THE DREAM
[RADIO-STORY]
Early story by A. J. Alan tells of a recurring and disturbing dream…
[CHRONOLOGY]
A. J. ALAN (NATIONAL PROGRAMME, LONDON—BBC)
[Monday—10:30-10:50 PM]
June 16, 1930 “The Dream”
SCRIPT: Leslie Harrison Lambert.
PERSONNEL: Leslie Harrison Lambert (voice of “A. J. Alan”).
EARLY MORNING STORY—“GOOD MORNING EVERYONE” (RADIO 4, LONDON—
BBC)
[Monday thru Friday—8:45-9:00 AM]
August 27, 1975 “The Dream”
SCRIPT: Leslie Harrison Lambert.
PERSONNEL: John Cardy (producer), Ian Carmichael (voice of “A. J. Alan).
THE DREAM
[RADIO-SCRIPT]
The first Boris Karloff guest appearance on Lights Out…
Karloff plays a professor who has never experienced a dream in his entire life. When he finally
does, it’s a doozy: the increasingly recurring appearance of a naked bestial demon-woman who
droningly incites him to “KILL…KILL….” Oboler pulls out all the stops for Karloff’s first guest
appearance on Lights Out, fully exploiting the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique and
developing the nightmare-invades-reality concept to an appropriately grim conclusion.
McCambridge doubles as the dream-fatale and Karloff’s girlfriend-slash-victim. Could be
regarded as an antecedent to L. Ron Hubbard’s novel Fear which debuted in the pages of
Unknown the following year. Incorrectly listed in some catalogs as “Daryl Hall’s Thoughts.”
[CHRONOLOGY]
LIGHTS OUT (WMAQ, CHICAGO—NBC-RED)
[Wednesday—
March 23, 1938 “The Dream”
[“…an original radio drama by Arch Oboler, embodying much of the
unusual technique that has been developed in the Lights Out program,
will be the first starring vehicle for Boris Karloff…”]
SCRIPT: Arch Oboler.
PERSONNEL: Gordon Hughes (director).
CAST: Templeton Fox, Bob Gilbert, Raymond Edward Johnson, Boris Karloff,
Mercedes McCambridge, Arthur Peterson.
EXTANT RECORDING
LIGHTS OUT (KNX, HOLLYWOOD—CBS)
[
April 20, 1943 “Kill”
[“…Arch Oboler brings a real thriller to the air tonight in his play titled
‘Kill’…centered around the thoughts of a man as he goes on trial for his
life, for murder. The question that arises in his mind is whether man is
prompted to kill by a force within himself, or by evil in the world…”]
SCRIPT: Arch Oboler.
PERSONNEL: Arch Oboler (director).
EXTANT RECORDING