Showing results by author "Hollywood 360" in All Categories

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.

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. Often referred to as "Radio's Outstanding Theater of Thrills" it focused on suspenseful thrillers starring the biggest names in Hollywood.

Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve was a popular character appearing each week on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show. On August 31, 1941, Gildersleeve landed his own situation comedy, The Great Gildersleeve, becoming radio's first spin-off. Gildersleeve moved from the town of Wistful Vista, where Fibber McGee and Molly lived, to Summerfield, where he oversaw his late brother-in-law's estate and took on the rearing of his orphaned niece and nephew, Marjorie and Leroy Forrester.

Some might remember My Friend Irma as the movie that served as the launching pad for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Others recall a television show of the same name. But My Friend Irma actually originated as a radio sitcom that aired on CBS from 1947 to 1954. The show chronicled the daily highjinks of an extremely dim-witted blond stenographer named Irma Peterson and her screwball friends.

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.

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.

Our Miss Brooks was a situation comedy show heard on radio and seen on television and in films starring Oscar winner Eve Arden. Her skill with the wicked one-liner and acid aside had begun to lead to typecasting, so, to find a new image, Arden signed on for the lead in radio's Our Miss Brooks. The series centered on Connie Brooks, a smart, sharp-witted, lovable English teacher at fictional Madison High School.

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.

Duffy's Tavern, first heard in 1940, was co-created and written by Ed Gardner, who played Archie, the manager of Duffy's Tavern, which was a flea-infested dive in New York City. Archie's abuse of the English language quickly became a favorite feature of the show. Regulars on the show included Duffy's man-hungry daughter Miss Duffy; Clifton Finnegan, the classic village idiot, played by Charlie Cantor; Eddie the waiter, played by Eddie Green; and Clancy the cop, played by Alan Reed. Duffy himself was never heard on the show.

Here are 12 episodes of the horror and mystery series written and produced by radio announcers beginning in 1946. There were several series under the Hall of Fantasy banner, all produced by Richard Thorne. The first originated from radio station KALL in Salt Lake City. Richard Thorne and Carl Greyson were announcers for the station and coproduced the bare-bones horror series beginning in 1946. Written or adapted by Robert Olson and directed by Thorne, the stories were mostly murder mysteries with traditional endings.

In 1949, NBC brought handsome 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. Mitchell's assignment was to solve problems in record time and in accordance with US interests.

This collection contains 12 of the greatest radio shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio. You'll hear Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll in Amos 'n' Andy; Bob Bailey in Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar; Jim and Marian Jordan in Fibber McGee and Molly; William Bendix as Chester A. Riley in The Life of Riley; Eve Arden as Connie Brooks in Our Miss Brooks; William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke; and many more.

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

Jack Webb (1920 - 1982) was a popular American actor, television producer, director, and screenwriter. He started out in the entertainment industry in comedy, but achieved his first success playing the title character in the radio show Pat Novak, for Hire. His greater success came from his role as Los Angeles Police Department sergeant Joe Friday in the show Dragnet, which he created based on actual LAPD criminal case files and which ran for many years on both radio and television.

Here are 12 radio episodes featuring Jack Benny in different series from the golden age of radio. This collection includes episodes from The Jack Benny Program, Suspense, The Burns & Allen Show, The Bing Crosby Show, The Ford Theatre, and many more.

From 1947 to 1954, CBS' Escape was radio's leading high-adventure anthology series. The show's famous opening, delivered by Paul Frees and William Conrad, asked: "Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you... Escape!" This was followed by another announcer adding, " Escape! Designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure!" Many of the episodes, which included both original stories and adaptations, centered on a protagonist facing a life-or-death situation.

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.

Have Gun - Will Travel follows the adventures of Paladin, a soldier of fortune turned hired gunfighter, played by John Dehner. Paladin prefers to settle problems without violence, yet when forced to fight, he excels. He lives at the swanky Carlton Hotel in San Francisco, where he dresses in formal wear, eats gourmet food, attends the opera, and enjoys the company of beautiful women. When working as a gun-for-hire, he dresses in all black, uses calling cards, and wears a holster decorated with a chess knight emblem. This symbol refers to his name and his occupation as a champion-for-hire.

"Wherever there is mystery, adventure, intrigue, in all the strange and dangerous places in the world, there you will find the man called X!" Debonair British actor Herbert Marshall stars as FBI secret agent Ken Thurston, "the man who crosses the ocean as readily as you and I cross town; he is the man who fights today's war in his unique fashion, so that tomorrow's peace will make the world a neighborhood for all of us." Leon Belasco plays Mr. X's comedic sidekick, Pagan Zeldchmidt, who always turns up in remote parts of the world.

Escape was radio's leading anthology series of high-adventure, airing on CBS radio from 1947 to 1954. The series' well-remembered opening combined Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain with an introduction spoken by Paul Frees and 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!"