Radio by the Book: Adaptations of Literature and Fiction on the Airwaves

247 Pages·2008·8.225 MB·English

by  Tim DeForest

Radio by the Book
ALSO BY TIM DEFOREST
Storytelling in the Pulps, Comics, and
Radio: How Technology Changed
Popular Fiction in America(2004)
Radio by the Book
Adaptations of Literature and
Fiction on the Airwaves
TIM DEFOREST
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
DeForest, Tim, 1960–
Radio by the book : adaptations of literature and fiction on
the airwaves / Tim DeForest.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-3972-0
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
1. Radio plays, American—History and criticism.
2. Radio adaptations—History and criticism. I. Title.
PS336.R33D44 2008
809.2'22—dc22 2008022968
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2008 Tim DeForest. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover image © 2008 Shutterstock
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To all my fellow old-time radio enthusiasts:
yes, we are smarter than everyone else
and it is okay to acknowledge it.

Table of Contents
Preface 1
Introduction 3
PART I: MYSTERY
The Saint 7 • Flashgun Casey 13 • The Falcon 19
Boston Blackie 23 • The Lone Wolf 28 • Frank Merriwell 33
Bulldog Drummond 36 • Charlie Chan 41 • Mr. Moto 46
Perry Mason 52 • Nick Carter 58 • Philo Vance 63
Ellery Queen 69 • Hercule Poirot 74 • Nero Wolfe 79
Sherlock Holmes 85 • Mr. and Mrs. North 91
The Thin Man 97 • The Fat Man 101 • Sam Spade 105
Philip Marlowe 113 • Michael Shayne 119 • The Shadow 124
The Avenger 132 • The Green Lama 136
Fu Manchu 141 • Molle Mystery Theater 146
PART II: ADVENTURE
Tarzan 153 • Escape 159
PART III: WESTERNS
Hopalong Cassidy 167 • The Cisco Kid 172
PART IV: SCIENCE FICTION
Buck Rogers 179 • Dimension X and X Minus One 185
Exploring Tomorrow 190
vii
viii Table of Contents
PART V: GENERAL ANTHOLOGIES
The Damon Runyon Theater 195 • Favorite Story 199
The Mercury Theatre on the Air and The Campbell Playhouse 203
The World’s Great Novels and NBC University Theater 211
Mystery in the Air 215 • The Weird Circle 218
NBC Presents: Short Story 221 • Miscellaneous Adaptations 225
Bibliography 229
Index 231
Preface
When I was about thirteen years old, the CBS Radio Mystery Theater
would come on at just about my bedtime. I would often have it playing
on the radio while I lay in bed.
I have a lot of fun memories of that show, but the best memory comes
from listening to an adaptation of “The Fall of the House of Usher.” When
it came to the climax—the part where Madeline has clawed herself out of
her premature grave and is stalking her brother Roderick through the
decaying mansion—I had to turn the radio off. It was literally too scary
for me to handle.
Within a few years, I had opportunity to learn more about the joys
of radio drama. A local station played reruns of The Lone Rangeron week-
day evenings. About the same time, I saw a long-playing record contain-
ing two Shadow episodes in a music store. I’m not sure now if this was
before or after I had begun reading paperback reprints of the original
Shadow novels, but I do remember I badly wanted that record. If mem-
ory serves, I whined to my mother until she agreed to buy it. Never mind
that I was several years too old to be whining about anything—it worked.
It wasn’t until I was an adult, though, that I began to make a con-
scious point of collecting episodes. Back in the olden days, when we hunted
antelope with sharp rocks and used cassette tapes for recording sounds,
this was a time and space consuming activity, but it was well worth the
effort. Slowly but surely, I become reasonably knowledgeable about old-
time radio in general.
When I started having some minor success as a writer, I wanted to write
about old-time radio. The trouble was a number of excellent works on the
subject, especially those by John Dunning and Jim Harmon, had already
been done. I needed to find an original approach, or at least think of some
aspect of old-time radio that hadn’t been thoroughly covered already.
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