The Clock â All The Money In World (November 17, 1946). Hall of Fantasy â Demon of the Night (April 13, 1953). CBS Radio Workshop â The Big Event-The Law of Averages (December 16, 1956). The Unexpected â The Winfield Diamond (September 5, 1948).
Segment One: The Clock â All The Money In World (November 17, 1946). The Clock was Produced in Australia by Grace Gibson productions The show debuted on November the 3rd of 1946 and would run for a bit more than a year closing out on May the 23rd of 1948 for a total of 65 shows.
The series was produced in Australia and the locales for the stories were rather generic. The actors and actresses spoke without a perceptible Australian accent causing the program to sound, âAmericanâ. A strategy that paid off and making the program a natural for export to the American market where ABC would pick it up. The show must have been reasonably successful because ABC then continued for another 13 weeks with an All-American cast and crew producing 13 new scripts bringing the series to a total of 78 episodes.
Segment Two: Hall of Fantasy â Demon of the Night (April 13, 1953). There was more than one series that aired under the HALL OF FANTASY banner. All were produced, written and directed by Richard Thorne who also acted in many of the shows. The first HALL OF FANTASY originated from radio station KALL in Salt Lake City, Utah. Where Richard Thorne had worked as an announcer late in 1946 and into 1947. This series consisted of 26 shows. The airdates of the shows are uncertain. Most of these shows were classic murder mysteries, culminating with the villain getting his due. Only six shows from this series are known to exist.
The next HALL OF FANTASY aired in 1949, in Chicago. This time, the series featured stories involving struggles against the supernatural where man was usually the loser. This series consisted of 112 shows and aired locally on station WGN .Then in 1953 THE HALL OF FANTASY went nationwide on The Mutual Network as a regular series for 39 shows. For this show Thorne wrote original stories, or adapted classic works, and played many of the lead characters. Eloise Kummer played many of the female leads. Mr. Thorne and Leroy Olliger directed the series. Original music was by Harold Turner.
Segment Three: CBS Radio Workshop -The Big Event-The Law of Averages (December 16, 1956). The CBS Radio Workshop was an experimental dramatic radio anthology series that aired on CBS from January 27, 1956, until September 22, 1957. Subtitled âradioâs distinguished series to manâs imagination,â it was a revival of the earlier Columbia Workshop, broadcast by CBS from 1936 to 1943, and it used some of the same writers and directors employed on the earlier series. The CBS Radio Workshop was one of American network radioâs last attempts to hold onto, and perhaps recapture, some of the demographics they had lost to television in the post-World War Two era.
The premiere broadcast was a two-part adaptation of Aldous Huxleyâs Brave New World, introduced and narrated by Huxley. It took a unique approach to sound effects, as described in a Time (February 6, 1956) review that week:
It took three radio sound men, a control-room engineer and five hours of hard work to create the sound that was heard for less than 30 seconds on the air. The sound consisted of a ticking metronome, tom-tom beats, bubbling water, air hose, cow moo, boing! (two types), oscillator, dripping water (two types) and three kinds of wine glasses clicking against each other. Judiciously blended and recorded on tape, the effect was still not quite right. Then the tape was played backward with a little echo added. That did it. The sound depicted the manufacturing of babies in the radio version of Aldous Huxleyâs Brave New World.[1]
Music for the series was composed by Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, Amerigo Moreno, Ray Noble and Leith Stevens. Other writers adapted to the series included Robert A. Heinlein, Sinclair Lewis, H. L. Mencken, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederik Pohl, James Thurber, Mark Twain and Thomas Wolfe.
Segment Four: The Unexpected 1948-09-05 121 The Winfield Diamond (September 5, 1948). The Unexpected had the entirety of its run during the year of 1948. It is also the case that nearly all of these stories contained, âTwistâ endings which would completely alter the story conclusion. Of course there are some people who consider this a gimmick. I have to say I think it works very well here, as it did for the likes of OâHenry, P.G. Woodhouse, Saki , and Dorothy Parker. Not that this attempt at mass entertainment reaches anything resembling those dizzy heights. . We donât see the 15 minute format much anymore. However, I personally think that it was a format that lent itself particularly well to quickly drawn, weird little stories like these.
No one really knows how many episodes were produced but twenty have survived. Typical of this show is the first episode, âMercy Killingâ airing on April 11th of 1948. From the start Barry Sullivan helps to establish the series style and mood. In this episode Sullivan plays a husband with a murderous intent. He has concocted what he believes is the perfect plan to remove from his life â his wife. But in 1948, evil only rarely went unpunished and no plan was perfect.
In most markets this show evidently ran on Sundays from 10:30 to 10:45 pm. Syndicated by Hamilton-Whitney and with a distribution program from the Mutual Network.
The Unexpected used excellent actors, the likes of Barry Sullivan, Lurene Tuttle and Virginia Gregg. Director Frank Danzig kept the show, for the most part, on the highroad.
Also in this segment is:
Robert F Youngâs short story, Star mother, which was first published in Amazing Stories for January 1959
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