Résultats de "Black Eye Entertainment" dans Toutes les catégories

Johnny Dollar was America’s fabulous freelance insurance investigator! Enjoy sixteen of his greatest cases from radio’s Golden Age!

Versatile actor/comedian Jack Benny had a long career (1911-1974) and was truly a star of stage, screen, and radio. Recognized as a leading 20th-century American entertainer, Benny often portrayed his character as a miser, playing violin poorly, and claiming to be no older than 39, regardless of his actual age. His radio and television programs, popular from 1932 until his death in 1974, were a major contribution to the sitcom genre. We’ve carefully chosen 11 radio episodes starring Jack Benny from our master archives for this collection.

Orson Welles was an actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, TV, and film. His film Citizen Kane is ranked as one of the greatest movies ever made. In 1937, Orson Welles and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941. To help earn money to stage his productions, Welles moonlighted as a radio actor. We’ve carefully selected 12 of his finest radio performances for this collection, and we hope that you will enjoy them!

The Aldrich Family was a popular teenage situation comedy that was heard on radio and seen in films, television and comic books. The creation of playwright Clifford Goldsmith, teenager Henry Aldrich was an endearingly bumbling kid growing awkwardly into adolescence. Episodes revolved around Henry’s misadventures with girls, his family and his friends. Portrayed on radio by 20-something Ezra Stone, The Aldrich Family launched as a summer replacement program for Jack Benny in NBC’s Sunday night lineup, July 2nd, 1939, sponsored by Jell-O.

There were several newspaper-based dramas during radio’s golden age including The Big Story, Casey, Crime Photographer, Box 13, and Let George Do It but Night Beat was a cut above the others. It followed Randy Stone, hard-nosed Chicago Star newsman and his quest for the human-interest story behind the headlines. Hollywood actor Frank Lovejoy voiced the role of Randy Stone, who came to vivid life thanks to expert scripts by Russell Hughes, E. Jack Neumann, John Michael Hayes, and Larry Marcus.

Escape was radio's leading anthology series of high-adventure, airing on CBS from July 7, 1947 until September 25, 1954. The series' well-remembered opening combined Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain with this introduction, as intoned by Paul Frees and/or William Conrad: “Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you... Escape!”

The Weird Circle was an anthology of classic thrillers from the pens of the world’s best-known and respected fiction authors of the 19th Century. The focus was horror and suspense stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Mary Shelley (among others) with the occasional drama by Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot. The Weird Circle was produced in New York by NBC and offered in syndication.

Created by Don Quinn, the co-creator of Fibber McGee & Molly, The Halls of Ivy was a situation comedy series that ran on NBC radio from 1950 through 1952. Originally slated to star Gale Gordan and Edna Best, the lead roles went to British husband-and-wife actors Ronald and Benita Colman. The Colman’s were well versed at comedy and already a hit with radio fans having played Jack Benny’s next-door-neighbor on The Jack Benny Program for years. Ronald Colman played William Todhunter Hall, the urbane president of small, rural Ivy College.

The Columbia Workshop aired on CBS radio from 1936 until 1947. Created by Irving Reis, it was an experimental platform with no boundaries for what radio had to offer. Broadcast from New York, it featured the biggest stars from stage, screen and radio including Orson Welles, Burgess Meredith, Agnes Moorehead, Art Carney, Charles Laughton, Vincent Price and Laurence Olivier. Stories were by William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, John Keats, Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, Lucille Fletcher, Carl Sandburg and Herman Melville with music by Bernard Herrmann.

Produced by Louis G. Cowan, Command Performance aired between 1942 and 1949 over the Armed Forces Radio Network (AFRS) with a direct shortwave transmission to American troops overseas. Performed before a live audience in Hollywood, the weekly listening military audience was estimated at 95.5 million. Troops sent in requests to hear their favorite celebrities, and they also suggested unusual ideas or situations for them to be put into. Top stars of the day appeared, including Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Shirley Temple, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and many more.

Mr. President came to ABC radio in 1947 and lasted until 1953. Each half-hour drama was based on an actual incident in the life of one of the men who have held the office of President of the United States. The scripts were cleverly written in such a way as to not reveal the name of the President until the last line of dialog in the program, when the President would be addressed by name. The audience was thus encouraged to guess, from the plot of the episode, which President he was. Enjoy 12 half-hour episodes of Mr. President, one of the best historical dramas ever heard on radio.

In 1949, NBC brought mustachioed Irish-American actor Brian Donlevy to the radio microphones as international troubleshooter Steve Mitchell in the spy series Dangerous Assignment. Mitchell worked for an unnamed US government intelligence agency, whose boss, The Commissioner, dispatched him to world trouble spots. Enjoy 12 exciting, half-hour radio adventures of globe-trotting troubleshooter Steve Mitchell as he solves another Dangerous Assignment.

Radio westerns were aimed at kids until 1952 when Gunsmoke hit the radio airwaves. Produced for adult listeners, the stories were grim, the deaths brutal and life on the plains was harsh. Radio audiences had never heard anything like Gunsmoke and they made it the #1 western on radio. It soon made a successful transition to television becoming the longest-running dramatic series in TV history. Join William Conrad (U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon) in the continuing “story of the violence that moved west with young America and the story of a man who moved with it, Matt Dillon, United States Marshal.”

Author Jack Boyle created the modern Robin Hood-like character, Horatio Black, known to friend and foe as Boston Blackie. Blackie was a reformed jewel thief and safecracker, constantly suspected of crimes he did not commit. Forced to defend himself against the accusations of New York Police Inspector Faraday, Blackie always managed to stay one step ahead of the cops in solving a crime. The wisecracks exchanged between Blackie and Faraday made the program an enjoyable mix of comedy and mystery. Enjoy 12 of the finest detective adventures of Boston Blackie in this thrilling collection!

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll made their radio debut January 12, 1926, as the comedic, blackface characters Sam 'n' Henry. On March 19, 1928 they introduced Amos 'n' Andy, which went on to become one of the most popular and longest-running programs in radio history. During the height of its popularity, almost the entire country listened to the 15-minute, Monday through Friday adventures of Amos 'n' Andy. Department stores open in the evening piped in the broadcasts, so shoppers wouldn't miss an episode.

The Golden Age of Radio had incredible detective shows that kept Americans glued to their radio sets. Families gathered around their living room radios to hear their favorite Hollywood stars voicing fiction’s most famous gumshoes. This collection includes Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade searching for the Black Bird in The Maltese Falcon in a radio adaptation that co-starred the original film cast of Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.

Broadway Is My Beat was a dark, gritty radio crime drama that ran on CBS from 1949 until 1954. The series was originally broadcast from New York with Anthony Ross portraying Times Square Police Detective Danny Clover. Produced by Lester Gottlieb, it was directed by John Dietz. By the thirteenth episode, the series moved to Hollywood (still set in NYC) with producer Elliott Lewis directing a new cast with scripts by Morton Fine and David Friedkin (the duo that would later write and develop TV’s popular secret-agent series I Spy).

Conceived as a potential radio vehicle for Alfred Hitchcock to direct, Suspense was a radio series of epic proportion. It aired on CBS from 1942 to 1962 and is considered by many to be the best mystery/drama series of the golden age. Known as Radio's Outstanding Theater of Thrills, it focused on suspenseful stories starring the biggest names in Hollywood. Early in the run, the episodes were hosted by the 'Man In Black' who, from an omniscient perch, narrated stories of people thrown into dangerous or bizarre situations.

Horatio Black was known to friend and foe as Boston Blackie - an ex-jewel thief and safecracker constantly suspected of crimes he did not commit and forced to play the role of detective to clear his name. His girlfriend, Mary Wesley, assisted Blackie from time to time, as did his pal Shorty. Forced to defend himself against the accusations of New York Police Inspector Faraday, Blackie always managed to stay one step ahead of the cops in solving a crime. The wisecracks exchanged between Blackie and Faraday made the program an enjoyable mix of comedy and mystery.

X Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio series broadcast from April 24, 1955 until January 9, 1958 over NBC. Initially a revival of NBC's Dimension X (1950-51), X Minus One is widely considered among the finest science fiction dramas ever produced for radio. The first 15 episodes were new versions of Dimension X episodes, but the remainders were adaptations by NBC staff writers, including Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts, of newly published science fiction stories by leading writers in the field.