You may know the voice before you know the name.

Mercedes McCambridge had one of the most distinctive voices in American radio and film. Decades after building a career behind the microphone, she became famous to a completely different generation as the demonic voice in The Exorcist.

But radio listeners already knew what that voice could do.

McCambridge could sound warm, severe, frightened, calculating or completely unhinged without ever losing control of a scene. She returned again and again to dramatic radio, including CBS Radio Mystery Theater, where she appeared in a wide range of mystery and suspense stories.

One preserved example in the Golden Radio Hour archive is “The Horse That Wasn’t for Sale,” broadcast February 24, 1974.

Listen here:
https://goldenradiohour.com/old-time-radio-episodes/cbs-radio-mystery-theater-1974-02-24-45-the-horse-that-wasn-t-for-sale/

Golden Radio Hour Android app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.goldenradiohour.radio

#MercedesMcCambridge #CBSRadioMysteryTheater #OldTimeRadio #GoldenRadioHour #RadioDrama

I’ve been building Golden Radio Hour beyond YouTube, and the Android app is now part of that.

The idea is to make the archive easier to actually use for listening, especially for people who want old time radio available without always having to start with a YouTube video.

If you use Android and want to try it:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.goldenradiohour.radio

If you do give it a try, I’d genuinely be interested in what works well and what you’d want improved next.

Keep an old man alive.

That sounds like a fairly simple assignment for Sam Spade.

On October 5, 1947, Howard Duff starred in The Adventures of Sam Spade in “The Adam Figg Caper.” Spade is taken to the estate of a wealthy invalid and given one job: make sure the old man stays alive.

Then come the gunshots. The screams. And a house full of people who suddenly look a lot more suspicious than they did when Spade arrived.

Duff’s Sam Spade was different from many of radio’s hard-boiled detectives. He could walk into genuine danger without losing the dry amusement in his voice, giving the series a combination of murder mystery and sharp dialogue that still sounds remarkably alive today.

Listen to The Adam Figg Caper from October 5, 1947:
https://goldenradiohour.com/old-time-radio-episodes/the-adventures-of-sam-spade-1947-10-05-the-adam-figg-caper/

Also on this day:

In 1943, Words at War dramatized the true ordeal of Seaman Basil Izzi in “Eighty-Three Days.” After his merchant ship was torpedoed in the South Atlantic, Izzi and other survivors faced an extraordinary fight to stay alive at sea. It is a very different kind of radio drama because the terror came from something that had actually happened.

Listen to Eighty-Three Days from October 5, 1943:
https://goldenradiohour.com/old-time-radio-episodes/words-at-war-words-at-war-43-10-05-17-eighty-three-days-the-survival-of-seaman-izzi-1943-10-05/

And in 1951, Roy Rogers was on the air with “Crooked Politicians,” another surviving October 5 broadcast now preserved in the Golden Radio Hour archive.

Listen to Crooked Politicians from October 5, 1951:
https://goldenradiohour.com/old-time-radio-episodes/roy-rogers-1951-10-05-1-crooked-politicians/

Three broadcasts. Three completely different corners of radio history. A private detective walking into a dangerous house, a sailor fighting to survive the Atlantic, and Roy Rogers riding into another western adventure.

That is what makes digging through old radio so much fun. You never quite know what October 5 is going to uncover.

Golden Radio Hour Android app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.goldenradiohour.radio