Showing results by author "Black Eye Entertainment" in All Categories

Versatile actor/comedian Jack Benny had a long career (1911-1974) and was truly a star of stage, screen, and radio. Recognized as a leading 20th-century American entertainer, Benny often portrayed his character as a miser, playing violin poorly, and claiming to be no older than 39, regardless of his actual age. His radio and television programs, popular from 1932 until his death in 1974, were a major contribution to the sitcom genre. We’ve carefully chosen 11 radio episodes starring Jack Benny from our master archives for this collection.

Conceived as a potential radio vehicle for Alfred Hitchcock to direct, Suspense was a radio series of epic proportion. It aired on CBS from 1942 to 1962 and is considered by many to be the best mystery/drama series of the Golden Age. Known as “Radio's Outstanding Theater of Thrills”, it focused on suspenseful stories starring the biggest names in Hollywood. Running more than 20 years, Suspense aired nearly 1,000 radio broadcasts. It made the transition to television in 1949, but it was much better suited for radio where the “theatre of the mind” could run free.

Movie star Alan Ladd played Dan Holiday, retired newspaperman turned fiction writer and adventurer extraordinaire. To gain ideas for his books, Holiday placed an ad in the Star-Times newspaper "Adventure wanted – will go anywhere, do anything – Box Thirteen." It wasn’t long before his Box Thirteen became jammed with adventures galore. Holiday always had more adventure than he had originally sought, because those who responded to his ad never revealed all of their glorious, unusual, and sometimes sinister details until they met in person.

When real life husband and wife George Burns and Gracie Allen worked together in vaudeville, George was the comic and his wife Gracie had the straight lines. They switched their roles upon discovering that Gracie’s delivery got a bigger laugh than George’s punch lines. Eventually, they starred in a show as husband and wife, The Burns & Allen Show, which became a huge hit and eventually made a successful transition to television.

This collection contains 12 of the greatest Christmas shows ever broadcast during the Golden Age of Radio! You’ll hear Edmund Gwenn and Natalie Wood reprising their roles from Miracle on 34th Street; Dick Powell as Detective Richard Diamond narrating A Christmas Carol; Eve Arden in a yuletide comedy on Our Miss Brooks; Hal Peary as The Great Gildersleeve; Joel McCrea as lawman Jase Pearson on Tales of the Texas Rangers; Jim & Marian Jordan as Fibber McGee & Molly plus many more!

Orson Welles was an actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, TV, and film. His film Citizen Kane is ranked as one of the greatest movies ever made. In 1937, Orson Welles and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941. To help earn money to stage his productions, Welles moonlighted as a radio actor. We’ve carefully selected 12 of his finest radio performances for this collection, and we hope that you will enjoy them!

In 1935 when Phillips H. Lord created Gang Busters, the crime rate was high and confidence in law enforcement was low. Crimes were highly publicized, and their perpetrators were sometimes glamorized in Hollywood movies. With most radio crime programs dramatizing pulp-fiction stories, Lord decided to portray the procedure and practices of real-life law enforcement officers, basing his dramas on court records and police files. Enjoy these 12 exciting Gang Busters episodes in this “true crime” collection!

The adventures of Captain Midnight came to radio in 1938. Our hero was Captain Jim “Red” Albright, a World War One U.S. Army pilot. His “Captain Midnight” code name was given to him by a general who sent him on a high-risk mission from which he returned precisely at the stroke of midnight. Albright was recruited by our government to head the Secret Squadron, an aviation-oriented paramilitary organization fighting sabotage and espionage during the period prior to the United States entering into World War Two. Captain Midnight and his Secret Squadron battled enemies including Ivan Shark, Baron von Karp, and more.

Jack Benny liked to portray himself as a skinflint but his generosity as a comic allowed other characters to get their fair share of laughs...usually at his expense. Benny got more laughs playing the straight man and didn’t care if he was the butt of the jokes. With his brilliant timing, smooth delivery, and trademark mannerisms, Benny was a huge influence on the development of the radio sitcom. References to Benny’s reputed stinginess, vanity, and infirmities were expected and weekly running gags established the program’s memorable characters.

There were several newspaper-based dramas during radio’s golden age including The Big Story, Casey, Crime Photographer, Box 13, and Let George Do It but Night Beat was a cut above the others. It followed Randy Stone, hard-nosed Chicago Star newsman and his quest for the human-interest story behind the headlines. Hollywood actor Frank Lovejoy voiced the role of Randy Stone, who came to vivid life thanks to expert scripts by Russell Hughes, E. Jack Neumann, John Michael Hayes, and Larry Marcus.

The Aldrich Family was a popular teenage situation comedy that was heard on radio and seen in films, television and comic books. The creation of playwright Clifford Goldsmith, teenager Henry Aldrich was an endearingly bumbling kid growing awkwardly into adolescence. Episodes revolved around Henry’s misadventures with girls, his family and his friends. Portrayed on radio by 20-something Ezra Stone, The Aldrich Family launched as a summer replacement program for Jack Benny in NBC’s Sunday night lineup, July 2nd, 1939, sponsored by Jell-O.

Escape was radio's leading anthology series of high-adventure, airing on CBS from July 7, 1947 until September 25, 1954. The series' well-remembered opening combined Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain with this introduction, as intoned by Paul Frees and/or William Conrad: “Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you... Escape!”

Created by Blake Edwards (of Pink Panther fame), Richard Diamond, Private Detective came to NBC radio in 1949 starring film actor and crooner Dick Powell. Powell had recently played Philip Marlowe in the popular RKO film Murder My Sweet and jumped at the chance to play a suave detective on radio. Richard Diamond was a light-hearted New York-based private eye who enjoyed ribbing the cops and singing songs to his millionairess girlfriend, Helen Asher (played by Virginia Gregg). Its theme “Leave it to Love” was whistled by Powell at the beginning of each episode.

Created by Don Quinn, the co-creator of Fibber McGee & Molly, The Halls of Ivy was a situation comedy series that ran on NBC radio from 1950 through 1952. Originally slated to star Gale Gordan and Edna Best, the lead roles went to British husband-and-wife actors Ronald and Benita Colman. The Colman’s were well versed at comedy and already a hit with radio fans having played Jack Benny’s next-door-neighbor on The Jack Benny Program for years. Ronald Colman played William Todhunter Hall, the urbane president of small, rural Ivy College.

The Weird Circle was an anthology of classic thrillers from the pens of the world’s best-known and respected fiction authors of the 19th Century. The focus was horror and suspense stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Mary Shelley (among others) with the occasional drama by Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot. The Weird Circle was produced in New York by NBC and offered in syndication.

The Whistler was one of radio’s top mystery programs airing from May 16, 1942 until September 22, 1955. Sponsored by the Signal Oil Company, The Whistler (Joseph Kearns, Gale Gordon, and Bill Forman) was an ominous narrator who knew the killer’s every move even before they did. The stories followed an effective formula in which a person's criminal acts were typically undone by their own missteps. The Whistler often commenting directly upon the action in the manner of a Greek chorus, taunting the criminal from an omniscient perspective.

Created by Irving Brecher, The Life of Riley starred William Bendix as Brooklyn-born Chester A. Riley, a family man who worked as an airplane riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California. The stories were usually set at home, with Riley cheerfully disrupting life with his malapropisms and ill-timed intervention into minor problems. His stock answer to every turn of fate “what a revoltin' development this is!” became a popular catchphrase.

Produced by Louis G. Cowan, Command Performance aired between 1942 and 1949 over the Armed Forces Radio Network (AFRS) with a direct shortwave transmission to American troops overseas. Performed before a live audience in Hollywood, the weekly listening military audience was estimated at 95.5 million. Troops sent in requests to hear their favorite celebrities, and they also suggested unusual ideas or situations for them to be put into. Top stars of the day appeared, including Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Shirley Temple, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and many more.

Reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart’s character “Rick Blaine” from the classic film Casablanca, Rocky Jordan was banished by enemies from St. Louis and relocated to Cairo, Egypt. Now living in Northern Africa, Rocky Jordan owns and operates his gin joint (the Café Tambourine) and finds an assortment of mystery and intrigue while unwillingly moonlighting as a crime fighter. Cairo‘s Police Chief, Sam Sabaaya, is an Egyptian Muslim who strictly adheres to the law. Often times, when a crime is committed, Jordan is the prime suspect - forcing him to solve the crime so he can clear his name and save his neck.

In 1949, NBC brought mustachioed Irish-American actor Brian Donlevy to the radio microphones as international troubleshooter Steve Mitchell in the spy series Dangerous Assignment. Mitchell worked for an unnamed US government intelligence agency, whose boss, The Commissioner, dispatched him to world trouble spots. Enjoy 12 exciting, half-hour radio adventures of globe-trotting troubleshooter Steve Mitchell as he solves another Dangerous Assignment.