Tag: CBS

July 20, 1969: Walter Cronkite and Bill Stout interview Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein

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“This is the greatest event in all the history of the human race, up to this time. Today is New Year’s Day of the year One. If we don’t change the calendar historians will do so. This is our change, our puberty rights, bar mitzvah, confirmation, the change from infancy into adulthood for the human race. We are going to go on out not only to the Moon, to the stars … we are going to spread through the entire universe”

Years ago I pointed out that we’ve all read hundreds or thousands of pages of Robert A. Heinlein’s fiction, and yet we have so very few recordings of him speaking. That post is HERE.

This video, recorded just a few minutes before the landing of Apollo 11, features Walter Cronkite, and Bill Stout, interviewing Arthur C. Clarke and Robert A. Heinlein!

[Thanks to Donald Breese]

Posted by Jesse Willis

A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins

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A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins was first published in the magazine Household Words, April 24, 1852.

A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins

The Weird CircleThe Weird Circle – A Terribly Strange Bed
Adapted from the story by Wilkie Collins; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: MBS, NBC, ABC
Broadcast: October 3, 1943
Provider: Archive.org

SuspenseSuspense – A Terribly Strange Bed
Adapted from the story by Wilkie Collins; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| Approx. 30 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS Radio
Broadcast: June 7, 1954
Provider: Archive.org

Audiobook:

Weird Circle adaptation:

Suspense adaptation:

Posted by Jesse Willis

Sears Radio Theater: Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu [RADIO DRAMA]

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Carmilla - illustration by Dean Kotz

Vincent Price hosts this adaptation of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic vampire story. The setting is changed, moving the events up to 1922, and placing the action in Vienna. Price begins the program quoting these lines from Lord Byron’s 1813 poem, The Giaour:

Bur first, on earth as Vampire sent,
Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;

Sears Radio TheaterSears Radio Theater – Carmilla
Adapted from the novella by Sheridan Le Fanu; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 47 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS
Broadcast: March 7, 1979
Source: Archive.org

Cast:
Antoinette Bower
Ann Givin

[image by Dean Kotz]

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBSRMT: Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu [RADIO DRAMA]

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Carmilla adapted for Creepy Magazine #19 (1967)

Told as if from 70 years after the events, this adaptation of the classic of Gothic Fiction, is very very good. For more opinions check out the comments over on the CBSRMT.com page for this episode.

CBS Radio Mystery TheaterCBSRMT #0318 – Carmilla
Adapted by Ian Martin from the novellette by J. Sheridan Le Fanu; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 44 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS
Broadcast: July 31, 1975
Source: CBSRMT.com
In 20th century Austria, a young woman and her widower father are charged with the welfare of a female ward. The two girls grow up like sisters but a terrible secret in the orphan’s past threatens to tear their lives asunder.

Cast:
Court Benson
Staats Cotsworth
Martha Greenhouse
Mercedes McCambridge
Marian Seldes

And here the |PDF| of the original story.

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBSRMT: A God Named Smith by Henry Slesar [RADIO DRAMA]

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A God Named Smith by Henry Slesar

Henry Slesar was one of the most prolific scripters for the late-1970s early-1980s CBS Radio Mystery Theater. But before his career in radio drama Slesar was an author of Science Fiction. Like Alfred Bester, who also wrote for CBSRMT, Slesar was in the habit of recycling his earlier stories for the hour long anthology series (even though the show calimed to have such episodes written “especially for the Mystery Theater”). One such episode is A God Named Smith. It was first published in Amazing Stories, July 1957. And precisely 20 years later it was an episode of one of the last old time radio dramas.

CBS Radio Mystery TheaterCBSRMT #0658 – A God Named Smith
1 |MP3| – Approx. 44 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS
Broadcast: June 2, 1977
Source: CBSRMT.com
A young child prodigy creates an entire planet of his own, intending it to be a better world than earth. He finds volunteers to populate it, and establishes himself as a god.

Cast:
Russell Horton
Evie Juster
Robert Kaliban
Norman Rose

And here’s a |PDF| of the original story.

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBSRMT: The Prisoner Of Zenda

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The Prisoner Of Zenda by Anthony Hope

Anthony Hope’s 1894 novel, The Prisoner Of Zenda, gave rise to a craze for a new sub-genre of romance novels – the “Ruritanian romance” – so called after the fictional European country in which the titular “prisoner” is found. The novel’s plot, in which a visitor from England travels to a fictional European nation and, via an unbelievably convenient coincidence, becomes it’s king, was so popular that it’s echoes were felt well into the 20th century.

The 1933 Marx Brothers film, Duck Soup, takes it’s plot from the Ruritanian romances (it’s set in the country of “Freedonia”), Robert A. Heinlein’s 1956 novel, Double Star, borrows the Zenda plot and takes it to Mars, and the 1988 movie Richard Dreyfuss comedy, Moon Over Parador, places an actor in the role and places the action in a fictional South American country.

This brings us to one of my favourite OTR style radio shows – The CBS Radio Mystery Theater, which had a 1977 adaptation of The Prisoner Of Zenda – this shouldn’t have surprised me as CBSRMT had an adaptation for practically everything (the show ran 1,399 episodes). While their version gives short shrift to many of the novel’s subtleties the 46 minute running time allows for an entertaining, if break-neck, presentation of the story’s highlights.

CBS Radio Mystery TheaterCBSRMT #0639 – The Prisoner Of Zenda
By Robert Newman; Adapted from the novel by Anthony Hope; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 46 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Brodcaster: CBS Radio
Broadcast: April 22, 1977
Source: CBSRMT.com
The coronation of a new king is disrupted when the king’s brother drugs him. A distant relative who closely resembles the king steps in to take his place at the coronation.

Cast:
Lloyd Battista
Leon Janney
Evie Juster
Dan Ocko
Howard Ross

Posted by Jesse Willis