Showing results by author "original radio broadcast" in All Categories

From hardboiled to homespun, newspaper reporters were featured prominently as dramatic characters during the Golden Age of Radio in the 1940s and 1950s. Radio Spirits is pleased to bring together 15 of these classic audio shows for your listening pleasure, all digitally remastered and restored.

An orange glow peeks through the window on a crisp October night. Is it a jack-o'-lantern? Or, is it the radio dial? It's both! This collection of radio's happiest Halloween moments is replete with good old-fashioned haunted houses, costume parties, cemeteries, tricks and treats. Have fun with favorites like Jack Benny, Hal Peary, William Bendix, Ozzie and Harriet, Lucille Ball, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and Boris Karloff. This wholesome, family-oriented on-air All Hallows' Eve comedy celebration includes 12 digitally restored and remastered episodes.

Next stop: Summerfield! Join Fibber McGee's battling next-door neighbor as he sets out on a brand new life in this collection of early episodes of The Great Gildersleeve! Gildy's new family fast becomes the most important part of his life - and this bombastic bachelor quickly develops a strong sense of heart.

Lum and Abner aspire to open a moving picture theater in Pine Ridge. In order to make their dream a reality, they'll need to find an appropriate building in town, a piano (and someone to play it), plus a projector (and someone to operate it). Will the boys manage to pull this project together? Will they find the money for the startup costs? And will Squire Skimp find a way to horn in on their new business? Come on down to the Jot 'Em Down Store and find out!

Spend your yuletide with the greatest stars of radio's Golden Age! Trim the tree, wrap the presents, and deck the halls as festive broadcast favorites like Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello, and The Great Gildersleeve keep you entertained! Hark to the voices of Christmases past - including Frank Sinatra and Will Rogers, Jr. - as they bring you merry mysteries and endearing dramas.

Johnny has a way with the ladies, but will his last date be with death? For free trips and a fat fee, Johnny Dollar descends into cases of missing money and missing men. But, what can he do when the bodies are walled up, washed up, and fallen down? When the jewels and the paintings are fake? And, when everything from trucks to trout to widows are on the loose? He'd better bring his gun.

Tales of robbery, of violence, of murder - ripped from the headlines! Adapted from the long-running series of MGM film shorts, here are tales of real-life crime and punishment brought to vivid radio life! Americans have always enjoyed true stories of bad men versus good - the louder, the rowdier, and the bloodier the better - and even more so if they can include a solid moral. This series has it all! Come hear how con artists and contract killers get what's coming to them. Performers include Parker Fennelly, Everett Sloane, Donald Buka, Myron McCormick, and more.

Cases of safe-cracking, gambling, kidnapping, car theft, and murder - police across the nation are tracking small-time crooks and big-time trouble. This landmark series of Philips H. Lord, arguably responsible for the entire idea of reality-based police dramas, featured true stories that played like fiction. A novel idea for the time, and one that is still powerful today. After the story was told, and the crooks were apprehended, listeners heard bulletin style updates of other criminals at large and helped bring hundreds of them to justice.

With a crash and and a thump and a tumble and a bang, open up the closet door for another hilarious visit with Fibber McGee and Molly! Head down to Wistful Vista with Jim and Marian Jordan for 20 zany radio comedy classics! Bill Thompson is heard as The Old Timer and Wallace Wimple, with Gale Gordon as Mayor LaTrivia and Foggy Williams, Arthur Q. Bryan as Doc Gamble, and Harlow Wilcox announcing in these entertaining episodes from 1948.

Philo Vance, America's most popular fictional detective of the 1920s and 1930s, moved from S. S. Van Dine's novels onto the silver screen and later radio. The aristocratic amateur sleuth was portrayed in more than 100 radio broadcasts by Jackson Beck, the versatile actor who had previously starred as the Cisco Kid and announced The Adventures of Superman. Return to the scene of the crime in 18 classic whodunits, costarring Joan Alexander (radio's Lois Lane) as Ellen Deering and George Petrie as District Attorney Markham.

Racketeers and robbers, crap-shooters and kidnappers, hit men and hard cases - watch out! Joe Friday's on the job, and he isn't here to fool around! Join Jack Webb for 20 gritty true-life tales of urban crime from the files of the Los Angeles Police Department. Ben Alexander, Martin Milner, Jack Kruschen, Virginia Gregg, June Whitley, Stacy Harris, and more co-star as the city's cops, concerned citizens, and cold criminals.

Saboteurs and spies! Con artists, kidnappers, and interstate felons galore! They're all fair game for Special Agent Jim Taylor, steely-eyed G-Man in This Is Your FBI! Produced with the full cooperation of Director J. Edgar Hoover himself, here are 16 radio dramas of crime and scientific investigation drawn from actual case files! Firm-jawed, firm-voiced Stacy Harris stars as Taylor, cracking down on swindlers and bunco artists, bank robbers and blackmailers, safe crackers, extortionists, and double-crossers with an air of quiet authority.

Here are Western stories with an adult sensibility - complex tales of difficult choices and moral dilemmas played out against the backdrop of frontier America. William Conrad is Marshal Matt Dillon in 20 thoughtful, exciting episodes of Gunsmoke!

Actor and singer Dick Powell, after many musicals for the Warner Brothers and Fox studios, embarked on a new career as a hard-boiled tough guy. Powell got the opportunity to further flex his new tough-guy muscles in the medium of radio, starring in the role of investigator Richard Rogue in the crime drama Rogue’s Gallery. In this collection, Powell portrays Rogue with a charming lack of care and refusal to take things too seriously, all while delivering solid entertainment for detective and crime drama fans.

William Bendix stars as Chester A. Riley in producer Irving Brecher's outstanding radio comedy series The Life of Riley. Co-starring with Bendix is Paula Winslowe as Riley's long-suffering wife, Peg, and John Brown performing in two roles, that of Riley's pal Gillis and, most memorably, as the hilarious "friendly undertaker" Digger O'Dell. This collection features 16 classic radio episodes, including rare and previously unavailable selections, all digitally remastered and restored for your listening enjoyment.

Lum and Abner are facing off against Squire Skimp and find themselves in a bit of legal hot water. Lum considers several changes of profession, and Abner aims to take over the Jot 'Em Down Store on his own. Will Squire finally get his comeuppance? Will the Edwards-Peabody partnership end for good? Are synthetic diamonds the answer to their troubles? What changes are afoot in Pine Ridge? Come listen to Chester Lauck and Norris Goff in 36 consecutive episodes from the winter of 1943 to 1944 and find out!

John Dehner stars as J.B. Kendall, a reporter for the London Times who writes and fights his way through the Wild West. Roaming the territories in search of "colorful and unusual accounts", he has regular brushes with both the famous and the infamous. This 10-compact disc collection features 21 episodes of the classic adult Western created, produced, written, and directed by radio legend Antony Ellis - including the series' audition recording, starring Ben Wright in the lead role.

The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show was one of radio’s brightest lights; a hilarious situation comedy featuring a friendly sardonic and sarcastic edge that set it apart from its contemporaries. Featuring Phil Harris, fresh off plying his comedic and musical talents on The Jack Benny Program, and his movie star wife Alice Faye. The show also starred Elliott Lewis as the remarkable Frankie Remley - one of radio’s most unforgettable characters - a humorously irresponsible con-artist with an endless thirst for the good stuff.

In 1940, America was still staggering its way out of the Great Depression, and war clouds were rolling in from Europe. The upcoming Presidential campaign spotlight turned to perhaps the unlikeliest, but certainly the most entertaining, candidate of all - Gracie Allen. Politics was perfect for Gracie's particular brand of logical illogic. Join the hilarity, and the throngs of supporters, as George Burns, Gracie, and their entire cast embark on a whistle-stop tour all the way to the Surprise Party's national convention in Omaha, Nebraska.

Radio Spirits is pleased to present 20 classic episodes of Suspense, one of radio's longest running and best mystery anthology series. This collection features programs from the early 1950s as produced and directed by Elliott Lewis. Suspense was well-known for its guest star performers and the shows presented here are no exception, featuring appearances by Dana Andrews, Joseph Cotton, Richard Widmark, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Alan Ladd, Dennis Day, Fred MacMurray, Agnes Moorehead, William Bendix, Ronald Colman, Joan Crawford, Phil Harris and Alice Faye and more.