OTR Review: Lights Out "Lord Marley's Guest"

Series Name: Lights Out Everybody
Episode Title: Lord Marley's Guest
Original Air Date: 9/7/43
Available On: The Horror! Podcast (from relic radio) September 26, 2009
Sound Quality: Good

I have fond memories of Lights Out's classic intro with the spooky voice claiming "It...is...later...than...you...think..." with the sound of an ominous bell tolling in the backgroun. It's been years since I've heard a Lights Out so I was excited to see one come up on this week's The Horror! After the introduction, writer/producer Arch Oboler appears before the microphone to introduce this evening's episode. Oboler has to be one of the most pleasant OTR hosts. His language and delivery is soft but he always comes across as genuine and passionate towards the material.

Thus particular story has the unfortunate setting of England which causes for some very strange British accents. We open with two fishermen whose accents are so completely not resembling British that it's hard to get your head around. They sound more like a bad Southern drawl than they do Brits. This pair of fishermen have come to warn Lord Marley of some oncoming danger though Marley explodes into various accusations of poaching and the like before chasing them out before they can issue their warning.

As the fishermen run off Lady Jane is informed by Lord Charles Marley that an American actress is coming to stay for business. As it turns out Madeline Kaye, the actress is there for business alright, the business of landing a millionaire for a husband! Though this is a surprise to his wife, Marley's affections have already transferred from his wife to his mistress.

The actress and the Lord go for a swim in the ocean when the sky turns black and there comes the sudden sense that there's something in the water with them... From there we move into straight horror territory.

The story is creepy and the pacing and dialog is quite good. The overall production is of high quality but that little issue with those accent drops the story by one point. I'm going with 3/5 Golden Masks.

A picture of Arch Oboler in studio with an actress

OTR Review: X Minus One "Sea Legs"

Series Name: X Minus One
Episode Title: Sea Legs
Original Air Date: 5/1/56
Available On: Relic Radio Sci-Fi Podcast September 7, 2009
Sound Quality: Good

X Minus One is the successor to the science fiction radio show Dimension X. Both series are favorites of mine, the stories are adapted from Galaxy Magazine and they capture the feel of Atomic Age Sci-Fi. In general the direction, acting and stories are more complex than many of their peers. These shows are the spiritual ancestors to such TV classics as "Outer Limits" and "Twilight Zone".

"Sea Legs" starts out well with a carefully measured script. Robert Craig is a space pilot who's put in for a transfer to Earth. Everyone from the desk clerk to the staff psych officer seems wary about him going back to Earth which irks the man. Why are people trying to keep him off Earth? While taking a hospital stay due to a mishap during his gravity training he meets Charlie Brockman, a dying "space bum" who gives Craig a message tube to open when he's on Earth.

The pacing of the story is really the highlight. Many OTR shows try to cram so much into their half hour that the stories never have time to breathe. The careful unfolding of the events here makes for a welcome change and a very entertaining listen until the over-arching theme of the story takes form. A lot of 50s science fiction falls into the whole "Red Scare" themes of the day and that's what happens in "Sea Legs". The set-up here is so good that it is disappointing to hear things move down that well worn and personally uninteresting path.

The acting, music and direction are all quite good and I feel bad giving the story any less than a 4 but due to the ending I can only give it 3/5 Golden Masks. Worth listening to but I don't imagine it's one I'll re-listen to.

Pulp Review: The Avenger "Justice, Inc."

Series: The Avenger
Story Name: #1: Justice, Inc.
Original Publication Date: September 1939
Available In: The Avenger #1 "Justice, Inc." and "The Yellow Hoard" (Sanctum Books, April 2009)

It's the first adventure of the dead-faced Dick Benson, whose cold eyes burn with gray fury at every available chance. The set-up for the story is quite grand. Benson, his wife Alicia and daughter Alice board a plane last minute in order to visit Benson's sick mother-in-law. Benson goes to the restroom and when he comes out his wife and daughter are nowhere to be found. He frantically searches the plane but to no avail, the two he loves more than life itself are gone, and all those in the plane claim that they were never there. His hysterics are cut short when the pilot knocks Benson out.

Upon waking Benson discovers that his face and hair have gone completely white. In fact his face is now devoid of expression, Benson is trapped in a permanently blank state unless he molds it like clay with his hands. This would be enough to mess with the sturdiest of folk and to top it off, everyone from the ticket counter girl on up swear that Alicia and Alice did not leave with him on the plane. Can Benson, the cold-faced man of steel, find his missing loved ones? Can he solve this classic locked door mystery? The answers await!

The Avenger was created by Street & Smith to help capitalize on the pulp heroes sensation that their own Shadow and Doc Savage pioneered. The Kenneth Robeson pseudonym, popularized by Lester Dent in the Doc Savage stories, was brought out to help sell the series. However, don't be fooled it is Paul Ernst not Dent who pens these tales, and the execution is a blend between the two popular pulp titles. The plot for the story feels a lot like a Shadow story, though the lead character and his agents are more in the style of Doc.

The plot follows raging gray eyes of Benson as they assemble a pair of agents; Smitty the moon-faced and surprisingly bright giant and Mac the tall Irishman with hands the size of hams. There's also kidnapping of various stockholders in the company Buffalo Tap & Die that appear to be connected to the missing wife and daughter.

The plot is nothing revelatory, but it is quite exciting and fun. That the locked door mystery's resolution isn't as exciting as it's concept is to be expected, that's usually the way those type of stories pan out. The real disappointment here has nothing to do with plot and almost everything to do with Paul Ernst's prose. The way he continually draws attention to the cold white death mask's face of the lead and his cold burning gray eyes gets tiring as the story moves on. These sort of filler phrases are common among pulps, whose writers often got paid by the word, but I found them far more distracting in Ernst's prose than in Dent's or Gibson's work.

For plot and characters this would be a 4 but I'm afraid the prose knocks it down to a 3/5 Golden Masks. It's not bad but it didn't have me rushing through it anxious for the next plot twist.

OTR Review: The Avenger "Death in Mid-Air"

Series Name: The Avenger
Episode Title: Death In Mid-Air
Original Air Date: 9/28/45
Available On: ComicWeb Old Time Radio Programs, Sept. 12 2009
Sound Quality: Good

Those of you choosing to listen to The Avenger expecting it to be a version of the Street & Smith Avenger pulp are in for a shock. This is the Avenger in name only, Dick Benson and his agents are nowhere to be seen rather this series features Jim Brandon, a famous biochemist who fights crime using his most remarkable invention, the fusion capsule, to "cloak him in the black light of invisibility". He is aiding in his crime-fighting by his beautiful young assistant Fern Collier. If you've read this far and have even a passing knowledge of OTR it is obvious that this is a straight-up knock-off of the Shadow radio show. Even the tagline "The road to crime ends in a trap that justice sets, crime does not pay" and the slightly tinny, malevolent voice of the Avenger sets this up as a bargain basement Shadow clone.

I wasn't expecting much from this story but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a great little story as good or better than many of the Shadow shows. This, I have since discovered, probably has much to do with the fact that Walter Gibson was responsible for the plots! From the extra material included in the Sanctum Books Avenger reprint I've discovered that this series was offered as a olive branch offered by Street & Smith to the group who used to have syndication rights to the Shadow.

This particular episode involves murder at the bigtop. A trapeze artist falls to his death and he is the third to do so at this small circus. Jim Brandon is sure this isn't just an accident, it's an intentional crime! Most interesting to modern listeners is an appearance by a Liger, Napoleon Dynamite's "pretty much favorite animal".

The story clips by at a regular pace and features solid acting. I'm going to have to remove one "Golden Mask" simply for the derivative nature of the radio "Avenger" so we'll go with 3/5 Golden Masks


Nope, this isn't the Avenger that appears here, but it is a cool Jack Kirby picture of Dick Benson the "real" Avenger.

Pulp Review: The Whisperer "The Dead Who Talked"

Series: The Whisperer
Story Name: #1 - The Dead Who Talked
Original Publication Date: October, 1936
Available In: The Whisperer #1 "The Dead Who Talked" & "The Red Hatchets" (Sanctum Books, May 2009)

This is the first story of the Whisperer, a mysterious man who wears all gray, speaks in a haunting whisper, uses a gun that hisses rather than "bangs" and has an unusually ugly face. He is also a wanted criminal and a crime fighter which is why he features in a pulp magazine being reprinted by Sanctum. Laurence Donovan (under the name Clifford Goodrich) pens the story. Donovan may be familiar to some of you for the Doc Savage stories that he penned. I read his Doc novel "Murder Mirage" a few weeks back and found it full of fantastic ideas but dull in execution. "The Dead Who Talked" is rather the inverse, there's not much in the way of a plot but the story clips along at a nice pace.

The mystery set-up is this: various electrical engineers for the Black Mountain Power Company call one of their loved ones at times when they've been witnessed other places, use a pet name that no one else knows, and tells them that they are dead. These men soon are found dead. Who's responsible? The brand new to the officer Police Commissioner James "Wildcat" Gordon wants to know!

Gordon, rather than the Whisperer, is the primary focus for this issue and he's a real jerk. He's the sort of guy who will punch out a co-worker for disagreeing with him. He demands loyalty but gives none. Really his only redeeming quality is that he appears to like animals. If you're a fan of the Hard Case crime novels, this sort of hard-boiled character will be more familiar and perhaps palatable to you. I wanted to punch Gordon myself a few times, but enjoyed reading about him all the same.

The Whisperer is more of an enigma in his own book. I won't let you know who he is in this review, though it's rather obvious. In future reviews, where the identity is revealed right away, I won't consider it a spoiler. Other regular cast members include Mayor Van Royston who cares greatly about formality, Henry Bolton the mayor's choice for commissioner, "Quick Trigger" a retired cop of some repute and his daughter Tiny. The mayor and Bolton are foils for Gordon whereas the other two are his friends.

There are, of course, numerous characters brought in for this story, including the owner of the Black Mountain Company, his chief engineer, his daughter and her no good boyfriend, a deaf-mute shoeshine boy and a whole lot of underworld types.

The story, as I mentioned, zips along at a fair pace and is filled with some quality action. The prose style is not as elegant as Maxwell Grant's but it is not as clumsy as Donovan's own prose in "Murder Mirage". The actual "Dead Who Talked" angle to the mystery isn't explored in much depth, which is a pity as it's a neat hook. In fact the whole story is sewn up rather quickly with a final exposition-heavy ending. Overall this pulp adventure offers decent hard-boiled entertainment but never soars to the heights of the Shadow or the best of the Hard Case novels. Personally, I'll decide after reading the second story whether or not I'll continue to buy the series.

3/5 Golden Masks

Another classic pulp cover suitable for framing! This one is by Tom Lovell.