Book: On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio
Quotes of Book: On the Air: The Encyclopedia
As many as three characters were murdered in a single quarter-hour ILAM episode. People were killed in ghoulish, imaginative, and sometimes mystifying ways. Throats were ripped out by wolves; there were garrotings and poisonings and mysterious slashings. In the story Monster in the Mansion, a headless black cat was found in a lady's bed, and a man had his arm amputated while he slept; in The Thing That Cries in the Night, a slasher was at work in an old mansion, and murder was done to the cry of a baby, while everyone insisted that there had been no baby in the house for twenty years. Temple of Vampires was considered so vivid in its Hollywood heyday that the Nicaraguan government lodged a protest. The show was framed with unforgettable signatures: the wail of a train, the sting of an organ, and the haunting Valse Triste, a shimmering theme suggesting death. The chime of a clock brought listeners back to the hour when last they left their heroes. The theme played under the ominous recap: Twelve midnight, high on the ledge above the floor of the Temple of Vampires, somewhere in the jungles of Central America. Jack and Doc Long are facing one of the strangest, most hair-raising moments in their experience. They're out in the center of the temple, each clinging to separate ropes 50 feet in the air. There is only one chance for Jack and Doc. book-quote
