This precursor to Irving Reis’Columbia Workshopstarted out with an initial series that ran in the
summer of 1933. With most (if not all) of the scripts by Charles Tazewell, it had the avowed aim to
successfully adapt classics of the short story form into radio dramatizations. Although it was
never announced as such, the concentration of this first series was clearly on weird and spectral
fiction, with no less than eight adaptations of Poe tales, plus Kisfaludi’s “The Invisible Wound”
(which Alonzo Deen Cole would also dramatize onThe Witch’s Talethe following year),
Washington Irving’s “The Specter Bridegroom,” Hawthorne’s “The Devil in the Manuscript,”
Stevenson’s “The Body Snatcher,” and de Maupassant’s “The Horla.”
: WABC, New York City, New York (CBS).
: May 14-September 28, 1933 (first series).
: Knowles Entrikin (assistant director), Ferrin Fraser (scriptwriter), Henry
Gauthier (sound technician), Marion R. Parsonnet (director), Charles Tazewell (scriptwriter).
CASTS: Bill Adams, Ray Collins, Kenneth Daigneau, Lorna Elliott, Stephen Fox, Adele Harrison,
Garda Olsen, et al.
: None.
done later forThe Columbia Workshop—“The Tell-Tale Heart” (7/??/37), “The Horla” (?/??/37),
and “Metzengerstein” (12/??/37).]
THE COLUMBIA DRAMATIC GUILD (WABC, NEW YORK)
May 14, 1933“The Necklace” (Guy de Maupassant)
May 21, 1933“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”(Edgar Allan Poe)
May 28, 1933“A Piece of String” (Guy de Maupassant)
June 4, 1933“The Invisible Wound” (Karoly Kisfaludi)
June 11, 1933“How He Got the Legion of Honor” (Guy deMaupassant)
June 18, 1933“The Tell-Tale Heart” (Edgar Allan Poe)
June 25, 1933“The Specter Bridegroom”
The strange tale of the suitor whom even death did not prevent from
making an appointed visit to the home of his intended bride and her
parents, has been put into effective radio form. If the children refuse to
go to bed alone afterward it’s your own fault…”]
July 2, 1933“The Man With the Golden Brain” (Alphonse Daudet)
July 20, 1933“The Cask of Amontillado” (Edgar Allan Poe)
July 27, 1933“The Watch Dog” (Guy de Maupassant)
August 3, 1933“The Fall of the House of Usher”(Edgar Allan Poe)
August 10, 1933“The Devil in the Manuscript” (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
August 17, 1933“The Masque of the Red Death”(Edgar Allan Poe)
August 24, 1933“Lillie Lala” (Guy de Maupassant)
August 31, 1933“The Body Snatcher”(Robert Louis Stevenson)
September 7, 1933“The Black Cat”(Edgar Allan Poe)
September 14, 1933“The Horla” (Guy de Maupassant)
[
“…The Columbia Dramatic guild has chosen for its
Thursday evening presentation another horror story. This time it is Guy
de Maupassant’s ‘The Horla,’ which depicts the mental torture of a man
who imagines he is under constant surveillance…”]
September 21, 1933“The Pied Piper of Hamelin”
[
“…Recently a precedent was broken by one or the
other, we forget which, of the CBS dramatic programs, when young
children were advised not to listen to that evening’s dramatic offering
based on a classical horror story. This evening, however, the Columbia
Dramatic guild will offer a dramatization, ‘The Pied Piper of Hamlin,’
that is safe for children, provided Charles Tazewell, author of the script,
has not taken liberties with that familiar old German legend…”]
Charles Tazewell.
September 28, 1933“Metzengerstein” (Edgar Allan Poe)
PERIODICALS:New York Sun, Brooklyn Times Union, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Brooklyn Daily
Eagle, New York Herald Tribune, Newark Evening News, New York World Telegram, New York
Evening Post, San Francisco Examiner.
“A feature on the classic British ghost story with contributions from practitioners of the genre.
Includes extracts from various ghost stories read by Joss Ackland and Avril Clark, and a recording
of Dame Margaret Rutherford reading “The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare.” An installment of
theKaleidoscopeseries.
Included were extracts from works by Kingsley Amis, Susan Hill, Henry James, Walter de la
Mare, M. R. James, Edward Lucas White, Clive Barker, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Robert Aickman.
Radio 4, London (BBC).
December 22-, 1985.
Joss Ackland (reader), A. Byatt (speaker), Avril Clark (reader), Peter Nicholls
(producer), David Punter (speaker), Margaret Rutherford (speaker), Peter Straub (speaker).
: Unknown.
December 22, 1985“Come Beck’ning Ghost”
(KPO, San Francisco)—Listed in the radio logs for Friday, March 24, 1933 in a 9:30-10:00 p.m.
slot. (Written by Carlton Morse).
KGO and KPO, San Francisco, California.
January 29, 1931; March 24, 1933.
Carlton E. Morse (scriptwriter).
None.
January 29, 1931“Comedy of Terrors”
March 24, 1933“Comedy of Terrors”
Story by Charles Collins, written in 1866 for Dickens’…
Himan Brown (producer-director—1979,CBS Radio Mystery Theater), Elspeth
Eric (scriptwriter—1979,CBS Radio Mystery Theater).
“House Without Mirrors” (11/12/79, The CBS Radio Mystery
Theater).
???????? ??, 1939“The Compensation House”
THE CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER (WRVR, NEW YORK)
November 11, 1979“House Without Mirrors”
intrigued by another who emerges from a house every day at the same
time to gaze into the flowing river. The man, Mr. Macy, who performs
this daily ritual, explains why: It is to check on his appearance, since the
master of the house, whose servant he is, cannot abide mirrors. Wishing
to pursue the origin of this idiosyncrasy, the questioner is advised by
Macy to call at the house next door where a Dr. Garden, physician to the
man who abhors mirrors, lives. What he learns from the doctor is enough
to make anyone think twice before peering into a looking glass…”]
CAST: Bob Dryden (Mr. Macy), Paul Hecht (Man), Bryna Raeburn
(Maid), Norman Rose (Dr. Garden).
Short story by H. G. Wells, a rarecontes cruelfor this author, and one of the most gruesome
Guignolesque tales in the English language.
Himan Brown (producer-director—1978,CBS Radio Mystery Theater), Gerald
Keane (scriptwriter—1978,CBS Radio Mystery Theater).
“Flash Point” (9/1/78,CBS Radio Mystery Theater).
????????? ??, 1941“Man of Steel”
????????? ??, 1942“Man of Steel”
THE CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER (WRVR, NEW YORK)
September 1, 1978“Flash Point”
capture in words the ‘beauty’ of the place. While doing his research, he
meets and falls in love with Sarah Horrocks, wife of the man who runs
the blast furnaces. They don’t think her husband realizes what is
happening until he forces Roth to take a walk with him to the steel mill’s
dangerous areas where many others have had fatal accidents.
CAST: Court Benson (Mr. Horrocks), Felicia Farr (Sarah Horrocks),
Kevin McCarthy (John Roth).
Story by Algernon Blackwood…
June 27, 1936“King’s Evidence”
Algernon Blackwood (storyteller).
December 24, 1940“King’s Evidence”
Algernon Blackwood (storyteller).
January 17, 1946“Confession”
GrahamDoody(narrator),WilfridGrantham
(producer), Robert G. Newton (scriptwriter).
Robert Beattie (James O’Reilly), Howieson Culff (A Doctor),
Hilda Davies, Victor Fairley, Freda Falconer, Cyril Gardiner (Dr. Henry),
Stanley Groome, Mary Kenton (A Woman), Eric Lugg, Frank Partington,
Molly Rankin (Nancy), Eddy Reed, Gladys Spencer.
(KNX, HOLLYWOOD—EAST COAST TRANSMISSION)
December 31, 1947“Confession”
John Dunkel (scriptwriter), William N. Robson
(producer-director).
William Conrad, Ramsay Hill, Peggy Webber.
(KNX, HOLLYWOOD—WEST COAST TRANSMISSION)
[
January ??, 1948“Confession”
December 26, 1974“King’s Evidence”
Mr. Masri (reader).
August 17, 1977“In the Fog”
visit some friends on Boston’s Beacon Hill. Emerging from the subway,
O’Reilly walks into a dense fog and meets a strange, beautiful woman.
Together they grope their way to Beacon Hill. She enters a house, and
when O’Reilly hears a scream he follows her in, only to find her lying on a
bed, stabbed to death. He rushes away in a panic, leaving his hat in the
bedroom…”]
Himan Brown (producer-directoR), Roy Winsor
(scriptwriter).
Gordon Gould (Captain O’Reilly), Martha Greenhouse (May
Collard), William Griffis (Jeff Collard), Ian Martin (Dr. Henry).