Mercury Month - Week #1

It's Mercury Month on the Old Time Radio Express.  It's a celebration of that crucible of acting talent known as the Mercury Theatre on the Air.  Under the thumb direction of the great Orson Welles, this troupe created one of the most famous radio plays of all time - The War of the Worlds.  Individually, the cast had success as well.

This week we feature shows starring two of the more famous Mercury players, Agnes Moorehead and Everett Sloane.

Moorehead may be best known for her role as Endora on "Bewitched", but she conquered just about every medium she tackled.  She was a superb radio actress, and an equally good film star, garnering 4 Academy Award nominations.  (Though not one of her most famous, try her in "Dark Passage" to see her at her scheming best. Bogie and Bacall ain't bad either...)

Sloane had a fine radio career, with weekly roles on some of the best shows of the era - The Shadow, Cavalcade of America, and Inner Sanctum Mysteries.  If you want to get a glimpse of Sloane on the screen, he has a wonderful role in The Lady From Shanghai.  (And Rita Hayworth ain't too bad to look at either...)

Show #22 - Escape & Captain Midnight

This week, we escape to the Confederate South on Escape, as Harry Bartell stars in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" based on the famous short story of the same name by Ambrose Bierce. 

Escape was an anthology program of adventure shows, and is often thought of as the somewhat lesser kin to the long-running program, Suspense.  And though it is true that Escape only ran for 7 years (versus Suspense's 20), bounced around time slots (versus Suspense's fairly standard slot), had sporadic sponsorship (versus Suspense's long-running sponsors) and limited budget and big-name stars (versus Suspense's wealth of both), Escape is still just as good as Suspense. 

Take a listen to this show, and let me know if you don't agree.

By the way, star of this Escape episode, Mr. Harry Bartell, named this particular performance the favorite of his long career.

Captain Midnight is our second program, and was a kiddie serial aimed at young boys.  It told the story of Captain Midnight, secret government agent whose identity was so secret that even his superiors did not know it. 

Like every good hero, he had a backstory.  In WWI, he was fighter pilot who was sent on a mission surely to result in his death, but he piloted his plane back into friendly territory on the stroke of midnight, having completed his mission, and earning the moniker, "Captain Midnight". 

For more on Captain Midnight, check out http://www.otr.com/.  Until then, enjoy this isolated episode from January 10, 1949.

Show #18 - "Suspense" and "Baby Snooks and Daddy"

mypodcast.com has been on the fritz the past couple of weeks, so I hope you're finding the detour to mediafire easy to use for these downloads.

This week, we've got Suspense, with the venerable Ronald Colman in "Vision of Death".  Suspense from this era was produced and directed by Elliott Lewis, one of the great old radio actors.  From this show, you can tell that he's not too bad behind the glass either.  "Vision of Death", though is an anomaly of Suspense from the Elliott Lewis era, as Suspense presents more "based on a true story" tales.  For my money, those shows are not close to holding a candle to the classic tales that sometimes pop up like "Vision of Death".

New Show - Ozzie and Harriet & Suspense

I hope Christmas was all you hoped it to be.  Here at the Old Time Radio Express, we had a nice Christmas, and avoided getting caught by too much weather.

Radio Brownsburg gave us 90 minutes on Sunday night, so we made the most of it with a look back at The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and then a gripping Suspense story entitled "Too Little To Live On" starring the two stars of the first program, Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Hilliard (aka Harriet Nelson). 

Click on the title of this blog episode to listen to or download this week's episode.

The range of these performers who are typecast as saccharine Americana is amazing to see.  Enjoy - we'll talk to you in 2010!