Suspense Upgrades

Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art

Today's episode is Marvelous Barastro, AFRS#81, according to the label. This is one of those instances early in the AFRS release of its programming where the numbers were out of sequence. Most of the early and mid-1940s AFRS numbering followed date order. As the decade went on, and as AFRS went into the 1950s, their number sequence was less and less chronological. This may have also been released as #48, according to some references, but I have never been able to verify that, and it looks more unlikely every time I research it.

The original title was "The Human Barastro."

Welles so enjoyed this Ben Hecht story (novelized as "The Shadow") he bought movie rights to it but never exercised them.

William Spier appears in opening scene and that is the way to discern from where the AFRS broadcast is drawn. These are the C3DS notes:

The AFRS recording is drawn from the east broadcast

east 26:09 and AFRS 24:16 Spier dialogue is “I must admit that the whole thing shook me rather badly. I’ve been…spent the whole week wondering if something might happen, something I couldn’t predict. This morning…I think perhaps it came. At least…while I was reading through the theatrical weekly Variety…”;

The west is “Since then, I don’t know, the incident’s left me pretty shaky and nervous. All week I’ve had a strange and distracted feeling, as though I were waiting for something…and now I know. It came a few minutes before we went on the air tonight, and then it was too late to send you to another story. I was thumbing through the….my copy of the theatrical weekly Variety…”

Suspense_1944-04-13_MarvelousBarastro_wOrsonWelles EC AFRS#81 UPGRADE.mp3
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The network recordings are Degoo only
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Newspaper clippings were posted previously; these are new...

Thanks greybelt

Best regards
Art

Welles was a good magician so he must have loved this..

Great show...

HELP COBALTIA!

Does anyone have this specific LP record issued by Totem? It is the Suspense episode "Death Went Along for the Ride" and we are trying to determine particular aspects of this recording.

There are some flubs in the actual broadcast and one speculation is that it they may have been edited out  http://www.45worlds.com/vinyl/album/1034us  

If anyone has a recording FROM THIS LP that can be shared it would be greatly appreciated.

This is part of our project to determine the origins of the AFRS recordings -- in this case it would identify whether the AFRS came from the east or west coast performance. But we would need a full recording to do the evaluation of the editing, if it was done.

We were able to get a copy of that Suspense LP on Totem. Details to be posted on this Suspense thread tomorrow!

Today's Death Went Along for the Ride was becoming "Death Went Along for the Aggravation" for yours truly and C3DS... and some others who were riding along with us.

The east coast Thursday performance has some flubs that make it notable, and match the AFRS recording. But then, a recording that said "Thursday" but had no defects confounded us. We still have no idea where this recording came from or how it could be a Thursday broadcast.

A Suspense mystery, for sure.

It seemed to me that if there was an edited Thursday recording it might have been done for a commercial release (this was one of those situations where a wrong premise started a series of research steps that worked out in a good way). Some of the 1970s record releases had portions of recordings edited out because it was hard to fit a full half hour onto one side of an LP. This is what I had in mind as the flubs could have been edited out as part of a general clean-up of the recording for commercial sale and the limitations of pressing records.

The show was not a Radiola release, but in the back of my mind I kept remembering that I did see it somewhere. Googling reminded me that it was released on Totem records -- see the prior post for some background. I asked here at Cobalt and on the OTRR Facebook page if anyone had it and could send a copy. Dave Lennick, OTR collector in Canada, and also a well-known radio personality and entertainer, said he had it. After some FB messaging he sent me a WAV of the file. It turned out to be the Monday west coast recording... and it was a flawless performance! (In a later note, Dave did some research and it is believed that Larry Kiner got the discs of the programs on the LP from Gene Kelly himself).

(And the premise that the show was edited to fit onto one side of an LP... went down in flames. Dave told me the show was 6% slow!)

This west coast program of Monday, May 1, 1944 has never been in any of the digital collections or tape recordings of reels or cassettes I have reviewed in this project (this is going on for 17 years now, it seems!)... EVEN THOUGH it was released on an LP by Larry Kiner on the Totem label in 1980! It turns out that Dave had even posted it about a year ago on one of the FB groups "Radio Reels." I had never paid much attention to that group at all.. I should have!

What do we have?

1) An east coast recording with two identified flubs and the Spier bellhop call;
2) An AFRS recording that matches the east coast broadcast;
3) The long-sought west coast recording with no flubs and the Carr bellhop call.

What's the bellhop call? Read on... but first...

The flubs and their general location in the Thurday east and AFRS recordings:
after 3:20 in all recordings "one armed frien... one armed man"
after 23:20 or so in network and after 21:25 in AFRS "think you... thank you..."
These make sense once you hear the program. These problems are not in the Monday broadcast.

And now that bellhop thing...

Death Went Along for the Ride is the episode that has one of the better-known in-jokes:
at approximately 20:50, the bell hop announces "call for Mr. Spier"; in AFRS recording it is at approximately 18:40.
This is also funny to us looking back on the history in that Spier would later produce Philip Morris Playhouse a few years later with Johnny the bell hop's famous "Call for Philip Morrrrissss!"
But the Spier joke is gone in the Monday broadcast! There is a faint "call for Mr. Carr" and not the robust "call for Mr. Spier" from the east broadcast. Monday's "call for Mr. Carr" is a really, really inside in-joke. Keith Scott advises us that Stan Carr was a CBS studio engineer who frequently worked on Suspense.

There's still that mysterious and confusing fourth recording with has no flubs, should say "Monday" in its closing announcements, but says "Thursday" instead... and calls for Mr. Spier.

Are you keeping track of this? Maybe this will just summarize it all so we can get on with our OTR lives:


This whole experience shows, yet again, that recordings can fall out of circulation, and a recording that had wider-than-usual attention as an LP (so many collectors bought the LPs and then traded taped copies as a way to start trading), still could "disappear."

I'm just holding that fourth recording aside -- it will just stay mysterious for now. Perhaps something will turn up that explains it all...

I can find no disc labels, nor can i find any hint that this was a rehearsal (and there would be telltale signs in the recording like hearing instructions or some chuckles in the background or the sounds of people moving about).

Now to details that are much easier to absorb...

This was the date originally scheduled for Orson Welles to appear in The Dark Tower. The schedule changed early enough for this episode and Gene Kelly to be teased for this episode. Not all of the newspapers got it. The script was simply held until the next week... but Welles was so big, while Gene Kelly is announced in the papers it's stated that Welles could not be there. I wonder if the papers would have announced Welles replacing Kelly with the same gusto.

"Death Went Along..." is a repeated script from early 1943. My guess is that Spier grabbed it from the files because whatever they had planned for the week AFTER the originally scheduled "Dark Tower" wasn't ready either in terms of production, or whatever it was, would not be right for Kelly or was specifically prepared for someone else. Spier could repeat a lot of scripts from the pre-Roma era, even though not much time had passed, because the Suspense audience was so different and larger by this time. The script was first performed starring Ralph Bellamy before the big Hollywood star push when the show was sustained.  (Unfortunately, it is one of the missing Suspense episodes).

Spier worked hard to pick the "right script" for the radio abilities of the week's star, and did the same when he needed to select a previous script for a new production. It is likely that Spier and Kelly got along well and that Spier liked using him. Remember, Kay Thompson, Mrs. Spier at the time, probably worked with Kelly regularly at MGM and they developed a good working relationship there and with Suspense. Kelly's star was rising with the public, but internally at MGM his talents were also rising in esteem. This was the second time that Kelly was on Suspense, and the first under the Roma sponsorship. The first time was in November 1943 for Thieves Fall Out, just weeks before Roma started its bankrolling of the series.

The switch from Welles to Gene Kelly was done early enough that Kelly could be announced as next week's guest at the end of The Palmer Method.

Suspense_1944-04-27_DeathWentAlongForTheRide_wGeneKelly UPGRADE-6 EC Thursday.mp3
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Suspense_1944-04-27_DeathWentAlongForTheRide_Thur EC AFRS#49 UPGRADE STILL LQ.mp3
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Suspense_1944-05-01_DeathWentAlongForTheRide_Mon WC.mp3
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Could Radio Spirits be looking to use the Radiola name again? Or is this just a way to quietly promote the current RS business when old fans look for Radiola LPs again?

I stumbled on this site yesterday when I was trying to find out if Death Went Along for the Ride was possibly released by Radio Yesteryear under this label. It's a discography of all the releases...
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The contact address is RS' current business address.


I also contacted disc collector Randy Riddle. He had a collection of OTR on LPs, but he sent them all to archive.org. They are supposed to transfer them and put them on their site. He sent me to the page they created for it [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Then I went to the main donations page and you're impressed with all the donations...
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... and then you realize "everything's in boxes!"

Randy donated his stuff in 2018 and it has not been transferred -- COVID did not help, of course.

But this is a reminder to me and I hope others that collectors are often better able to make recordings and other items available more quickly and in the right context than institutions, even one that is more cutting edge and less bureaucratic (than a university archives or others). Collectors have the combination of the media, the information, and also the processing resources (thanks to the march of technology) that would require the mobilization of multiple different resources in a generic organizations.

This is why the group working on the Hehn collection and similar ones is so important. Let's hear these programs NOW and not have them sit until after we're gone.

Keith Scott has informed me that Orson Welles was originally scheduled for The Dark Tower on 4-27- & 5-1-44, but he had a schedule conflict on April 27. He was booked for the CBS program Three of a Kind (for US Treasury) in which he was a guest with Bert Lahr and Reginald Gardiner. Dark Tower was held over for another week, and in its place Spier scheduled this new production of Death Went Along for the Ride.

Does anyone have the Three of a Kind recording?

Thanks greybelt
Best regards

Art

Today's post has not been updated for 6 years. This script was originally intended for Joseph Cotten at the end of March, but he was in Sneak Preview instead. Welles and Cotten were Spier favorites and indeed favorites of each other from Mercury Theater days. As noted in recent posts, this Welles appearance was delayed for a week because of a scheduling conflict.

Suspense_1944-05-04_The_Dark_Tower_wOWelles EC Thursday UPGRADE-4.mp3
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The AFRS version has not been updated in 6 years
Suspense_1944-05-04_The_Dark_Tower_wOWelles Thu EC AFRS#50 FROM DISC.mp3
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Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

This episode was replaced just a few months ago. Before that, about 9 years... Joe Kearns is on vacation and John McIntire is the Man in Black.

Suspense_1944-07-13_TheBeastMustDie_wHMarshall NotKearnsMIB EC Thurs UPGRADE-3.mp3
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This is the west coast version, last updated about four years ago. Kearns is back as the Man in Black.
Suspense_1944-07-17_TheBeastMustDie_wHerbertMarshall UPGRADE-3 KearnsMIB WC Monday.mp3
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Suspense was hot! Its scripts were impressing the Hollywood's producers. Spier was becoming a movie producer, yes, the young man who started in the early 1930s on radio's March of Time was going to make the big time with The Beast Must Die (it didn't happen). In the months to come, word about other scripts got into the news. The Man Who Couldn't Lose would star John Hodiak (it didn't happen) and Lucille Ball would star in Dime a Dance (that didn't happen, either). The Walls Came Tumbling Down was going into production, too (this one did make it, released in 1946; it's not on YouTube or anywhere else that I can find). Welles so loved Marvelous Barastro, it was definitely going to the screen (a screenplay was written, but it never made it). Banquo's Chair and The Visitor never got to the screen.

So many hopes...


This is the episode that started the quest to find and identify the east and west broadcasts of the series. Shadowsmom brought it to the forefront when she noticed that the voice of MiB was different on the recordings... and then it all started. We now have 16 of the Roma 2x productions with EC & WC recordings, and 50ish EC & WC pairs for the rest of the Roma run. And that doesn't even include the actions of the C3DS to identify the missing coastal recordings in the pairs via the surviving AFRS recordings. Shadowsmom pushed a little snowball down the hill, and look what it's become!

Thanks greybelt

Best regards
Art

It would have been interesting to see a film of "The Beast Must Die" overseen by Spier from that era (along with the other planned film adaptations mentioned). Nicholas Blake's story did eventually serve as the source material for the French movie "This Man Must Die" (1970), and there's a new "The Beast Must Die" series running on AMC, also adapted from that story.

Today we're updating an E-W pair. The east was last updated 4 years ago, the west was done 6 years ago. The interesting appearance here is writer Ben Hecht who appears behind the microphone.

Suspense_1944-08-24_ActorsBlood_wFredricMarch EC Thursday UPGRADE-3.mp3
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Suspense_1944-08-28_ActorsBlood_wFredricMarch WC (no day mentioned) UPGRADE-2.mp3
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Newspaper clippings posted previously; these are new:



The reel of paper tape with the complete The Rescue is still for sale. Various correspondence and hearsay indicate no interest in budging. When you come down to it, you're paying $45 a minute because there already exists a network recording of the first 20 minutes of the program, so all you're really getting is 10 minutes of missing program. So, we duly note its existence, and maybe one day it shows up.
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Side note: Powerball is up to $409 million. Megamillions is $368 million

As for something else showing up, I'm still hoping for some luck for the December 1947 Karloff appearance in Wet Saturday. I've posted on Karloff fan Facebook pages. If anyone has ideas about other places I can post or ask, please let me know. Here's the web page that explains it all. Share it wherever it might do some good.
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Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art

Today's recording is a "missing" AFRS recording. It is from the east coast broadcast as documented by the C3DS (Cobalt Dialogue Difference Detection Squad). They report:

DeHavilland stumbles on a line 3:01 “It seemed as if the tr…Sou…the trip to Southampton…” and the same flub is in the AFRS copy at 1:43.

Suspense_1944-09-07_VoyageThroughDarkness_wOliviaDeHavilland AFRS.mp3
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The network east coast recording survives... the west coast is missing. This recording was posted in the last year.
Suspense_1944-09-07_VoyageThroughDarkness_wOliviaDeHavilland UPGRADE-3 EC Thursday.mp3
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This was the last time that the east and west broadcasts were on different days. The rest of the Roma run would have both performances on the same day. In the next years under Roma they'd usually gather at the KNX studios at 5pm Pacific time for the east broadcast (for some of this period) for an 8pm Eastern hearing, then go out for dinner; they'd return for a 9pm Pacific broadcast. The four-hour difference in start time fit the patterns of life on the two coasts. In New York and Boston, people would be home and settled in by 8pm, especially during colder months. In California, settling in tended to be just a little later in local time. This would all end when the Roma contract ended... and Suspense would become an early evening event on the West coast under the Auto-Lite sponsorship. The cost of two star-studded performances was shifted to just one and the funding of the soon-to-come TV version. As recording technology changed, some stations would record the program and play it at a more advantageous time appropriate for their particular geography.

Newspaper clippings were posted previously; these are new...



Yesterday, the price on the paper tape reel with the network recording of The Rescue has dropped in price from $450 to $395.
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Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

We're getting to that time where the forum pages are over 40 and one day our thread may be gone... but it gets locked and a new one begins. So be on the lookout for that to happen one day soon.

Keenan Wynn was planned to star with Van Johnson in this episode, but was replaced by Wally Maher. We're Suspense fans, do we mind? Wally is a favorite of C3DS because he doesn't always say the same line the same way, which makes his performance a primary focal point for differentiating east and west broadcasts.

This is a Woolrich story adapted by Robert Richards. It's based on his short story C-Jag that was in Black Mask of October 1940

and was released under different names ("Cocaine", "Dream of Death", and "Just Enough to Cover a Thumbnail"). The story was adapted as the movie Fall Guy in 1947. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  It's not on YouTube but it can be streamed on Amazon Prime and other services.

Suspense_1944-11-02_The_Singing_Walls_wVanJohnson (direct to ID) UPGRADE-7.mp3
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The other network broadcast was posted last year and 11 years ago for the AFRS.
Suspense_1944-11-02_The_Singing_Walls_wVanJohnson (22sec to ID).mp3
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Suspense_1944-11-02_The_Singing_Walls_wVanJohnson (from 22s rec) AFRS#76 FROM DISC.mp3
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The C3DS reports that the AFRS is from the 22s to ID recording

The direct to ID recording at 4:04 has “Then it seemed as though I wasn’t dreaming at all….”
The 22 seconds to ID has 4:00 “Then it seemed as though I wasn’t dreaming---dreaming at all…” which is the same in the AFRS version at 2:55

Newspaper clippings were posted previously; these are new...

Thanks greybelt
Best regards

Art

Today's episode is another "missing" AFRS version. It's of Drive-In, which became more noted for its second performance by Judy Garland. But this was with Nancy Kelly, who was a very successful actress, starting as a child working continuously through her teen and adult years. Kelly was another Suspense star who worked with Spier on March of Time.

The script is by Mel Dinelli, known for many Suspense scripts, but he collaborated with Muriel Roy Bolton on this one. She became successful writing screenplays and teleplays through the 1950s and 1960s. She wrote some of the early Henry Aldrich movies in the 1940s and other works.

When this recording was discovered, the CD3S went straight to work (goofing off all day waiting for a lost AFRS recording does get tedious; they were thrilled to show off their skills and prove they were not mere mortals). As usual, with remarkable focus and precision, they found that Miss Kelly messed up. Cheers went up around the lab when the discovery was made. This is from their previously secret report, now available to Cobaltia and OTRdom:

In the surviving network recording, Kelly misses a cue at 3:37

Maher: "Never mind the menu, just some black coffee, a pot of it, and a ham sandwich, please hurry it."

Kelly: "When I…."
(Music cue)
Kelly: "When I took his order over to the car…"

while the AFRS recording is 2:33 and she reads it cleanly

Maher: "Never mind the menu, just some black coffee, a pot of it, and a ham sandwich, please hurry it."
(Music cue)
Kelly: "When I took his order over to the car…"

There's only one surviving network recording, and the AFRS version is drawn from the missing one. We don't know which coast the network broadcast recording is from. If anyone detects a telltale clue, please let us know!

Suspense_1945-01-11_Drive_In_wNancyKelly (from missing network rec) AFRS.mp3
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The surviving network recording was posted last year.
Suspense_1945-01-11_Drive_In_wNancyKelly (2sec to ID) UPGRADE-3.mp3
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Newspaper clippings were posted previously; these are new...



The net $39.50 per minute network recording of The Rescue is still for sale for $395 (with an uncirculated Bergen & McCarthy on the other side)
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The seller has posted a clip from the opening of the program.
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He mentions that it can be cleaned up using audio software. From the mild defects in the recording, that is certainly true. The net result of sound processing would be quite satisfactory, if not pleasing.

Still, it's 10 minutes that's missing from a decent copy of the recording that has been in circulation for years, along with a complete AFRS recording.

But isn't amazing how good some of the old tapes can sound? All you need is one good play captured in digital format. I haven't done much work with paper tapes, but I know that moisture can be a real problem... but this one appears to be in good shape though it is about 70 years old!

Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art

Two recordings... the first one is really completist... and definitely not a sound upgrade. It's another AFRS copy of Sinatra's appearance on the series, but this one includes the tease for Drury's Bones. The sound is not very good. Most of you will not find it a worthwhile download unless you have the completist streak that some of us have... the shrinks may call it OTROCD

Suspense_1945-01-18_ToFindHelp_wMoorehead&Sinatra AFRS includes tease for Drury's Bones VLQ.mp3
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The main attraction today is that there are two upgrade recordings of Love's Lovely Counterfeit, Bogie's only appearance on Suspense. I worked on them just this morning, even going back into the archives of original disc dubs for the AFRS recording I received eleven years ago to clean it up. But... there's a curious story behind the specifics of the recordings that was analyzed at close range by the C3DS that makes us confused, but at a very high intellectual level.

Suspense_1945-03-08_Love'sLovelyCounterfeit_wHumphreyBogart UPGRADE-4.mp3
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Suspense_1945-03-08_Love'sLovelyCounterfeit_wHumphreyBogart AFRS#94 UPGRADE.mp3
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The first thing to be aware of is that there are two network recording formats in circulation. The one that begins with “Now, Roma Wines present…” is the correct recording. There is another that begins with "Now, the Roma Wine Company of Fresno, California..." but that seems to be patched on. It would be helpful if we could say that Suspense was using one standard opening at this time in the series, but they were using both. The body of these circulating recordings, no matter which opening is on or tacked on, is the same. Annoying. We should jump into the Time Tunnel and go back to 1945 and slap them in the face for confusing us in 2021. And then go to the 1970s and find out why the different opening was patched on.

We can say for certain that the AFRS recording is from the non-surviving network broadcast. We have no clue which is east or west, but we know they are different... thank you Wally Maher!

Then, THERE'S ANOTHER DIFFERENCE... the AFRS has more dialogue than the surviving network. It may be that the network recording had a damaged disc. If so, it is likely to be the second disc. Listen to this short clip from a recording from the Hehn collection that shows how the disc change was handled when the program was originally circulating almost 50 years ago...
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Most recordings had gaps where the disc change would be. The more sophisticated collectors either spliced the gap out from their master recording or corrected it when they made copies for others by pausing their playing deck and the recording deck to position the tape properly. Whatever the case, there's a gap here. And we know from the missing dialogue that either the second disc was damaged at its edge OR the dialogue was edited out for one of the performances. If I had to vote, this kind of script editing was likely between broadcasts, and lead me speculate that the AFRS recording is east and the surviving network is west. But there's no real way to tell.

The AFRS recording has another peculiarity, but it's not something they never did before. They took a Suspense opening from earlier in the series, likely the end of the sustaining period in 1943. Then they started the body of the story without introducing the title, or (gasp!), Bogie! The end of the recording teases Cricket, which matches the AFRS recording of that episode we have (which, by the way, was drawn from the missing network broadcast for that program). AFRS editing had their reasons for what they did, but it's not clear what rationale they had. The opening is not much different than two other AFRS recordings we have that are near this date, #88 Drury's Bones and #96 Heart's Desire. Both have the AFRS-created opening.

Here are the differences:

Network 4:29 A big guy with muscles and I'm just a little guy...
AFRS at 3:57 A big guy with muscles and…and I’m…I’m just a little guy….

Network 13:17 …thinking how much dough they got and what big—big shot public enemies they are.
AFRS 10:17 …thinking how much dough they got and what big shot public enemies they are.

And here's the missing dialogue...
Network 15:02
Elliott Lewis: Yeah? And then what do we do, that’s even worse.
Bogart: Oh, no. No, that’d be easy. We’ll be seeing you.

AFRS at 11:42:
Elliott Lewis: Yeah? Well then what do we do, that’s even worse.
Bogart: Oh no, that’d be easy. Then we just take him out of here at night and dump him some place.
Lewis: Oh.
Bogart: And if the kid was to die, that’d be one less guy that had to get a cut, wouldn’t it?
Lewis: Huh? Yeah.
Bogart: Well, c’mon, Lefty.
Wally Maher: Yeah, okay.
Bogart: We’ll be seeing you.

Newspaper clippings were posted previously; these are new...


The other important part of this program is that it's the last time the series used "The Man in Black." The use of a host in mystery programs was established prior to Suspense getting on the air by programs such as Lights Out, Inner Sanctum, and even The Whistler. The latter started about 6 weeks prior to Suspense getting on the air. Abandoning the MiB was a good idea... who needs a host when you have the guest stars as the main attraction? The hosts on the other programs set up the stories, and MiB was not used in that manner. It just became cumbersome to have a persona of little consequence around.

Today's recording is an upgrade of an aircheck. The recording cuts off as the station announcer gets out the first letter of the station ID. "K" he says. I know it's a tiny clip, but can someone take an educated guess at it? The most common west coast airchecks have been from KQW in San Jose and KNX in Los Angeles.

Suspense_1945-03-29_TamingOfTheBeast (5sec to ID) AIRCHECK (likely WC) UPGRADE-2.mp3
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This is the other network recording that was posted in this last year
Suspense_1945-03-29_TamingOfTheBeast_wNancyKelly (direct to ID) UPGRADE-5.mp3
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The recording that goes directly to network ID (it's safe to call it the EC recording I believe) has a plea for nurses to help in the war effort while the 5 sec to ID (WC) recording does not. We don't know if it was planned for both and it was nixed because the show was running long or if it was planned for only for the EC broadcast.

Newspapers were posted previously; these are new...



The same eBay dealer who is offering the reel of paper tape with the missing Bergen and the full network recording of The Rescue (for $395)...
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is now offering the east and west sets of discs for The Burning Court.
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Note that the seller shows that the west coast discs are "delaminating" and clearly states that in the description. This seller definitely gives clear and accurate descriptions.

The west coast version has some delamination at the beginnings of parts 1 and 2 which affects first few minutes of each side.  There is some minor edge cracking and chip at the beginning of part 2 of the east coast version which does not affect play.

The program is circulating, but that's only since Radio Spirits released it about a decade ago. Their copy was also sold on eBay on January 3, 2010. The price was $405.01. Here is a picture of those labels. Note the difference in the labels!


Radio Recorders had the contract to make the transcriptions for the broadcasts from the KNX Studios, where all of the big CBS Hollywood programs were originating. They had a direct line into the studio. The yellow labels were for Biow Company, the ad agency for Roma. The discs for sale on eBay now were for KNX, and presumably file copies.

As for whether or not the eBay offering is worth it, my opinion is that the discs are damaged, we have a clean copy of the east broadcast. Noting that a west broadcast exists will be enough for me.

(And for those who wonder "is Greybelt related to Burning Court star Clifton Webb?" Nope. And no to that guy named Jack who does that cop stuff, too. Guess I'm still shopping at Wal-Mart...).

greybelt,

Not much to go on, but the "K" at the end of the west coast broadcast sounds to me a lot like the same announcer's "K" in "KNX" at the end of the "Sorry, Wrong Number" 9/6/45 aircheck.