Showing results by author "Hollywood 360" in All Categories

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.

Movie star Alan Ladd played Dan Holiday, retired newspaperman turned fiction writer and adventurer extraordinaire. To gain ideas for his books, Holiday placed an ad in the Star-Times newspaper: "Adventure wanted - will go anywhere, do anything - Box 13." It wasn't long before his Box 13 became jammed with adventures galore.

The Weird Circle radio show was an anthology of classic thrillers from the pens of the world's best-known and respected fiction authors of the 19th century. The focus was on stories of horror, suspense, and the supernatural by such authors as Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Mary Shelley, with an occasional drama by the likes of Emily Brontë, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot.

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.

Here are 12 adventure-packed episodes of the radio drama Rocky Fortune. This 1953 radio adventure series stars Frank Sinatra as Rocco Fortunato, aka Rocky Fortune, a footloose and fancy-free young man of several talents. In constant need of employment, Rocky accepts odd jobs from the Gridley Employment Agency - jobs that typically lead him into situations where he tracks down criminals and ends up rescuing people in trouble - especially women. The job done, Rocky ultimately needs to find more work.

The Whistler was one of radio's top mystery programs airing from May 16, 1942 until September 22, 1955, sponsored by the Signal Oil Company. The Whistler was an ominous narrator who opened each episode with: "I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I know many strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak."

Escape was radio's leading anthology series of high-adventure, airing on CBS radio from 1947 to 1954. The series' well-remembered opening combined Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain with an introduction spoken by Paul Frees and William Conrad: "Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you... Escape!"

Have Gun - Will Travel follows the adventures of Paladin, a soldier of fortune turned hired gunfighter, played by John Dehner. Paladin prefers to settle problems without violence, yet when forced to fight, he excels. He lives at the swanky Carlton Hotel in San Francisco, where he dresses in formal wear, eats gourmet food, attends the opera, and enjoys the company of beautiful women. When working as a gun-for-hire, he dresses in all black, uses calling cards, and wears a holster decorated with a chess knight emblem. This symbol refers to his name and his occupation as a champion-for-hire.

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.

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.

Some might remember My Friend Irma as the movie that served as the launching pad for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Others recall a television show of the same name. But My Friend Irma actually originated as a radio sitcom that aired on CBS from 1947 to 1954. The show chronicled the daily highjinks of an extremely dim-witted blond stenographer named Irma Peterson and her screwball friends.

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.

William Conrad was a big part of the golden-age of radio. Not only did he star as US Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke (five episodes in this collection), but he appeared on hundreds of radio shows during the 1940s and 50s. Here’s sixteen radio broadcasts that either star William Conrad or have him in the supporting cast. You won’t have any problem identifying his deep baritone voice!

Produced in New York, Murder at Midnight came to ABC Radio in September of 1946 and featured horror stories with supernatural twists. Raymond Morgan, a former Long Island minister who had left the cloth for the excitement of radio, was the foreboding host who each week uttered the lines, "Midnight, the witching hour, when the night is darkest, our fears the strongest, and our strength at its lowest ebb. Midnight, when the graves gape open and death strikes."

In 1949, NBC brought handsome Irish American actor Brian Donlevy to the radio microphones as international troubleshooter Steve Mitchell in the spy series Dangerous Assignment. Mitchell worked for an unnamed US government intelligence agency, whose boss, "the Commissioner," dispatched him to world trouble spots. Mitchell's assignment was to solve problems in record time and in accordance with US interests.

Here are 12 episodes from the greatest Western shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio! You'll hear William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke; John Dehner as the man called Paladin in Have Gun - Will Travel; Alan Ladd in a Western tale well calculated to keep you in suspense; John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Gregory Peck reprising their film roles in Fort Apache, Destry Rides Again, and Yellow Sky; plus other great Western radio episodes, including four episodes of the high-adventure series Escape.

Here are 12 radio episodes featuring Jack Benny in different series from the golden age of radio. This collection includes episodes from The Jack Benny Program, Suspense, The Burns & Allen Show, The Bing Crosby Show, The Ford Theatre, and many more.

This Is Your FBI, as the title suggests, was a crime drama that featured true cases from the FBI and was told from an agent's viewpoint. The show's producer and director, Jerry Devine, had once worked for the FBI, so having him for the show would allow each story to be told in the best way possible. J. Edgar Hoover, who was the chief of the FBI at the time, gave it his endorsement, calling it "the finest dramatic program on the air", and gave Devine access to the FBI files for the stories used in the show.

The Falcon radio series aired from 1943 until 1954. "The Falcon" was an alternate identity for detective Michael Waring. Like the Falcon movies, the radio plots mixed danger, romance, and comedy in equal parts. Each show began with a telephone ringing and Michael Waring, the Falcon, answering the phone. Speaking with a woman whose voice was never heard, Waring would explain that he had an urgent situation he had to deal with.

Mr. District Attorney came to radio in 1939 and focused on a crusading DA named Paul Garrett. Created, written, and directed by former law student Ed Byron, the series was inspired by the early years of New York governor Thomas E. Dewey. It was Dewey's public war against racketeering that led to his election as governor and enabled him to run for the presidency of the United States.