Boxcars711 Old Time Radio

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Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - Murder At Midnight "The Line Is Dead" (4-07-47) Jul 06, 2007

Show notes

Murder At Midnight â 1946-1947The Murder at Midnight series was a thirty-minute broadcast featuring tales of the supernatural. The actors included Mercedes McCambridge and Lawson Zerbe and the show was narrated using the spooky, creepy voice of Raymond Morgan and always opened using the same gripping signature; âthe witching hour, when night is darkest, our fears are the strongest, our strength at its lowest ebbâ Midnight! â when graves gape open and death strikes!â

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - The Life Of Riley "The Hold Up w Burt Lancaster" (4-08-49) Jul 05, 2007

Show notes

The Life of Riley, with William Bendix in the title role, was a popular radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film and continued as a long-running television series during the 1950s.The show began as a proposed Groucho Marx radio series, The Flotsam Family, but the sponsor balked at what would have been essentially a straight head-of-household role for the comedian. Then producer Irving Brecher saw Bendix as taxicab company owner Tim McGuerin in the movie The McGuerins from Brooklyn (1942). The Flotsam Family was reworked with Bendix cast as blundering Chester A. Riley, riveter at a California aircraft plant, and his frequent exclamation of indignation---"What a revoltin' development this is!"---became one of the most famous catch phrases of the 1940s. The radio series also benefited from the immense popularity of a supporting character, Digby "Digger" O'Dell (John Brown), "the friendly undertaker." "Living the life of Riley" suggests an ideal life of prosperity and contentment, possibly living on someone else's money, time or work. Rather than a negative freeloading or gold digging aspect, it instead implies that someone is kept or advantaged.

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - Let George Do It "The Common Denominator" (1-28-52) Jul 05, 2007

Show notes

Network was Mutual, Sponsor was Standard Oil. STARS : Bob Bailey, Eddie Firestone jr, Francis Robinson, Joe Kearn PRODUCER: Owen Vinson WRITER: Polly Hopkins MUSIC: Eddie Dunstedter.Bob Bailey played George Valentine as a detective handy man, who got his jobs from responses to a newspaper ad. Part-time detective and writer Dan Holiday in Box 13 also used the premise. It pays to advertise! The shows follow the usual formats of crime caper shows, with toughs, mysterious rendezvous and people who aren't who they say they are.

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - The Adventures Of Sam Spade "The Queen Bee Caper" (7-10-49) Jul 04, 2007

Show notes

Adventures of Sam Spade â 1946-1951 Sam Spade was a tough private investigator. Each case was unfolded as a report dictated to his secretary, Effie, who was always flustered and secretly in love with him. He always quoted his license number and referred to each investigation as a âcaperâ. Each report was dated with the actual airdate. CAST: Howard Duff, Steve Dunne, Lurene Tuttle, John McIntire, William Conrad, Cathy and Elliot Lewis, June Havoc, Joseph Kearns, Jerry Hausner, Elliott Reid, Mary Jane Croft, Jeanette Nolan, Betty Lou Gerson.

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - Escape "The Open Boat" (7-19-53) Jul 04, 2007

Show notes

ESCAPE opened with the gripping voice of William Conrad booming out over the airwaves: "Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you - ESCAPE!". Moussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", the show's theme, assisted Conrad in creating the right opening atmosphere. (The actual series of questions used in the opening varied from week to week, frequently to match the goings-on of the times.) Over its long run, narriators included William Conrad, Paul Frees, Jack Webb, John Dehner, Jay Novello, Joan Banks, Stacy Harris, Georgia Ellis, Ben Wright and Will Geer. The show featured spine-tingling tales from such masters as Joseph Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allen Poe. It was produced by William N. Robeson, and featured many seasoned radio actors. ESCAPE was heard on CBS from July 1947 to September 1954. First Show: July 7, 1947 Last Show: Sep 23, 1954. There were two pilot shows before it's first run. The first pilot was OUT OF THIS WORLD: "Dead of Night" on February 28, 1947. This show was repeated as ESCAPE: "Dead of Night" on March 21.

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - Confession "The Anna Carlson Case" (7-19-53) Jul 03, 2007

Show notes

CONFESSIONFrom: July 5, 1953 to September 13, 1954Had a texture and sound not unlike Dragnet, indeed the influence was realized throughout the show. These were true stories of Crime and Punishment, the obvious difference that Dragnet began with the crime while Confession unfolded in reverse order, from the end. Confession was less noisy, it's theme was played on a single piano, but there was still the deadpan dialogue, the thief or killer giving his confession with an air of resignation and defeat. The criminal thus became a stream-of-consciousness narrator, with the action frequently cutting away into drama. "Names were changed to protect the legal rights of the subject". NBC 30 minutes Sunday at 9:30PM.Cast Paul Frees, virginia Christine,Herb Butterfield, Parley Bear and other Hollywood radio actors. Announcer John Wald.

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - Author's Playhouse "Cry Of The Hunted" (9-22-44) Jul 03, 2007

Show notes

Authorâs Playhouse - Famous stories by celebrated authors: among them, Elementals (Stephen Vincent Benet), The Piano (William Saroyan), and The Snow Goose (Paul Gallico).March 5, 1941 till June 4, 1945, NBC; Blue Network until mid-October 1941, then the Red Network. Many briefly held 30m timeslots, including Sundays at 11:30, 1941-42; Wednesdays at 11:30, 1942-44; Mondays at 11:30, 1944-45. Sponsor was Philip Morris, 1942-43. Cast: John Hodiak, Fern Persons, Arthur Kohl, Laurette Fillbrandt, Kathryn Card, Bob Jellison, Nelson Olmsted, Marvin Miller, Olan Soule, Les Tremayne, Clarence Hartzell, Curley Bradley, etc. Orchestra: Rex Maupin, Roy Shield, J6seph Gallicchio. Creator: Wynn Wright. Directors: Norman Felton, Fred Weihe, Homer Heck, etc.

Boxcars711 Weekend Matinee - The Lux Radio Theater "Springtime In The Rockies" (5-22-44) Jul 01, 2007

Show notes

Lux Radio Theater strove to feature as many of the original stars of the original stage and film productions as possible, usually paying them $5,000 an appearance to do the show. It was when sponsor Lever Brothers (who made Lux soap and detergent) moved the show from New York to Hollywood in 1936 that it eased back from adapting stage shows and toward adaptations of films. The first Lux film adaptation was The Legionnaire and the Lady, with Marlene Dietrich and Clark Gable, based on the film Morocco. That was followed by a Lux adaptation of The Thin Man, featuring the movie's stars, Myrna Loy and William Powell.

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - Tales Of Tomarrow "Martians Never Die" (3-12-53) Jun 30, 2007

Show notes

The 1950's saw both the twilight of the Golden Age of Radio and the birth of the science fiction radio series. Science fiction was not new to radio before 1950, but it was either targeted to juvenile audiences or were shows in a broader series, for example, ESCAPE's "The Time Machine". On March 15, 1950, the first show of Mutual's 2000 PLUS aired, becoming the very first true science fiction series in the US. DIMENSION X followed shortly on April 8, 1950 over NBC stations. TALES OF TOMORROW was the third dedicated science fiction series, over the stations of the American Broadcasting Corporation, following DIMENSION X by almost 2 years.

Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - Hollywood Radio Theater "Shane" (2-22-55) Jun 30, 2007

Show notes

A buckskin knight, Shane (Alan Ladd) rides into the middle of a range war between farmers and cattlemen, quickly siding with the "sod-busters." The title character is a taciturn former gunslinger who wishes only to settle down and put the past behind him. But as ruthless ranchers bring a diamond-hard hired gunman to the frontier town to scare off his adopted family, Shane realizes that he's the only law available to protect the innocent farmers. To illustrate the visceral effect of the violence, director George Stevens had the sounds of gunshots magnified on the soundtrack: nothing like this had been previously attempted in mainstream Hollywood and the results were galvanizing. Here were gunfights and fisticuffs in which people were visibly hurt and even killed. The risks and inevitable emotional toll of the profession gives Shane's silence immense power and offers a side of the western movie hero seldom seen to that point.

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