CRIME CLASSICS Volume 1

OLD TIME RADIO - 13 AUDIO CD - 26 Shows

Total Playtime: 12:44:30

Crime Classics came to CBS September 30, 1953 and was a neat little series of "true crime stories". This show introduces itself succinctly: "A series of true crime stories from the records and newspapers of every land, and from every time. Your host each week, is Mr. Thomas Hyland -- connoisseur of crime, student of violence, and teller of murders. " Thomas Hyland is played by Lou Merrill, although you'd never know it was an "actor" doing the part. The great Elliott Lewis, actor, producer and director of Suspense, Broadway is my Beat and On Stage is in charge of this very intelligent and enjoyable show. Composer Bernard Herrmann duplicated authentic music of the era being dramatized, and Morton Fine and David Friedkin were the writers. Lewis and his writers collected and developed true crime stories expressly for Crime Classics.Thomas Hyland's delivery is measured and mild-mannered, as if giving a college lecture. Would that all professors were this interesting! The actors in the stories themselves are uniformly. Sensitive orchestral scores by the great Bernard Hermann, who did Orson Welles' Mercury Theater Radio show and then Alfred Hitchcock's films, give the stories sophistication and mood. So do the tasteful sound effects. There is a wry, cool-blooded tone to the proceedings.Cases ranged from seventeenth-century murder to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Each and every story, however bizarre, is actually based on fact. For example, the show on the Younger Brothers of the American West has some very interesting background details concerning Quantrell's Raiders and the Kansas Jayhawks. In the story of "John Hayes, his Head, and How They Were Parted," we hear the tale of a glassblower who blows glass perfectly and completely surrounding the severed head of a unknown deadman. Then it is placed in a museum where it remained pending identification. Thus his killers were found out by the dead man, using his head.This show is a good companion to other old time radio shows that are historically-oriented, such as Cavalcade of America, You Are There, and American Trail. For science and research, the shows Science Magazine of the Air and Adventures in Research are very good.

Information for this description came from John Dunning's "Tune In Yesterday The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio"

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SHOWS LIST

CD 1
53-06-15 (1) Crime of Bathsheba Spooner
53-06-22 (2) Peaceful Passing of Thomas Bartlett
CD 2
53-06-29 (3) Sudden Death of Col. James Fisk
53-07-06 (4) Shrapnelled Body of Charles Drew
CD 3
53-07-13 (5) The Deed of John White Webster
53-07-20 (6) The Death of a Picture Hanger
CD 4
53-07-27 (7) The Final Day of General Ketchum
53-08-03 (8) Mr. Thrower's Hammer
CD 5
53-08-10 (9) The Axe & the Droot Family
53-08-17 (10) The Incredible Trial of Laura D. Fair
CD 6
53-08-24 (11) The Alsop Family
53-08-31 (12) Your Loving Son, Nero
CD 7
53-09-07 (13) The Torment of Henrietta Robinson
53-09-30 (14) The Bloody Banks of Fall River
CD 8
3-10-07 (15) The Hangman & William Palmer
53-10-14 (16) Arsenic Cake Of Madame La farge
CD 9
53-10-21 (17) Billy Bonny Bloodletter
53-10-28 (18) John Hayes
CD 10
53-11-04 (19) Raschi Among The Crocodiles
53-11-11 (20) Blackbeard's Fourteenth Wife
CD 11
53-11-18 (21) The Triangle on the Round Table
53-11-25 (22) Killing Story of William Corder
CD 12
53-12-02 (23) If a Body Need a Body
53-12-09 (24) The Assasination of Abraham Lincoln
CD 13
53-12-16 (25) John & Judith
53-12-30 (26) Coyle & Richardson