Showing results by author "Hollywood 360" in All Categories

My Favorite Husband hit the CBS Radio airwaves in 1948, starring Lucille Ball and Richard Denningas Liz and George Cugat - who later became Liz and George Cooper when confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change. Set in the fictitious town of Sheridan Falls, the show follows the happily married couple, residents of 321 Bundy Drive, through mischief and various predicaments, from faked illnesses to trouble with exes.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective genius, Sherlock Holmes, first came to NBC radio in 1930, starring Richard Gordon. By 1939, Basil Rathbone took over as Holmes, with Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. The duo were simultaneously starring in a very popular series of Sherlock Holmes' movies for the Fox and Universal studios.

The Black Museum was a weekly radio crime drama produced for the BBC in 1951 and based on real-life cases from the files of Scotland Yard. Orson Welles, who was living in London at the time, was both host and narrator for these dramatized stories based on Scotland Yard's Black Museum, which housed its collection of murder weapons and various ordinary objects once associated with historical crime cases.

This collection contains 12 amazing Sherlock Holmes adventures, starring Tom Conway and Nigel Bruce.

Made as a prequel to the hit film The Third Man, this radio show was created to follow the adventures of the popular character Harry Lime, played here and in the movie by Orson Welles. The 1949 film The Third Man won an Academy Award and was an international success, called "magic" by Roger Ebert and "one of the finest films ever made" by The New York Times.

Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman auditioned for the roles of a married couple in a radio pilot for a new comedy, My Favorite Husband, based on the novel Mr. and Mrs. Cugat by Isabel Scott Rorick. The concept was very well received and within a few weeks the weekly sitcom was established. Bowman was replaced by Richard Denning and during the first season, the Cugats were renamed the Coopers, who lived “in a little white two-story house” in the bustling, small suburb of Sheridan Falls.

There were several newspaper-based dramas during radio's golden age, including Box 13, Let George Do It, and Casey, Crime Photographer, but Night Beat was a cut above. It was the story of Randy Stone, hard-nosed Chicago Star newsman, and his quest for the human-interest story behind the headlines.

This collection contains 12 of the greatest detective shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio. You'll hear Sydney Greenstreet as Nero Wolfe, Howard Duff as Sam Spade, Tom Conway and Nigel Bruceas Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, Dick Powell as Richard Diamond, Edmond O'Brien as Johnny Dollar, and Les Tremayne as Nick Charles, a.k.a. "The Thin Man" - plus many more gumshoes, including Boston Blackie, Philip Marlowe, The Fat Man, and others.

William Conrad was a big part of the golden-age of radio. Not only did he star as US Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke (five episodes in this collection), but he appeared on hundreds of radio shows during the 1940s and 50s. Here’s sixteen radio broadcasts that either star William Conrad or have him in the supporting cast. You won’t have any problem identifying his deep baritone voice!

The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman, who is best known for his Oscar-winning performance as Professor Charles Kingsfield in the The Paper Chase. After a series of acclaimed stage productions, Welles and his Mercury Theatre were offered theirown weekly hour-long radio program over the CBS radio network.

This collection contains 13 of the greatest science fiction shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio - including two episodes each of Dimension X, CBS Radio Workshop, and X Minus One, plus three episodes of Suspense and Escape. You'll be entertained by stories from such master science fiction writers as H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Graham Doar, Mary Shelley, H. L. Gold, and George Steward.

Hosted by Cecil B. DeMille and starring numerous icons of the screen, this collection of old-time radio classics includes six episodes of The Lux Radio Theatre - one of the longest running, most extravagant shows from radio's golden age. The show featured the greatest stars in Hollywood appearing in hour-long radio adaptations of their biggest motion pictures, making this lavish production a veritable checklist of many of Hollywood's best films from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s.

A thrilling collection of episodes from the classic radio show Suspense.

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 series of the golden age. Often referred to as "Radio's Outstanding Theater of Thrills," the show focused on suspenseful thrillers starring the biggest names in Hollywood.

Although "Ol' Blue Eyes" would conquer records, film, and television, it was radio that first made Frank Sinatra a star. Spanning the years 1943 to 1954, this collection showcases Sinatra from such shows as Suspense, The Frank Sinatra Show, The Jack Benny Program, The Burns and Allen Show, and more. Included is the final episode of Sinatra's action/detective series, Rocky Fortune, a low-budget radio series that he decided not to continue after winning his Academy Award.

This collection contains 12 of the greatest mystery shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio, featuring the legendary stars that made them great. You will hear Orson Welles, Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, Basil Rathbone, Joan Fontaine, and other stars in classic radio episodes from such radio shows as Suspense, Escape, The Whistler, Inner Sanctum, The Screen Directors Playhouse, and The Weird Circle, among others.

Here are 12 episodes from the greatest detective shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio, with the legendary stars that made them great. You'll hear Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson, Sydney Greenstreet as Nero Wolfe, Howard Duff as Sam Spade, Chester Morris as Boston Blackie, Dick Powell as Richard Diamond, and Jack Webb as Dragnet's Sergeant Joe Friday, plus more gumshoes like Philip Marlowe, Bulldog Drummond, Michael Shayne, and Johnny Dollar.

This collection contains 12 of the greatest Christmas radio shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio!

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 13." It wasn't long before his Box 13 became jammed with adventures galore.

Dimension X was one of radio's first adult science fiction series, and made its mark by adapting short stories by acknowledged masters in the field, including Isaac Asimov, Clifford D. Simak, and William Tenn. Scriptwriters Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts, who also contributed their own original scripts, adapted the original stories. At the start of every broadcast, host Norman Rose promised us "adventures in time and space, told in future tense" and you knew you were about to be transported from your everyday existence.

Our Miss Brooks was a highly popular radio sitcom that was eventually adapted for both television and film. It starred Hollywood film and New York stage veteran Eve Arden, who specialized in playing the wisecracking friend. She often did it better than anyone else, receiving an Oscar nomination for the 1945 film Mildred Pierce. Since her skill with the wicked one-liner was beginning to lead to typecasting, Arden signed on for the lead in radio's Our Miss Brooks to find a new image.