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

Sergeant Joe Friday of the LAPD was arguably the most pivotal figure in radio drama's postwar shift toward ultra-realism. Just an ordinary plainclothes cop doing his job, and doing it with a meticulous attention to detail that revolutionized the way radio told its stories. Jack Webb stars Friday, with Barton Yarborough as Ben Romero, Barney Phillips as Ed Jacobs, and Ben Alexander as Frank Smith in this collection of 20 absorbing crime dramas!

A supercharged engine thrums to life, a secret door swings open, and the streamlined Black Beauty buzzes forth into the crime-swept city streets for another battle against the forces of urban corruption! In this collection, our hero sets himself against racketeers, international agents, and his arch nemesis, Oliver Perry. Ride with Britt Reid and Kato in 20 high-powered, newly released radio adventures from the spring of 1949 - including rare episodes!

Radio's longest-running private detective wasn't a smart-mouthed, gun-toting wise guy. He was the gentle, dignified, soft-spoken Mr. Keen. Bennet Kilpack stars as the intelligent investigator in this 16-episode collection. The "kindly old tracer" didn't get into gunfights with thugs on foggy waterfront nights, he simply solved crimes…with a dogged determination. And he was always accompanied by his dense-but-loyal sidekick Mike Clancy (Jim Kelly). Join them as they uncover secrets and crack cases.

With a quick mind and a quicker tongue (occasionally planted firmly in cheek), Dashiell Hammett's daring detective takes the case, takes a few punches, takes the dough (when there is any), and takes advantage of Effie's...good nature, in eight digitally restored and remastered capers.

Larry Thor, a staff announcer turned actor with an expressive and powerful voice, played the role of Detective Danny Clover. His beat was Broadway, and each week he narrated a new tale of nighttime drama along the Great White Way. Writers Morton Fine and David Friedkin delivered scripts of elegant intricacy that turned routine description into near poetry. Three soundmen worked in unison to create one of the densest soundscapes on radio - capturing the chaotic buzz of the New York night as a counterpoint to the music and dialogue. It was the most lyrical crime show on the air.

Unsettling accounts of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances, the weight of which carry them to an inevitable fate, are presented here by the grim-voiced Father Time. This omniscient and ominous host, portrayed by both Charles Webster and William Conrad, lends the proceedings an appropriate atmosphere of foreboding. The Clock brings you the desperate obsessions, investigations, attractions, nightmares and violence of the underhanded, the unsuspecting, and the insane.

Wherever there are spies…there are counter-spies! From wartime espionage to postwar intrigue, secret operative David Harding is on the job protecting our nation's secrets! In this suspenseful series, produced by radio legend Phillips H. Lord, the stories were works of fiction…but the plots were often based on actual events.

He's settling in with his new life and his new family in Summerfield U. S. A.—and now Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve has a new job! How does a man whose only experience with plumbing is turning on the faucet end up as the new Water Commissioner? These 16 digitally restored and remastered episodes feature Walter Tetley as Leroy, Lurene Tuttle as Marjorie, Lillian Randolph as Birdie, Earle Ross as Judge Hooker, Dick LeGrand as Mr. Peavey, Shirley Mitchell as Leila Ransom…and Harold Peary as Gildy.

International intrigue, crime, and mystery all converge around one man—attorney turned secret agent turned globetrotting investigator Frank Race! Tom Collins stars in sixteen classic radio thrillers from the late 1940s.

Meet the people who live in the Burns House—and their many famous friends! George and Gracie are back with laugh-a-minute predicaments, which are both helped and hindered by celebrity guests Marlene Dietrich, Eddie Cantor, Jane Wyman, Kay Kyser, Robert Montgomery, and more!

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.

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.

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.

Tough, yet compassionate - and a first-class detective besides - that's Boston Blackie. The infamous safe cracker turned private eye will lead you through 16 hard-hitting crime classics from 1947-48! Richard Kollmar stars as Blackie, with Lesley Woods as Mary Wesley, and Maurice Tarplin as Inspector Faraday. The race is on for our hero to capture the killers, recover the diamonds, and clear his own name!

Follow Jack Benny and his gang around the calendar in this 16-episode collection that takes you from week to week, from season to season, from holiday to holiday, and from laugh to laugh! And you never know who might pop up to join in the fun. It might be Barbara Stanwyck, or Claude Rains, or Jack's real life daughter, Joan.

Let's play ball! Or hit the track! Or roam the links! Or lace on the gloves! You name the sport, Jack Benny's a fan...and maybe even a participant! Whether he's sitting in the stands or standing in the thick of the action, it all adds up to clutch classic radio comedy! Cheer on Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Phil Harris, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Dennis Day, Kenny Baker, and Don Wilson in 16 half hour episodes filled with equal parts rah-rah-rah and ha-ha-ha!

Catch the buzz - before the buzz catches you! Britt Reid, daring young publisher, masks up against organized crime and urban corruption as The Green Hornet! Join our hero and his stalwart valet Kato for another collection of 20 classic adventures from the 1948-49 seasons, including several previously uncirculated episodes not heard since their original broadcast.

This anthology of post-World War II crime radio drama presents fictionalized crime, dramatizations of actual crimes, and programs that presented on-the-spot recordings of real police investigations. Radio Spirits is proud to present 20 adventures from 15 of the best (and most unusual) programs broadcast in the last dozen or so years of commercial network dramatic radio. Series include Gang Busters, The Line Up, Broadway's My Beat, Man from Homicide, Night Watch, and more!

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.

Phil Harris and Alice Faye are back in 20 new digitally remastered episodes - including 18 episodes available for the first time anywhere. As we join Curly and the Mrs., spring is in the air, but the show is on thin ice with its sponsor RCA Victor and its president Clyde Scott (Gale Gordon). Amid contract worries, battles with writers, family outings, sorority girls, and selling television sets, the show takes a dramatic turn - and chaos and hilarity follow!