THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO
[SHORT-STORY]
Edgar Allan Poe story, one of his more adaptable to the dramatic medium…
[Norman Kraeft, The Garfieldian, December 26, 1946] “On the dramatic front, chilling and
sinister Sydney Greenstreet uncorks a cask of horror in a dramatization of Poe’s The Cask of
Amontillado (Decca, DA-479). In all honesty, though, we must confess that Poe’s narrative still
gives us a bigger bang than do the dramatic versions. By overworking horror, the cast has turned
the basement scene into a rather ludicrous Hollywood chase, rather than retaining Poe’s subtle
and horrible psychological tension.”
[November 18, 1931] “ ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ Edgar Allen Poe’s weird [sic] story, will be
‘radio dramatized’ tonight by the Eno Crime Club… The tale deals with a terrible revenge…”
[Program log]
ORIGINATION: Various.
DURATION: Various.
PERSONNEL: Himan Brown (producer-director—1975, CBS Radio Mystery Theater), Georgia
Fifield (director—1933, KNX), Nick Fisher (scriptwriter—1982, Thirty-Minute Theatre), George
Lowthar (scriptwriter—1975, CBS Radio Mystery Theatre), Helen Norris (scriptwriter—1933,
KNX), Yuri Rasovsky (scriptwriter, director—1975, National Radio Theater).
CAST [1933, KNX]: Stuart Buchanan, John Coates, Georgia Fifield, Gale Gordon.
CAST [1937, Sunday Night Party]: Claude Rains, et al.
CAST [1945, Molle Mystery Theatre]: Berry Kroeger, et al.
CAST [1982, Thirty-Minute Theatre]: Geoffrey Collins, Miranda Forbes, David March.
EXTANT RECORDINGS:
[CHRONOLOGY]
POE’S TALES (WBZ, BOSTON)
[Friday—8:30-9:00 PM]
July 15, 1932 “The Cask of Amontillado”
SHORT STORIES FROM LIFE (KHJ, LOS ANGELES)
[Sunday—2:30-3:00 PM]
July 24, 1932 “The Cask of Amontillado”
[“…Prof. Lindsley…”]
(KNX, HOLLYWOOD)
[Wednesday—8:30-9:00 PM]
March 8, 1933 “An Excellent Jest”
[“…The play is a dramatization by Helen Norris of Edgar Allan Poe’s
story, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’…”]
THE COLUMBIA DRAMATIC GUILD (WABC, NEW YORK—CBS)
[Thursday—8:30-9:00 PM]
July 20, 1933 “The Cask of Amontillado”
[Sunday—10:30-11:00 PM]
November 19, 1934 “The Cask of Amontillado”
[“…The CBS Dramatic Guild is repeating Edgar Allen Poe’s thriller…”]
December 2, 1934 “The Cask of Amontillado”
(WAAF, CHICAGO)
[Sunday—3:30-3:45 PM]
December 16, 1934 “The Cask of Amontillado”
THE KPRC DRAMATIC PLAYERS (KPRC, HOUSTON)
[Saturday—9:00-9:30 PM]
January 5, 1935 “The Cask of Amontillado”
(WBZ, BOSTON)
[Wednesday—11:30 PM-12:00 MIDNIGHT)
January 16, 1935 “The Cask of Amontillado”
THE MYSTERY PLAYERS (KYA, SAN FRANCISCO)
[
March 2, 1935 “The Cask of Amontillado”
ADVENTURES IN LITERATURE (KNX, HOLLYWOOD)
[
April 28, 1935 “The Cask of Amontillado”
(NORTHERN IRELAND—BBC)
[Saturday—7:30-8:00 PM]
September 28, 1935 “The Cask of Amontillado”
[“…read by Raymond Glendinning…”]
THE BLACK CHAPEL (KNX, HOLLYWOOD)
[Saturday—11:45 PM-12:00 MIDNIGHT]
November 28, 1936 “The Revenge of Fortunato”
[“…a spine-chilling tale of Italy’s catacombs…”]
POE’S TALES (WFIL, PHILADELPHIA)
[Tuesday—10:30-11:00 PM]
March 23, 1937 “The Cask of Amontillado”
SUNDAY NIGHT PARTY (WEAF, NEW YORK—NBC-RED)
[Sunday—10:00-11:00 PM]
July 18, 1937 “The Cask of Amontillado”
BLACK NIGHT (WBAP, FORT WORTH)
[Friday—10:30-11:00 PM]
November 12, 1937 “The Cask of Amontillado”
[“…The scene is laid in Rome at the height of the Carnival season.
Suspecting his beautiful wife of infidelity with an Italian fortune seeker,
an American husband takes revenge in a way that only a writer like Poe
could imagine. The decaying bones of the dead Christians buried in the
catacombs beneath a river serve the revengeful husband for a wine cellar
and it is there that he supposedly has stored the cask of rare old
Amontillado…”]
N.T.S.T.C. PROGRAM (WFAA, DALLAS)
[
February 11, 1939 “The Cask of Amontillado”
ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT (KFI, LOS ANGELES)
[Monday—9:00-9:30 PM]
April 8, 1940 “The Cask of Amontillado”
(WILL, URBANA)
[Tuesday—
September 1, 1942 “The Cask of Amontillado”
THE KATE SMITH HOUR (WABC, NEW YORK—CBS)
[Friday—8:00-8:30 PM]
January 8, 1943 “The Cask of Amontillado”
[“…Kate Smith will present the first of her new half hour Variety
programs when she has as her guest artist deep- voiced Peter Lorre,
bogey man of the screen… Lorre, the man with the sepulchral voice, will
be starred in a radio adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s famous story. It tells
the diabolical plot of a man who lures a supposed friend into a wine
cellar, secretly intent on murder…”]
STORIES BY OLMSTED (WMAQ, CHICAGO—NBC-RED)
[Tuesday—10:45-11:00 PM
April 13, 1943 “The Cask of Amontillado”
THE WEIRD CIRCLE (NBC DISC SERIES)
Circa 1944 “The Cask of Amontillado”
MOLLE MYSTERY THEATRE (WEAF, NEW YORK—NBC)
[
April 24, 1945 “The Cask of Amontillado”
MY FAVORITE STORY (KNX, HOLLYWOOD)
[Saturday—5:15-5:30 PM]
January 19, 1946 “The Cask of Amontillado”
TALES OF THE SUPERNATURAL (WWDC, WASHINGTON)
[Sunday—11:30-11:45 PM]
January 20, 1946 “The Cask of Amontillado”
APPOINTMENT WITH FEAR (HOME SERVICE, LONDON—BBC)
[Tuesday—9:30-10:00 PM]
April 9, 1946 “The Cask of Amontillado”
THE HALL OF FANTASY (KALL, SALT LAKE CITY)
[Sunday—8:30-9:00 PM
February 23, 1947 “The Cask of Amontillado”
(KSMO, SAN MATEO)
[Monday—11:15-11:30 AM]
January 5, 1948 “The Cask of Amontillado”
(WWGC, GETTYSBURG)
[Thursday—9:00-9:30 PM]
October 7, 1948 “The Cask of Amontillado”
THE NBC UNIVERSITY THEATER (WEAF, NEW YORK—NBC)
[Sunday—3:30-4:30 PM]
March 6, 1949 “Noseology” / “The Cask of Amontillado” / “The Fall of the House of
Usher”
[“…the Univesity Theater will present a departure from its usual plan of
dramatizing novels, and will present three of Edgar Allen Poe’s short
stories… Joseph Schildkraut of film and stage prominence will be the
narrator…”]
THE HALL OF FANTASY (WGN, CHICAGO)
[Saturday—2:30-3:00 PM]
December 10, 1949 “The Cask of Amontillado”
(WCFM, WASHINGTON, D.C.)
[Thursday—9:30-10:00 PM]
March 2, 1950 “The Tell-Tale Heart” / “The Cask of Amontillado”
[“…Dramatization by local students…”]
THE HALL OF FANTASY (WGN, CHICAGO)
[Monday—8:00-8:30 PM]
May 1, 1950 “The Cask of Amontillado”
[Monday—7:30-8:00 PM
January 19, 1953 “The Cask of Amontillado”
ABC MYSTERY TIME—“MYSTERY CLASSICS” (WABC, NEW YORK—ABC)
[Thursday—7:30-7:55 PM]
April 19, 1957 “The Cask of Amontillado”
PLAYHOUSE OF WORLD FAMOUS AUTHORS (ARTRANSA, SYDNEY)
Circa 1960s “The Cask of Amontillado”
EXPERIMENT IN STEREOPHONY (NETWORK THREE, LONDON—BBC)
[Saturday—10:15-11:15 AM]
March 11, 1961 “The Cask of Amontillado”
OMAR SHAPLI READS EDGAR ALLAN POE (WRVR, NEW YORK)
[Tuesday-Friday—11:30 PM-12:00 MIDNIGHT)
June 3, 1966 “The Cask of Amontillado”
THE CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATRE (WRVR, NEW YORK)
[???day—10:07-11:00 PM]
January 12, 1975 “The Cask of Amontillado”
[“…Fortunato Bellini, to whom vineyard owner Arno Montresor is deeply
in debt, demands from Montresor a cask of Amontillado wine and
payment of his debt. Montresor, who has borne a thousand insults from
Bellini as best he is able, can find no Amontillado, nor can he pay what he
owes the heartless creditor…”]
CAST: Robert Dryden (Fortunato Bellin), Leon Janney (Inspector Murdero),
Richard Kiley (Arno Montresor), Roberta Maxwell (Isabella), Francis Sternhagen
(Margarita).
NATIONAL RADIO THEATER
Circa 1975 “The Cask of Amontillado”
HALLOWEEN HORRORTHON WITH JOHN CARRADINE (DISC SERIES ON KPAC,
PORT ARTHUR)
[Sunday—6:30-7:00 PM]
October 30, 1977 “The Cask of Amontillado”
THIRTY-MINUTE THEATRE (RADIO 4, LONDON)
[Saturday—2:05-2:35 PM]
December 4, 1982 “The Cask of Amontillado”
A BOOK AT BEDTIME (RADIO 4, LONDON)
[Tuesday—11:00-11:15 PM]
December 1, 1983 “Three Stories by Edgar Allan Poe—[2] The Cask of Amontillado”
EDGAR ALLAN POE’S GOTHIC TALES (RADIO 2, LONDON)
[Thursday—11:45 PM-12:00 MIDNIGHT]
December 25, 2003 “The Cask of Amontillado”