On The Air - Jacobowsky And The Colonel.mp3Jacobowsky and the Colonel Originally aired September 16, 1945 (adapted by S. N. Behrman from a play by Franz Werfel; produced by the Theater Guild in association with Jack H. Skirball) uses one of the grimmest moments of the warâthe fall of Franceâfor half-satiric, half-fantastic comedy. Its comic thesis is that flight from the Nazis makes strange carfellows. A swaggering, snooty Polish colonel with "a perfect 15th-Century mind" (well played by Louis Calhern) and a rueful, humorous, clever Jewish refugee (delightfully played by Oscar Karlweis) both have to bolt from Paris on the run. The colonel cannot find a car; Jacobowsky finds one but cannot drive. Grandly tossing out Jacobowsky's luggage, the colonel condescends to take the wheel, and off they goâsmack toward the Nazis in order to fetch the colonel's pretty mistress (Annabellaâsee p. 62). From then on, while the colonel remains majestically helpless, Jacobowsky gets the party out of tight squeezes, ferrets out food, locates gasoline. As the colonel's lady becomes more & more admiring of Jacobowsky, the colonel becomes more & more jealous, issues a challenge, creates an opÃra-bouffe atmosphere that makes the trip as much a flight from reality as from the Nazis.

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - Dragnet "Helen Corday" (7-07-49) Nov 22, 2007

Show notes

Dragnet was perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural drama in American media history. The series gave millions of Americans a feel for the boredom and drudgery, as well as the danger and heroism, of real-life police work. Dragnet earned praise for improving the public opinion of police officers. Actor and producer Jack Webbâs aims in Dragnet were for realism and unpretentious acting. He achieved both goals, and Dragnet remains a key influence on subsequent police dramas in many media. The show's cultural impact is demonstrated by the fact that even after five decades, elements of Dragnet are known to those who've never seen or heard the program.

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