Orson WellesThe Mercury Theater on the Air (July 11, 1938)

The Mercury Theater on the Air
Dramatic Anthology

Broadcast History : July 11th, 1938 - December 4th, 1938
CBS. 60 Minutes. Mondays at 9:00pm until September 11th.
Sundays at 8:00pm thereafter.

Became The Campbell Playhouse as of December 9th, 1938

June 7th - September 13th, 1946
CBS. 30 minutes. Fridays at 10:00pm.
Pabst Beer


Cast :

Orson Welles, Martin Gabel, Ray Collins, Kenny Delmar, George Coulouris,
Edgar Barrier, Paul Stewart, Everett Sloane, Joseph Cotten, Hiram Sherman, Erskin Sanford,
Frank Readick, Agnes Moorehead, Alice Frost, Karl Swenson, William Alland, etc.

Announcer : Dan Deymour

Orchestra : Bernard Herrmann

Producer : John Houseman

Director : Orson Welles

Writers : John Houseman, Howard Koch

Engineer : John Dietz

Sound Effects : James Rogan, Ray Kremer, Ora Nichols

This item is part of the collection: Old Time Radio

Author: Orson Welles
Date: 1938-07-11
Keywords: old time radio ; mercury theater ; orson welles ; dramatic anthology

Notes

The Mercury Theater became The Campbell Playhouse in December, 1938.

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Reviewer: bLUES_127 - - July 15, 2008
Subject: Dracula the First?

The above post and the order suggest that Dracula was the first, but wasn't Julius Ceaser? In the intro it even mentions that this would be the first of a new weekly series.

Four stars for the Audio Quality and the top notch dramatic quality!

Reviewer: Shadows_Girl - - July 10, 2008
Subject: What Idiot Edited a Classic?

DRACULA was the first broadcast by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the Air---and to find that this historic moment has been "edited" is just depressing.

The unedited and uncut broadcast IS available from my Windows Live Space. I don't waste time adding things to the Archive anymore. Seems they have this "in crowd" who are the only ones permitted to add content.

Everytime someone who isn't IN does it they just remove it.

Orson was the best, but this gets one star for being incomplete.

Reviewer: Peter Bacion - - November 9, 2007
Subject: Who would not agree?

For a better version of "Dracula":
http://www.archive.org/details/Dracula_322

Reviewer: yhtomit - - January 9, 2007
Subject: Dracula: spooky good time

I like a lot of these (haven't heard 'em all), but I have a special endorsement of Dracula. It's one of the things I downloaded from RUSC.com ("Are You Sitting Comfortably?" -- very nice site, vast selection) before discovering that the IA has so much great OTR; I listened to it while going to sleep on the night of Hallowe'en 2005, as a lark - bad idea! It's too good (scary) for pleasant going-to-sleep by.

The 39 Steps is also excellent, as is as much as I've heard of both The Count of Monte Cristo and Around the World in 80 Days. The recording of "80 Days" that I previously had was cut off; not sure if the download was bad or the original; I'm hoping the Archive version is complete :)

Reviewer: subset - - January 2, 2007
Subject: My first review

This was like finding a treasure. Many shows I had not heard before and very enjoyable.
Perhaps because of my poor hearing I did have trouble understanding some of the recordings or transcriptions but over all very nice indeed.
Thanks very much,
Larry