Old Time radio

[likethebeer]

Red Horse Ranch: "Oh, Susannah!" 1935

A bunch of factory workers are given the day off to welcome the daughter of the owner back from school in the east. Oh, yes: the days when your boss would give you the day off to humiliate yourself and pretend to be happy for someone else. Nowadays, you don't get paid for that.

Well, they are taking advantage of it by singin' some good old songs. Maybe they're getting some cheap hooch for playing.

On the other hand, maybe these men are all happy because they know they'll get to sleep w/the girl when she gets there... maybe that's why they're singing so much.
[and much more musing while they keep singing.]

Great Gildersleeve: "Gildy is Engaged to Eve Goodwin"

I didn't know Gildersleeve got engaged twice. First time to a woman from the south named Leila, who's kind of b*tchy - acts all sweet when she is totally trying to get what she wants. She got engaged to Gildy, ran off for someone else for his money, then came back to town and never really les go of Gildersleeve. She does the same thing tonight - gets Gildy, his new fiance and another friend over to her house and tries to (as Eve Goodwin says) make him look silly and make Eve angry.

Whistler: "Meet Mr. Death"

Mr. Crane is approached by someone to put an extra amt. of sleeping aid into someone's order to kill him. Then, after the man leaves, a man is in the store.

Mr. Crane has a tough time going to sleep that night. It doesn't help when you have the narrator of The Whistler saying ominously: "Sleeep. Sleeeep. Get. some. sleep."

Well, Mr. Crane succeeded in murdering the man (for $5,000), but Mr. Crane still can't sleep. His girlfriend seems to be pretty comfortable with the whole crime thing, though. Maybe she should have done the murder.

.... Oh, part of Mr. Crane's problem is that the man in the store keeps showing up in his dreams as "Mr. Death," and he's been employed by the man who's been murdered in order to cook up the plans for Mr. Crane's retribution. I forgot when this story was supposed to be taking place - 1915. The guy ends up killing the old man and steals his luxury liner ticket... on the Lusitania!!!

The girl gets away with everything, though. Hah!

Haunting Hour: "The Southern Star"

Another story with a bad woman - this man is on a ship transporting a huge diamond and the man's wife has been telling everyone about it. "Oh, of course I haven't told anyone," she lied.

Good thing she was killed (although, frankly, her husband's the suspect to me).

.... The narrator, going over the murder, says that the man's wife had been strangled. How did the narrator know she was strangled when we haven't been told?!!

.... Well, here's a nice little trope - the happily, possibly psychopathic, morgue worker. "Yah, she's right over there in her abode - table #634."

I was right! The husband was the killer [pins gold star on her shoulder... ok, maybe just some fake gold paint, since this *is* old time radio drama, when all old story twists were brand new.]

Suspense: "Blackbeard's Ace"

The narrator is going to have a huge problem - she can hear dead people and she and her husband are going to an old house. Lots a'hauntin' in store, I'm guessing.

Yup, the old guy driving them over the house in the bayou and entertaining her with a story to make her all woozy, just like all those old folks always do down in the south.

Oh, good: her husband has finally noticed that maybe he shouldn't have brought Margo to the old crazy cove with the murder that had happened a year before. Better late than never, I guess.

Uh, no: Charles has just gone into a detailed description of how Blackbeard killed people. Guy - I think you just need to take your wife antiquing.... No, looks like he's going to continue to be completely oblivious.

But they did find a planchette on the beach, which their pirate book has defined for them. Never knew that pirates were into planchettes (although I guess they want to talk to all those dead people on where their treasures are hidden there).

Well, Charles managed to get himself killed by his wife, so maybe he shouldn't have been such a doofus.