Back in the 1930s and 40s, traveling to a Broadway play or a Hollywood film premiere wasn't an option for most people. Radio theater filled that gap by bringing full-length scripts and major celebrity casts directly into the household living room.
These weren't short daily serials with cliffhangers. They were prestige, hour-long productions backed by big advertising budgets, live studio audiences, and full orchestras. Instead of following the same character every week, these programs were anthologies. One week might feature a Shakespeare play, while the next adapted a current box-office movie hit.
To mimic a real night out, the broadcasts kept theater traditions alive on the air. They used opening and closing curtains, intermissions, and final curtain calls where the Hollywood stars stepped out of character to speak to the audience.
This section collects surviving recordings from the major dramatic anthologies of the era.
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Alfred Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 - December 10, 1946) was an American newspaperman and short-story writer.
He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from Brooklyn or Midtown Manhattan. The adjective "Runyonesque" refers to this type of character as well as to the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicted. He spun humorous and sentimental tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters, few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead colorful monikers such as "Nathan Detroit", "Benny Southstreet", "Big Jule", "Harry the Horse", "Good Time Charley", "Dave the Dude", or "The Seldom Seen Kid". His distinctive vernacular style is known as "Runyonese": a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions. He is credited with coining the phrase "Hooray Henry", a term now used in British English to describe the upper class version of a loud-mouthed, arrogant twit.
Runyon's fictional world is also known to the general public through the musical Guys and Dolls based on two of his stories, "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure". The musical additionally borrows characters and story elements from a few other Runyon stories, most notably "Pick The Winner". The film Little Miss Marker (and its three remakes, Sorrowful Jones, 40 Pounds of Trouble and the 1980 Little Miss Marker) grew from his short story of the same name.
Runyon was also a newspaper reporter, covering sports and general news for decades for various publications and syndicates owned by William Randolph Hearst. Already known for his fiction, he wrote a well-remembered "present tense" article on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Presidential inauguration in 1933 for the Universal Service, a Hearst syndicate, which was merged with the co-owned International News Service in 1937.
Runyon's short stories are told in the first person by a protagonist who is never named, and whose role is unclear; he knows many gangsters and does not appear to have a job, but he does not admit to any criminal involvement, and seems to be largely a bystander. He describes himself as "being known to one and all as a guy who is just around". The radio program The Damon Runyon Theatre dramatized 52 of Runyon's works in 1949, and for these the protagonist was given the name "Broadway", although it was admitted that this was not his real name, much in the way "Harry the Horse" and "Sorrowful Jones" are aliases.
Encore Theatre is based on true stories and sponsored by Schenley Labs, Inc, who skimped on nothing for this brief series. It is one of those overlooked dramatic anthologies that deserve a deal more attention than they have generally achieved. You will find the series has a medical thread running through it and is in fact a highly compelling and sympathetic series of well-produced, medical-themed dramas. Within the stories, you get a great deal of medical history into the bargain.
The cast members were well-known radio or screen actors and included Lurene Tuttle, Eric Snowden, Gerald Mohr, Ronald Colman, Robert Young, and Lionel Barrymore. source: OTRRG
Escape was radio's leading anthology series of high-adventure radio dramas, airing on CBS from July 7, 1947 to September 25, 1954. Since the program did not have a regular sponsor like Suspense, it was subjected to frequent schedule shifts and lower production budgets, although Richfield Oil signed on as a sponsor for five months in 1950.
Despite these problems, Escape enthralled many listeners during its seven-year run. The series' well-remembered opening combined Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain with this introduction, as intoned 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!"
Of the more than 230 Escape episodes, most have survived in good condition. Many story premises, both originals and adaptations, involved a protagonist in dire life-or-death straits, and the series featured more science fiction and supernatural tales than Suspense. A television counterpart (Escape (CBS TV series)) aired on CBS TV for a few months during 1950.
The program's opening announcement - "Tired of the everyday grind?" - was employed as a slogan for the counterculture magazine, New Escapologist. (Source: wikipedia.org)
Lux Radio Theatre, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network (1934-35); CBS Radio (1935-54), and NBC Radio (1954-55). Initially, the series adapted Broadway plays before it began adapting films. The hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences becoming the most popular anthology radio series. It was broadcast for over 20 years and continued on television as the Lux Video Theatre through most of the 1950s.
Broadcasting from New York, the series premiered at 2:30pm, October 14, 1934, on the NBC Blue Network. The host was fictional producer, Douglass Garrick (portrayed by John Anthony). Doris Dagmar played Peggy Winthrop, who delivered the Lux commercials. Each show featured a scripted session with Garrick talking to the lead actors. Anthony appeared as Garrick from the premiere 1934 episode until June 30, 1935. Garrick was portrayed by Albert Hayes from July 29, 1935 to May 25, 1936, when the show moved to the West Coast.
Cecil B. DeMille took over as the host on June 1, 1936, continuing until January 22, 1945. On several occasions, he was temporarily replaced by various celebrities, including Leslie Howard and Edward Arnold. A clash over closed shop union rulings favored by the American Federation of Radio Artists ended DeMille's term as host.
The show employed several hosts over the following year, eventually choosing William Keighley as the permanent host, a post he held until 1952. After that, producer-director Irving Cummings hosted the program until it ended in 1955. For its airings on the Armed Forces Radio Service (for which it was retitled Hollywood Radio Theater), the program was hosted by Don Wilson in the early 1950s. (Source: wikipedia.org)
The Old Gold Comedy Theater aired over NBC for one season, from October 29, 1944 to June 10, 1945. The Lennen and Mitchell ad agency wanted to produce a comedy series for Old Gold cigarettes, a brand of the Lorillard Tobacco Company.
The show was patterned after the successful format used by the Lux Radio Theatre and Cecil B. DeMille. Preston Sturges, an up and coming director, was originally tapped to host the show, but was already committed elsewhere, and so suggested Harold Lloyd, a silent film star, with whom he had worked in the past. As this was his first radio program, Lloyd worked for many months to get over his fear of the microphone. Critics believed he was improving as the season progressed, and would have eventually mastered the art had the series lasted more than one season.
Though the adapted scripts and the actors were top-notch, the show eventually suffered from its 30 minute format, as too much had to be cut from the original movie scripts. Lennen and Mitchell pulled the plug on the show on May 28, 1945 when they announced Meet Me at Parky's would air in its place.
Currently, there are 30 of the 32 episodes still in circulation -- 29 come from the estate of Harold Lloyd, in the original un-cut version, and one from the Armed Forces Radio Service. (Source: Old Time Radio Researchers Group)
This series, based upon short stories originally published in Redbook Magazine, was aired in the year 1932.
The United States was then in the grip of the Great Depression, and several of the episodes reflect that phenomenon. "He Knew Women" and "Kiss and Jail," for example, feature families which have been devastated by the stock market crash and its aftermath. As if to counteract the country's grim circumstances, however, many of the stories offer "love, mystery, adventure, romance" in sometimes exotic settings.
Listeners are transported to such places as Yucatan, France, Dalmatia and Manchuria and encounter some remarkable characters and circumstances along the way. These include a surly Army private who gets in trouble when his pet goat butts a brigadier general into a mud puddle; an American schoolteacher who becomes involved in a political intrigue abroad and temporarily represents herself as a collector of coffins; and an intrepid little domestic servant with Holmes-like powers of observation who solves a murder case at a frozen outpost beyond the Arctic Circle. Some of the authors are noteworthy as well. For example Elaine Carrington, who wrote "The Kid," is well remembered today as creator of the famous radio soap operas When a Girl Marries and Pepper Young's Family. And Frank R. Adams, whose "A Gent Passes By" delivers a knockout sequence of startling revelations, displays the skill that enabled him to publish dozens of short stories in popular magazines of the day such as Munsey's and The Smart Set.
These syndicated episodes are all fifteen minutes in length, and some could have benefited from more time to develop plot and character. But the best of them convey to us an intense flavor of their times, often with charming musical interludes and bridges, from a broadcast year that has left us with all too few programs to enjoy. (source: Old Time Radio Researchers Group)
The Screen Guild Theater was a popular radio anthology series during the Golden Age of Radio, broadcast from 1939 until 1952, with leading Hollywood actors performing in adaptations of popular motion pictures such as Going My Way and The Postman Always Rings Twice.
The show had a long run, lasting for 14 seasons and 527 episodes. It initially was heard on CBS from January 8, 1939 until June 28, 1948, continuing on NBC from October 7, 1948 until June 29, 1950. It was broadcast on ABC from September 7, 1950 to May 31, 1951 and returned to CBS on March 13, 1952. It aired under several different titles: The Gulf Screen Guild Show, The Gulf Screen Guild Theater, The Lady Esther Screen Guild Theater and The Camel Screen Guild Theater.
Fees actors would typically charge were donated to the Motion Picture Relief Fund, in order to support the creation and maintenance of the Motion Picture Country Home for retired actors. The series came to an end on CBS June 29, 1952. (Source: wikipedia.org)
A British anthology series, featuring plays based on the best of literature, films and theater. Produced in two series, Sir Lawrence Olivier and Sir Ralph Richardson serve as hosts, narrators and many times portray the leading roles.
The program apparently was developed as a vehicle to capitalize on Olivier's name and talent. Many fine actors of the British stage and screen were involved including: Sir John Gielgud, Robert Morley, Harry Andrews, Muriel Forbes, Robert Donat, and Daphne Maddox.
The music was credited to the renown British organist and arranger, Sidney Torch. However much of the same music was also used in other Harry Alan Towers productions on which Torch also worked, such as The Secrets of Scotland Yard, The Black Museum, and The Many Lives of Harry Lime. So how much of it was actually written for this series will probably never be known.
Harry Alan Towers produced and directed the show for his Towers of London company for international syndication, at the time in Europe, South Africa and Australia. (Source: Old Time Radio Researchers Group)
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