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Post by Eddie Love on Oct 2, 2009 19:22:27 GMT -5
I know you guys are big fans like me, how about a change of pace show devoted to great radio drama old and new? You could do a potpourri of favorite characters and shows.
I would mention, obvious picks like The Shadow, The Fat Man, and Inner Sanctum as well as what I grew up on, CBS Radio Mystery Theater. I used to love all this stuff as a kid, and back before the advent of VHS you were pretty starved for the vintage stuff that would occasionally turn up on the radio or records you could get from the library and listen to over and over. These days it's easy to find lots of free shows for download on the web, it'd be interesting to find out your favorite sites as well.
Not everything has aged well, some definitely hold up better than others. The Saint series with Vincent Price for instance is really enjoyable.
The BBC homepage offers lots of good stuff -- though they recently revamped the site and it's not as user-friendly, especially outside the UK. They recently did a really good adaptation of Dr. No w/ Toby Stephens and a great David Suchet in the title role that you can listen to piecemeal on You-Tube.
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Post by Derrick on Oct 2, 2009 20:06:57 GMT -5
I don't know how big of a fan Tom is of Old Time Radio but I most certainly am. Some nights before I go to bed I listen to XM Radio's Radio Classics Channel (164) and usually if I'm home on Sunday afternoons I'll listen for two or three hours. Here's my favorite programs to listen to:
Fibber McGee & Molly Gunsmoke Suspense Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar Bold Venture (South Seas adventure with Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall!) Have Gun, Will Travel Duffy's Tavern The Jack Benny Show Box 13 (with Alan Ladd) Phil Harris & Alice Faye Lights Out
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Post by Eddie Love on Oct 3, 2009 0:05:17 GMT -5
These days I love Phillip Marlowe, Nero Wolfe and The Casebook of Gregory Hood. There are also Sherlock Holmes shows from various periods over the last 80 years you can find.
I'm also into Richard Diamond with Dick Powell, which must be one of the first detectives to forgo standard mysteries and routinely go after motive-less serial killers. (And Dick then sings at the end of each show...)
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drewshi
Full Member
Goodfella
Posts: 102
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Post by drewshi on Oct 3, 2009 5:34:38 GMT -5
Have any of you heard The Avengers adaptations they did in South Africa in the 70s? They were pretty good. Each story was stripped across a week for a length of about fifteen minutes per episode.
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Post by tombitd on Oct 3, 2009 8:37:13 GMT -5
Have any of you heard The Avengers adaptations they did in South Africa in the 70s? They were pretty good. Each story was stripped across a week for a length of about fifteen minutes per episode. Yes! I remember listening to this one summer on NPR...and how the host of the show afterwards would then spend fifteen minutes ranting about how thoroughly evil the television show. As someone who considers The Avengers the Greatest TV Show Ever, you can imagine my consternation.... As I may have mentioned on an episode of BITD or two, one of my ambitions is to produce a full-on, regular radio drama....and it does occur to me that Skype might actually give me the best chance to actually pull this thing off.
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Post by Eddie Love on Oct 3, 2009 10:25:22 GMT -5
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Post by tombitd on Oct 3, 2009 13:17:02 GMT -5
Thank you for presenting this URL--through it I have found MP3s of these episodes!
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Post by Eddie Love on Mar 29, 2010 20:01:10 GMT -5
T&D -- FYI -- Toby Stephens -- the only actor to play James Bond AND play a James Bond villain -- is back in a new BBC radio adaptation. Saturday, it's GOLDFINGER with Ian McKellen as Auric and Rosamond Pilk as P---y Galore. The first one of these was DR NO and it was terrific -- a great take on the source material. (You may even forgive Toby for DAD...) They only keep the audio of these up for about a week, so don't miss. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rq1w3
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Post by chrisj on Apr 2, 2010 23:23:18 GMT -5
I'm also into Richard Diamond with Dick Powell, which must be one of the first detectives to forgo standard mysteries and routinely go after motive-less serial killers. (And Dick then sings at the end of each show...) Karma, that's my all time favorite old time radio show. I'm also a fan of The Shadow, Nightbeat, Philip Marlow, and Sam Spade.
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Post by Eddie Love on Apr 3, 2010 13:36:58 GMT -5
So, below is the link to the BBC adaptation of GOLDFINGER. It'll be available for a week on the site. Not as good as the one they did for DR. NO, but interesting. Lots of distracting "American" accents, including Rosamund Pike as PG. May come as a shock to those who've never read the novel, as it differs much from the film. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgxs
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Post by Derrick on Apr 3, 2010 16:07:55 GMT -5
I'm also into Richard Diamond with Dick Powell, which must be one of the first detectives to forgo standard mysteries and routinely go after motive-less serial killers. (And Dick then sings at the end of each show...) Karma, that's my all time favorite old time radio show. I'm also a fan of The Shadow, Nightbeat, Philip Marlow, and Sam Spade. RICHARD DIAMOND sometimes comes off as a spoof/satire of the whole private eye genre. One episode I listened to some time back had me laughing so hard I couldn't believe it. Fully half the episode concerned Diamond arguing with his upstairs neighbor who couldn't sleep because of Diamond's crooning. The solving of the mystery/murder was almost an afterthought as if the writers woke up and said; "hey, we're supposed to be writing a private eye show here!"
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Post by grubl on Apr 3, 2010 16:41:58 GMT -5
I've been collecting these things for years. Definitely, when it comes to really living up to the moniker "Theatre of the mind" SUSPENSE and LIGHT'S OUT , both mentioned above, were outstanding. Not only could they both be terrifying, but neither one was afraid to use silence. A brave movein that medium.
For comedy, I'll echo THE JACK BENNY SHOW, but nothing beats AMOS 'N' ANDY, but BABY SNOOKS and THE BICKERSONS are both pretty goddamned funny.
Orson Welle's DRACULA is pretty chilling when listened to alone in the dark.
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Post by Derrick on Apr 3, 2010 19:43:29 GMT -5
For comedy, I'll echo THE JACK BENNY SHOW, but nothing beats AMOS 'N' ANDY, but BABY SNOOKS and THE BICKERSONS are both pretty goddamned funny. You wanna know something equally funny? I've seen Jack Benny in movies and on television and never understood why he was considered such a comedy genius/legend. But then I started listening to his radio show and the next thing I know, I'm laughing so hard my ribs are sore. Same thing with GUNSMOKE. I never could stand the TV show. Too talky and too mothercussin' slow. But I absolutely love the radio show with William Conrad.
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Post by Eddie Love on Apr 3, 2010 21:24:16 GMT -5
RICHARD DIAMOND sometimes comes off as a spoof/satire of the whole private eye genre. ; Well Richard Diamond was created / written by a young Blake Edwards, who I always assumed brought the funny. I think he later re-used the notion of a P.I. in a musical milieu for the PETER GUNN t.v. show. There's one RD I listened to where Dick Powell starts to do his number at the end of the broadcast and has to start and re-start it. Classic live radio gaffe. Anyone ever listen to another Powell show, the odd-in-a-bad-way ROUGE'S GALLERY? Every week would feature a point in the show where Powell gets beat up, knocked unconscious and visited by a sprite-like hallucination named "Eguor" who would run down the case-so-far in a high pitched voice. Stick with Diamond.
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Post by Eddie Love on Apr 3, 2010 21:29:08 GMT -5
I've been collecting these things for years. Definitely, when it comes to really living up to the moniker "Theatre of the mind" SUSPENSE and LIGHT'S OUT , both mentioned above, were outstanding. Agreed. Also really good is INNER SANCTUM. I never realized 'til recently how much CBS Radio Mystery Theater owed to this show. Both were by Himan Brown and featured the creaking door opening. These shows still hold up as well. I hope when BiTD does there Universal horror series they make mention of the 6 Inner Sanctum movies w/ Lon Chaney Jr. These are released in a neat box-set and are worth checking out as they (and Chaney) are better than you might expect.
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