Axiom’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

By Sam Christopher

Before television supplanted radio as the primary broadcast medium for entertainment, spoken-word dramas and comedies were beamed to the homes of children of all ages across America and overseas for our servicemen and women. Family comedies like Fibber McGee and Molly, Father Knows Best, and The Life of Riley, along with skit comedies like Jack Benny and Abbott and Costello, brought smiles to millions, while westerns like Gunsmoke and The Six-Shooter (which starred Jimmy Stewart) set the stage for the great tv westerns to come. The detective drama was also a well-loved genre for the medium, too, with great shows like Dragnet, Yours Truly, and Johnny Dollar, along with many others bringing mystery and adventure into their listeners’ heads. And, of course, any discussion of the “theater of the mind” would be incomplete without mentioning the great works of speculative fiction presented within it. There are far too many of these shows to do them justice in one column, so here are just a few to start with…

The Shadow

“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows! (Evil laugh)”

So began this radio drama about a “superhero” whose main power was a psychic ability to cloud men’s minds so that he became invisible to them. That and an evil ominous laugh that instilled fear in his prey. Beginning as just the narrator of a mystery anthology program in 1930, The Shadow character proved so popular that the series was cancelled in 1935 in order to completely retool the character (along the lines of the pulp fiction magazine that was already in production) and in 1937 he returned as the star of his own show. Orson Welles played The Shadow, as well as The Shadow’s alter ego Lamont Cranston, a wealthy “man about town”. This show also introduced Margo Lane, Cranston’s girlfriend (for want of a better word; their relationship was never clearly defined) and the only person to know The Shadow’s true identity. My two favorites in the roles are Bill Johnstone, who took over from Welles (although Welles does a very good Cranston), and Agnes Moorhead (who was also Samantha’s mother on Bewitched, among many other roles in radio, tv, and film) as Lane. However, the most interesting behind the scenes story I can think of from the series is Welles’. It was his habit to arrive at the studio about five minutes before the broadcast and read the script cold, without ever having seen it before. He said he preferred being surprised by the events of the stories the same way the characters were.

The scripts could be very inventive, too. Criminals were forever trying to trap The Shadow despite his invisibility to them. One forced The Shadow to come at him from across a bay, reasoning that he could see the ripples in the water and find The Shadow that way, and another rigged a door with an electronic sensor to slam shut if anything crossed its threshold. There were dark museums and ghostly ships in the fog, with murderous smugglers and gangland wiseguys: a perfect brew for carrying us through the darkest night for the better part of two decades.

“The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay! The Shadow knows! (evil laugh)”

X Minus One

“Countdown for blastoff… X minus five… four… three… two… X minus one… fire! (Rocket blasts off as music builds to crescendo) From the far horizons of the unknown comes transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future; adventures in which you’ll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds. The National Broadcasting Company, in association with Street and Smith, publishers of Astounding Science Fiction, present… (echo effect) X <x,x,x> Minus <minus, minus, minus> One <one, one, one>!”

One of my absolute favorite sf radio shows, this ran for nearly three years, from April ’55 to January ’58, taking over from the short-lived but also outstanding show Dimension X (see later column). Like its predecessor, this show featured great sf of the day as told by the great sf writers of the day. Among my favorites:

“And the Moon Be Still as Bright”, a piece of the great master Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, in which the second Earth expedition to Mars carries a man who comes to see himself as the last Martian.

“The Veldt”, also by Bradbury, which chronicled in grisly fashion the dangers of holodeck technology.

Frederick Pohl’s “Tunnel Under the World”, in which an advertising exec comes up with a unique method of creating the perfect focus group.

Robert Sheckley’s “Skulking Permit”, in which a colony that’s been cut off from Mother Earth for centuries is contacted by the new regime here and figures they better do whatever they have to to fit in. This is a very funny story.

There are many others I could name here, “A Logic Named Joe”, “A Pail of Air”, as well as many others I’ve heard but don’t have the name for off the top of my head. As with any anthology series, of course, some installments were better than others but overall this was an outstanding showcase for sf.

Suspense

“Radio’s outstanding theater of thrills presents… a story well-calculated to keep you in… SUSPENSE!”

Another anthology series, this one focusing not on sf but rather dramatic stories with an air of mystery to them, this show nonetheless boasted some great storytelling in the range of the fantastic. These included adaptation’s of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Curt Siodmak’s great novel Donovan’s Brain, as well as the Lovecraftian short “Black Door”, about an expedition into the hidden world behind a black door found at the bottom of a volcano in a South American jungle. Usually well-written and well-acted, this show nearly always pleased.

Rogue’s Gallery

And the last one for today is a detective show starring Dick Powell, who would go on to the more celebrated role of Richard Diamond, Private Investigator. This is a pretty straight-forward drama about a PI named Richard Rogue, except for the character Eugor, who acts as Rogue’s “alter-enemy” and introduces a fantasy element to the program. Whenever Rogue is knocked unconscious (as he invariably is in every show), he finds himself ascending to “Cloud 8” and is laughed at and hounded by the cackling sprite Eugor (“Rogue” spelled backwards) until being forced back into consciousness by said sprite. A very fun show, imbued with the easy-going, witty charm that Powell brought to everything he did.

That’s it for now, folks. To hear these and other of these great shows, either subscribe to XM/Sirius or go to the Radio Spirits website, where you can order or download to your heart’s delight.  Also, many episodes from shows like X Minus One and Suspense are available for free download at OTR.Network Library.