{
  "title": "HORROR, INC.",
  "category": "",
  "article": "Eva Le Gallienne, living legend of the New York theater, starred as dramatic reader on this short-\nlived series on the Blue. She was at that time riding a career high, appearing in the Broadway hit\nUncle Harry in the role of the pathologically domineering sister that Geraldine Fitzgerald would\nassume in the 1945 movie version. Apparently the sinister nature of the play was capitalized upon\nin deciding the appropriateness of her debut as a doyenne of literary horror. On March 9 her co-\nstar from Uncle Harry, Joseph Schildkraut, took her place.",
  "origination": "WJZ, New York City, New York (BLUE).",
  "duration": "January 17-March 16, 1943.",
  "personnel": "Donald Bain (animal imitator), Eva Le Gallienne (script preparation, dramatic reader), Mort\nLewis (scriptwriter), Rosa Rio (organist), Joseph Schildkraut (dramatic reader on the March 9 broadcast).",
  "extant_recordings": "None.\nHORROR, INC. (WJZ, NEW YORK—BLUE)\n[Sunday—5:15-5:30 PM]\nJanuary 17, 1943\n“A Terribly Strange Bed”\nAUTHOR: Wilkie Collins.\nJanuary 24, 1943\n“The Torture of Hope”\nAUTHOR: Villiers de l’Isle-Adam.\nJanuary 31, 1943\n“The Haunted and the Haunters”\nAUTHOR: Bulwer-Lytton.\nFebruary 7, 1943\n“The Valley of the Dead”\nAUTHOR: Ralph Adams Cram.\n[OG-NOTE: At least one newspaper—the Youngstown Vindicator— announced the\nnight’s story as Poe’s “The Case of M. Valdemar.”]\nFEBRUARY 9, 1943:\n[Youngstown Vindicator—“Shift Eva Le Gallienne Program to\nTuesday Spot”]\n“‘Horror, Inc.’, which brought the celebrated British-born actress Eva Le\nGallienne to the microphone for her first regular network series, will be switched\nto the 7:15 spot on the Blue Network Tuesday nights…\n“For tonight’s selection, Miss Le-Gallienne [sic] has chosen ‘The Man and the\nSnake’ by Ambrose J. [sic] Bierce. An innovation in the handling of radio mystery\ndramas, the series was originally booked on a limited basis. So favorable has been\nthe response that its extension and transfer to the evening schedule was made.”\n[Tuesday—7:15-7:30 PM]\nFebruary 9, 1943\n“The Man and the Snake”\nAUTHOR: Ambrose Bierce.\n[OG-NOTE: The Vindicator, likewise, indicated “The Valley of the Dead” for this date.]\nFebruary 16, 1943\n“The Black Cat”\n[LIMA NEWS: “…Edgar Allen [sic] Poe, America’s foremost horror writer,\ngets another chance on WJZ’s ‘Horror, Inc.’ program starring Eva Le\nGallienne… The distinguished stage star, who rejected another Poe work\nfor a previous ‘Horror, Inc.’ appearance because it was ‘too horrible,’ will\npresent a condensed version of ‘The Black Cat’…”]\nAUTHOR: Edgar Allan Poe.\nFEBRUARY 20, 1943:\n[The\nBillboard—“Program Reviews—‘Horror,\nInc.’”\nby Marion\nRadcliff]\n“The Man and the Snake, by Ambrose Bierce, was the bit of psychological\nmacabre chosen by Eva Le Gallienne for narration on Horror, Inc.’s first\nTuesday night spot after four introductory airings on Sunday afternoons.\nOriginally booked on a limited basis, extension and switch of time on the show\nnow leave the way open for Miss Le Gallienne and her collaborator, Mort Lewis,\nto continue their gory task of choosing the most hair-raising stories in all\nliterature and presenting them in narrative form with the help of an organ for\nsound effects and a voice here and there to scream or make like a ghost.\n“Choice of story for the first weekday show was a fortunate one, for the weird\ntale of a snakery in a Southern mansion was enough to hold even the most\nrestless dial-twister. Miss Le Gallienne started off with rather slow-moving now-\nI’ll-tell-a-story delivery, but as she got more involved with the complex workings\nof the mind and imagination of a man who was slowly working himself into a fit\nfrom staring into the eyes of an escaped snake, the narration became alive and\nvivid. That the snake should prove to be a stuffed one with shoe-button eyes after\nthe victim scarced [sic] himself into a horrible death was inevitable.\n“Miss Le Gallienne’s diction, voice and sense of timing were faultless, and with\nthe help of expert organ accompaniment by Rosa Rio the atmosphere of horror\nand fear was sustained to the very end.\n“With the new time for Horror, Inc., mystery lovers should have quite a chilling\ntime of it on Tuesday nights as four other well-known mystery shows follow on\nthe Blue, Columbia and Mutual networks.”\nFebruary 23, 1943\n“The Beast with Five Fingers”\n[LIMA NEWS: “…Probably still shuddering from the anguished screams\nthat attended the removal of an eye from ‘The Black Cat’ last week,\nlisteners will find small comfort in the eerie tale to be narrated by Eva La\nGallienne… Chosen for airing by the distinguished actress and her\ncollaborator, Mort Lewis, is W. F. Harvey’s ‘The Beast with Five Fingers,’\none of the most popular of contemporary horror stories…”]\nAUTHOR: W.F. Harvey.\nMarch 2, 1943\n“The Masque of the Red Death”\nAUTHOR: Edgar Allan Poe.\nMarch 9, 1943\nPERSONNEL: Joseph Schildkraut (substituting for La Gallienne).\nMARCH 11, 1943:\n[Cumberland Evening Times—“Today’s Radio Programs” by C. E.\nButterfield]\n“Eva Le [sic] Gallienne was forced to drop out of her ‘Horror Inc.’ Readings on\nthe BLUE this week, Joseph Schildkraut taking her place…”]\nMarch 16, 1943\n“The Happy Prince”\nAUTHOR: Oscar Wilde.",
  "chronology": "",
  "sources": "",
  "gallery": "",
  "images": []
}