1/1/1952 Orson Welles opens the Black Museum

January 1, 1952.  On this day Mutual Broadcasting System began a new radio series, the brain child of Orson Welles.  Each episode of The Black Museum offered what was supposed to be a fictionalized version of the story of an actual item in the famous collection of crime material in the basement of Scotland Yard.  The episodes had titles like "Straight Razor," "The Bath Tub," and "A Can of Weed-killer."  You get the idea.

The show ran for  a year.  You can hear episodes of it here.

12/9/1938 Rebecca takes to the airwaves

December 9, 1938.  The premiere of The Campbell Playhouse was the first commercially-sponsored performance by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre after their infamous dramatization of War of the Worlds, and  the first media presentation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which was on the bestseller list at the time.  Welles played Mr. DeWinter, Margaret Sullavan played his nameless second wife, and Mildred Natwick was a sufficiently ghastly Mrs. Danvers.

The music was by Bernard Herrmann, who later created the scored for many Alfred Hitchcock films, not including Rebecca.

Tom Nolan, writing in Mystery Scene, gave this production pride of place in his list of ten great old-time radio thrillers.  You can listen to it here.

3/10/1939 Orson Welles does The Glass Key

March 10, 1939.  When you think of Orson Welles on the radio you probably remember his version of The War of the Worlds, which caused panic.  A few months later his Mercury Theatre of the Air had changed its name to The Campbell Playhouse (sponsored by a certain soup company) and it featured a production of Dashiell Hammett's crime novel The Glass Key.  You can actually hear the broadcast here.