Fear You Can Hear, Volume II: 31 More Scary Old-Time Radio Episodes for Halloween

Photo by Everett, 1930s.

It’s that time of the year again. A season for cozy sweaters, hot cocoa, flame-colored leaves, and—my favorite part—ghost stories.

Last year, I put together a list of 31 scary radio episodes. I’m grateful to those of you who enthusiastically shared it!

So, this October I’ve sifted through audio archives again and put together a totally new list: 31 more spooky radio episodes for you to enjoy.

In our seen-it-all era, it’s inspiring for me to discover that so many other people gravitate towards radio’s subtle storytelling.

Macabre masterworks of cinema often harness the power of the unseen. As Fritz Lang described the offscreen child murder in M (1931), “The violence is in your imagination… by not showing it, I force you as spectators to think about the most frightening thoughts you can imagine.”

Radio horror, by the very nature of the medium, possesses this alarming power to hijack your mind’s eye, to tap into your worst fears. It preys upon your imagination, holding your senses hostage. I love it.

Old-time radio addicts will notice that many top chillers, like “The Thing on the Fourble Board” and “The House in Cypress Canyon,” are conspicuously absent from this list. That’s because I included them in last year’s “Fear You Can Hear” post.

This year I got to dig deeper and share some episodes that I consider underrated, along with a few beloved creepers. These are in rough chronological order by the date of the oldest episode I selected from a given series.

Since this is a film blog, all of the images I’ve included here for ambiance are stills or screenshots from classic movies. Can you identify them all?

Cuddle up under a blanket and prepare for shudders!

Update (10/4/16): I was made aware of a 2 episodes that weren’t playing. This was due to special characters in the URLs that were creating problems. I’ve found alternate URLs and they’re working now. Thanks for your patience!

1. “The Hairy Thing” – The Witch’s Tale – Aired on September 26, 1932
We can all thank The Witch’s Tale and its creator Alonzo Deen Cole for ushering in the grand tradition of radio horror. Only a small percentage of its original episodes survive; some seem creaky today, but a few retain their original spark of spookiness.

In this standout early episode, a plucky nurse inherits an old house—on the condition that she sleep there every night for a year. Alone. In a certain room. Okay, you’ve totally heard that premise before, but the unusual supernatural entity that creeps by night in this tale might still send chills up your spine.

2. “The Gypsy’s Hand” – The Witch’s Tale – April 5, 1934
A doctor amputates the infected hand of a world-famous pianist who promptly dies of sorrow—and seeks revenge beyond the grave. A variation of “The Beast with Five Fingers,” this story begins with a stomach-churning operating scene, then works its way up to a crescendo of blood-curdling screams.

3. “Knock at the Door” – Lights Out! – December 15, 1942
Our narrator, a hardboiled dame if ever there was one, wanted the easy life. She had a plan. Marry a chump. Kill his mother. Enjoy her money. But our heroine didn’t bargain for momma’s willpower—so strong that she’d even crawl out of her watery grave to protect her not-so-bright baby boy.

4. “The Meteor Man” – Lights Out! – December 22, 1942
A professor brings a meteorite into his home to examine it. Little does he know that the rock from outer space carried a passenger to earth—and a hostile one at that. (The lead actors’ accents come and go, but if you can get past that, this episode contains some first-rate material from Arch Oboler.)

5. “Death Robbery” – Lights Out! – July 16, 1947
When will fictional scientists learn that reanimating corpses is not a great idea? When it stops being entertaining, I suppose. And this episode certainly is entertaining. Boris Karloff plays a mad scientist who seeks to vanquish death. When tragedy strikes, he uses a loved one as his human guinea pig with calamitous consequences.

6. “The Diary of Sophronia Winters” – Suspense – April 27, 1943
Agnes Moorehead could make the phone book sound menacing. When Suspense matched Moorehead with macabre scripts by radio writer Lucille Fletcher, the resultant shows are white-knuckle affairs. “The Diary of Sophronia Winters” is an ambiguous addition to the “women in peril” sub-genre of film and radio from the 1940s. Is it a ghost story? A psychological thriller? A hallucination? Listen and decide for yourself.

7. “Narrative About Clarence” – Suspense – March 16, 1944
Laird Cregar stars as a vengeful mesmerist. Need I say more? This episode tends to get overlooked among Suspense’s flashier chillers. Yet, its unremitting sense of dread and gut-punch ending make it one of the most haunting examples of radio horror I know.

8. “Fugue in C-Minor” – Suspense – June 1, 1944
Oh, Vincent Price. He always seems like a perfect husband. Until you look in his basement. Ida Lupino plays the damsel in distress who falls for his lethal charms in this grisly Gothic tale.

9. “Zero Hour” – Suspense – April 3, 1955
“Mommy… Daddy… Peek-a-boo!” Never have those words sounded more terrifying than in Ray Bradbury’s rich slice of Cold War-era paranoia. Children all over the nation are engrossed in a new game: “Invasion.” It’s sort of like “Simon Says,” only you take detailed orders from a Martian called Drill. One mother begins to wonder if it’s more than just make-believe.

10. “The Warning” – The Weird Circle – 1944
I confess: most episodes of The Weird Circle fail to thrill me. The series specialized in adaptations of classic literature with a spooky bent. Yet, it rarely summoned the moody atmosphere without which radio horror falls flat.

“The Warning,” however, is a hidden gem. Aristocratic Hester has visions of her missing brother… that lead her and her husband into a trap set by a wicked spurned suitor. This yarn offers just about everything you could wish for in a Gothic tale: premonitions of doom, walking cadavers, a magic ring, a twisted romantic obsession, a mist-shrouded castle, and a resourceful heroine… I find the possessive villain especially unsettling. Imagine having a stalker with an army of enslaved corpses at his disposal!

11. “The Beckoning Fair One” – Molle Mystery Theater – June 5, 1945
A writer rents a suite of rooms in an old house. His friend warns him of a malicious presence, but the author can’t resist the alluring influence of an elusive female spectre. What unspeakable things will her hypnotic spell drive our hero to do?

12. “The Creeping Wall” – Inner Sanctum – January 8, 1946
Best remembered for the groan-inducing puns of its ghoulish host Raymond, Inner Sanctum served up pulpy crime stories with high body counts. The series flirted with the supernatural, but episodes usually went out with a whimper, not a bang. Expect a lot of Scooby Doo-ish cop-outs if you ever go on an Inner Sanctum binge. “The Creeping Wall” is a favorite of mine because the real and the unreal blend to the point where it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s disturbing no matter how you read it.

To escape her stifling claustrophobia, a pathologically vain woman moves into a big old mansion with her devoted husband. Soon she feels the walls closing in on her. And the mysterious portrait of a beautiful dead woman seems to mock her. Don’t ask too many questions, dear listener. Just savor the gory, lurid, melodramatic fun.

Bonus episode! For a well-done example of the dark crime fiction that Inner Sanctum specialized in, I’d recommend “The Scream” (1950), which also has strong horror overtones.

13. “The Kabbala” – Murder at Midnight – December 30, 1946
Murder at Midnight is a fairly new discovery for me, and I was pleasantly surprised by the darkness of its supernatural plots. A professor researching the occult obtains an oracle that can answer all his questions. But at what cost? A pall of doom hangs over this episode. It channels the same kind of black magic spell as M.R. James’s “Casting the Runes.”

14. “Death’s Worshipper” – Murder at Midnight – October 20, 1947
“It’s as though I were trapped in a spider’s web, waiting helplessly as the spider comes closer,” says Kate, our heroine, at the beginning of this episode. A creepy guy named Quentin insists he loves Kate, but she doesn’t love him. In fact, she fears him, his boasts of occult knowledge, and the threats he makes about destroying all those who stand in his way. Then people start turning up dead and horribly mutilated.

15. “Taboo” – Escape – December 3, 1947
Two friends traveling through Hungary go on the hunt for the beast that’s been killing the locals. Can there be any truth to the legend of the werewolf?

16. “Ancient Sorceries” – Escape – February 21, 1947
Algernon Blackwood is one of my favorite writers of weird fiction. His stories might deal with the dead’s grotesque intrusions into material things (as in “The Kit Bag” or “The Listener”) or with atavistic forces bubbling back up into the lives of modern individuals (as in “The Willows”). Surprisingly few American radio shows have adapted his work, but “Ancient Sorceries” does a swell job. In this eldritch tale, a traveler stumbles upon a strange Welsh village where remnants of the old pagan ways threaten to keep him from leaving.

17. “My Son, John” – Quiet, Please – November 28, 1948
After his only son, John, is reported a war casualty, a grieving father calls him back from the dead. I don’t want to spoil Wyllis Cooper’s twisty tale, a unique fusion of sadness and terror. Allow me to drop a hint: “My Son, John” takes a well-known horror movie monster and makes it scary and tragic on an intimate scale.

18. “The Lodger” – Mystery in the Air – August 14, 1948
There are few radio experiences quite so exhilarating as Peter Lorre going berserk for your listening pleasure. Lorre mustered up some world-class hysterics for his radio series Mystery in the Air, particularly for this adaptation of Marie Belloc Lowndes’s chiller. As a serial killer stalks the streets of London, a landlady suspects that her new tenant is the culprit. And he has his eye on her daughter.

19. “Mars Is Heaven” – Dimension X – July 7, 1950
Who doesn’t dream of being reunited with their dead loved ones? When astronauts land on Mars, that dream is realized. They embrace their long-lost family members and bask in nostalgic joy. What’s wrong with that? Well, just listen.

20. “The Hangman’s Rope” – Hall of Fantasy – January 5, 1952
The Hall of Fantasy impresses me with its utter disregard for the moral “rules” of classic horror. Usually good people survive and bad people die, right? Well, series creator Richard Thorne loved to kill off absolutely blameless individuals, reminding us that real evil respects no boundaries. In this episode, the ghost of a vicious executioner threatens two brothers who have the misfortune of crossing his path.

21. “The Dance of the Devil Dolls” – Hall of Fantasy – February 9, 1953
One night, two friends go out for a walk and run into a man frantically searching for a doll that looks like him and babbling about a dangerous old woman. The chance encounter plunges them into a living nightmare of witchy menace.

22. “Stranger in the House” – The Mysterious Traveler – January 29, 1952
A happily married couple move into a country house. Well, since I’ve got this episode on a horror list, you’ve probably guessed that there’s something evil lurking in that quaint little domicile. This story, though formulaic, wins points for its grim ending.

23. “The Screaming Skull” – Theater 10:30 – c. 1960s
A retired sailor tells the story of how he inadvertently caused a woman’s death. It wasn’t his fault, you see, but her spirit won’t forgive him. Or, more precisely, her skull won’t. The shrieks in this show are like nothing else I’ve heard in radio: ear-splitting howls of agony and rage. I also appreciate the pacing of this episode; it progresses from a cozy chat to a fever pitch of hopeless panic.

24. “The Squaw” – The Black Mass – August 8, 1966
An obnoxious American tourist at a historic European castle crushes a kitten to death in front of its mother. He should’ve known better than to visit the torture chamber while tracked by the fierce black momma cat. “Imagine a man who’s fought Apaches and grizzly bears bein’ afraid of a mad cat,” the culprit chuckles. Oh, do be afraid, puny human. Be very afraid.

Fair warning: If you love cats as I do, this will disturb the hell out of you. I think I can guess who you’ll be rooting for.

25. “Marble Knights” – Beyond Midnight – November 1, 1968
If you’ve never read E. Nesbit’s “Man-Size in Marble,” I envy you, because it lands one of the most devastating endings in all of horror fiction. This adaptation from the South African program Beyond Midnight gets the meandering tempo—and the sense of impending tragedy—just right. A loving couple move into a little cottage. She writes. He paints. But the local legends start to weigh heavily on the young wife’s mind. If only her husband would listen…

26. “The Intermediary” – CBS Mystery Radio Theater – April 14, 1975
I have a weak spot for stories about houses that aren’t just haunted but possessive. This is a splendid example, with a side of festering family dysfunction. A man inherits his childhood home, but his wicked stepmother’s will stipulates that he should actually live there. After he moves in with his wife, she starts behaving strangely and bad memories rise to the present.

27. “Sagamore Cottage” – CBS Mystery Radio Theater – December 31, 1975
Yes, it’s another case of “unsuspecting couple moves into a quaint little place and discovers that an implacable evil wants to drain them of their life force.” Instead of giving any more details away, I’ll let you simmer in the suspense. The payoff is well worth it.

28. “You’re Going to Like Rodney” – CBS Mystery Radio Theater – March 10, 1980
Poor Rodney is an orphan, shuffled from home to home. Strangely enough, whoever takes care of him seems to meet with a violent and untimely demise. This brilliant episode showcases radio’s unsurpassed ability to enlist your mind as an accomplice. Rodney never speaks, so it’s up to the listener to fill in the gaping black hole of his uncanny presence.

29. “Ringing the Changes” – Nightfall – October 31, 1980
Nightfall might be Canada’s best-kept secret. No series—none—was ever scarier. The level of auditory gore in an episode like “The Repossession” will blow your mind. Personally, I like my horror with a touch of the traditional, so the episodes I’ve chosen are more spine-tingling than gross. Don’t worry, though. There’s plenty to shudder over.

In “Ringing the Changes,” an older man and his young, beautiful wife take a trip to a countryside hamlet. They chose the wrong day of the year to make their visit. Can they escape before they’re forced to partake in the village’s hideous annual ceremony?

30. “Baby Doll” – Nightfall – December 18, 1981
If you’re as freaked out by dolls as I am, I’d advise you not to listen to this one alone. A husband brings his wife an antique doll as an anniversary present. To his dismay, the toy consumes their lives, as his wife dotes on it like a real child. An investigation into the doll’s history reveals dark forces at work.

31. “After Sunset” – Nightfall – April 29, 1983
A series of heinous murders in a small town signals the re-emergence of a demonic spirit. The elders recognize it. They fought it before, 50 years ago. Now they band together again to destroy it once and for all. The trouble is, the evil thing can possess the body of someone they know and trust.

Final bonus episode! “Donovan’s Brain” – Suspense – May 18 and 25, 1944

I couldn’t exclude Orson Welles from this list. (He might haunt me in protest.) I admit, I don’t find the film adaptation of Donovan’s Brain all that scary. But the radio adaptation is another story!

In this 2-part episode of Suspense, the brain of a ruthless tycoon dominates an obsessed scientist. The background sounds, suggesting the whirring, beeping, bubbling equipment of a laboratory, create a pitch-perfect sci-fi ambiance. And Welles’s two contrasting character voices—the doctor’s reedy, analytical narration and Donovan’s gruff, commanding murmurs—really deliver on the heebie-jeebies.

As our friend Raymond from Inner Sanctum would say, “Pleasant dreams, hmmmmmm…?”

Fear You Can Hear: 31 of the Scariest Old Time Radio Episodes

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, but, when it comes to the best old-time radio horror, each word is worth a thousand pictures.

By using voices, sound effects, and snippets of music, masters of radio terror turned what could’ve been a disadvantage of the medium—we can’t see what’s happening—into their greatest asset.

Radio writers and actors spawned monsters that the technology of the time couldn’t have realistically portrayed on film. They suggested depravity and gore that screen censorship would’ve banned. And they could manipulate the imagination so that listeners themselves collaborated in the summoning of their worst fears.

In case you can’t tell, I adore old-time ratio (OTR) horror. After countless hours poring over archives of old shows, I’ve selected 31 bloodcurdling episodes, from 1934 all the way up to 1979, for your pleasure.

A few caveats… First, scariness is obviously a very subjective thing. These are my personal choices. If I missed one of your favorite spooky OTR episodes, feel free to mention it in the comments. I also tried to include episodes from a wide range of series. I could easily have filled this list up with only a few shows, but what would be the fun in that?

Finally, although I did venture outside of my pre-1965 comfort zone, I draw the line before CBC’s Nightfall, since, unlike CBS Mystery Radio Theater, it has a more distinctly modern vibe to me. (My favorite Nightfall episode is The Porch Light, though, if you’re wondering.)

1. “The Devil Doctor” – The Witch’s Tale – January 8, 1934

Created by Alonzo Deen Cole, The Witch’s Tale was the first radio show devoted to horror and the supernatural. Its tales often had a Gothic feel to them, probing into a fantastic past when sorcerers and spirits roamed the earth and made mere mortals their playthings. Alas, only a small percentage of episodes survive to this day.

In “The Devil Doctor,” a long-dead warlock in league with Satan rises from the dead and seeks a woman’s blood to reassimilate his decayed body.

2. “The House on Lost Man’s Bluff” – The Hermit’s Cave – c. 1930s

The Hermit’s Cave‘s plots were often formulaic, but the series outdid itself here. This episode easily stands among best and most disturbing haunted house stories from the golden age of radio.

Car trouble forces a woman, her cold and snappish husband, and her brother to spend the night in a deserted house with a macabre past. A long stretch of airtime filled by nothing but breathing and quiet footsteps never fails to spook the hell out of me.

3. “Dracula” – Mercury Theater – 11 July, 1938

A few months before he shook up America with his War of the Worlds martian hoax, Orson Welles played everyone’s favorite undead count with sinister aplomb. I first listened to this all alone at night when I was a teenager, and it scared the bejeezus out of me. When the shadows grow long, I can still hear Welles intoning, “Blood of my blood…”

4. “The Dream” – Lights Out! – March 23, 1938

Created by Wyllis Cooper and taken over in 1936 by Arch Oboler, Lights Out! epitomizes old time radio horror (for this listener, at least). Though occasionally campy in retrospect, the show’s original stories usually hit the mark and yanked at the deepest human fears—fear of the unknown, fear of inherently evil people, fear of ourselves…

In “The Dream,” Boris Karloff delivers perhaps his greatest radio performance as a man whose recurrent nightmare urges him to kill, kill, KILL!

5. “Poltergeist” – Lights Out! – October 20, 1942

A trio of working girls unknowingly desecrates a snowy graveyard. They find themselves pursued by a murderous spirit on a snowy night.

6. “Valse Triste” – Lights Out! – December 29, 1942

Two women on vacation fall into the clutches of a soft-spoken, violin-playing psychopath who decides to take one of them as his bride—and kill the other. Honestly, I consider this episode the scariest on the whole list. Arch Oboler breathed life into a a very human, very plausible monster. “Valse Triste” chills me to the bone every time I listen.

7. “The Flame” – Lights Out! – March 23, 1943

By looking into the base of a flame, a man releases a diabolical female fire spirit who forces him to commit arson and threatens to burn his fiancée to death.

8. “Carmilla” – Columbia Workshop – July 28, 1940

Queen of radio suspense writing Lucille Fletcher modernized J.S. LeFanu’s vampire novel, and the result is just as unsettling as you might hope. Jeanette Nolan (a sexy and terrifying Lady Macbeth on film for Orson Welles) exudes wicked sensuality through her voice alone, seducing then drawing the life out of her prey.

9. “The Demon Tree” – Dark Fantasy – December 5, 1941

A young aristocrat decides to investigate a gnarled old tree supposedly hexed by a witch to bring ruin to his family. He and his band of friends should’ve gone to look at it before sunset…

10. “The Dunwich Horror” – Suspense – November 1, 1945

A sophisticated long-running series with enviable production values, Suspense has aged perhaps better than any other old time radio show. Although it specialized in crime thrillers, Suspense made quite a few forays into out-and-out horror. Last year I actually did a post on 13 favorite scary Suspense episodes—although somehow I missed “The Dunwich Horror.” Shame on me!

Wilbur Whateley, the dangerously odd grandson of the village crackpot, wants to get his hands the local university’s copy of the Necronomicon. But why does he want it? Does it have to do with whatever he’s keeping locked up in his barn—and feeding on blood? As the professor narrating the story, Ronald Colman captures much of the cerebral terror that H.P. Lovecraft evoked so well.

11. “The House in Cypress Canyon” – Suspense – December 5, 1946

The golden ideal of radio horror, “The House in Cypress Canyon” is as impossible to explain as it is to forget. The episode begins, as so many scary OTR episodes do, with a young husband and wife moving into a new home. Soon they hear a howling in the night and run afoul of an otherworldly presence that threatens to destroy them both.

12. “Ghost Hunt” – Suspense – June 23, 1949

A zany radio host decides to spend the night in a famous haunted house and see what his microphone picks up. He doesn’t make it out alive, but we get to hear the recording. This episode’s clever premise foreshadows the popularity of the “found footage” horror subgenre. It’s not just spooky—it’s meta spooky.

13. “The Whole Town Sleeping” – Suspense – June 14, 1955

Agnes Moorehead delivers a typically electrifying performance as a level-headed spinster who makes the mistake of walking home alone at night while a serial killer prowls her little Midwestern town. Based on a story by Ray Bradbury, this episode is mostly told in real time, literally step by step, as fear consumes the protagonist.

14. “The Horla” – Mystery in the Air – August 21, 1947

How do you make Guy de Maupassant’s uncanny story about a parasitic phantom (or paranoid schizophrenia, you decide) even creepier? Just add Theremin music and a full-throttle Peter Lorre performance! This may be the apex of Lorre’s radio hysterics, culminating in an ending so intense that it must’ve made listeners at home wonder if dear Peter had finally lost his sh*t.

15. “Evening Primrose” – Escape – November 5, 1947

Like Suspense, Escape was a prestigious, long-running show that specialized in adventurous fare, not necessarily horror. But when it got spooky, it got leave-a-nightlight-on-and-sleep-with-a-knife-under-your-pillow spooky!

A penniless poet decides to move into a department store and live in ease and comfort off of its inventory. He didn’t bargain for the race of pale mutants who already live there. Or for how they dispose of anyone who rebels against them.

16. “Casting the Runes” – Escape – November 19, 1947

In this adaptation of M.R. James’s classic, a scholar fights to lift the ghastly curse leveled at him by a vengeful occult master. The same story forms the basis of Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon.

17.“How Love Came to Professor Guildea” – Escape – February 22, 1948

A haughty intellectual dismisses human love as a weakness. Unfortunately for him, something decidedly not human falls in love with him. And it doesn’t take rejection well.

18.“Three Skeleton Key” – Escape – August 9, 1953

Vincent Price brings the creeps as only he can in this claustrophobic classic. A horde of bloodthirsty rats lays siege to a tropical lighthouse, driving the 3 men who live and work there to the point of insanity.

19. “Whence Came You?” – Quiet, Please – February 16, 1948

Why would a man be worried by a beautiful woman following him? Because she smells of ancient Egyptian enbalming herbs… An American archaeologist, trailed through Cairo by a mysterious lady, insists on completing his latest dig. He’ll unearth something holy, astonishing, and lethal. But will it let him go?

This story shows how Quiet, Please mastermind Wyllis Cooper could take well-worn horror motifs and settings (Egypt, mummies, tombs, etc.) and make them scary again. He uses detail to build our trust, all the while amping up the dread factor, until fantastic, mystical things suddenly don’t seem so ridiculous.

20. “The Thing on the Fourble Board” – Quiet, Please – August 9, 1948

Quiet, Please wasn’t a horror series as much as a series of haunting ruminations, in my opinion. However, Wyllis Cooper delivered chills for the ages with this justly celebrated tale of an oil rig roughneck who encounters a creature risen from the bowels of the earth.

21. “The Vengeful Corpse” – Inner Sanctum Mysteries – September 12, 1949

Today we tend to remember Inner Sanctum best for the sneering, sardonic antics and bad puns of its Crypt Keeper-like host, Raymond. The series served up a lot of mysteries and pulpy crime thrillers with spooky trimmings and plenty of gore, but generally avoided the supernatural (often through annoying cop-out endings).

Only every now and then did the series venture into the realm of the truly horrific, like in this grisly standout episode. An old hag burned as a witch centuries ago returns from the grave to exact retribution on the decendents of her persecutors. (For a terrific seasonal episode that’s also genuinely disturbing, I recommend Corpse for Halloween, which aired on Halloween night, 1949.)

22. “Behind the Locked Door” – The Mysterious Traveler – November 6, 1951

A distraught, delirious archaeology student tells how his expedition into an Arizona cave, sealed for centuries, went horribly awry. Without giving too much away, let me just say that if you liked “The Thing on the Fourble Board,” this perennial favorite will be your cup of tea, as well.

23. “He Who Follows Me” – The Hall of Fantasy – March 11, 1950

I confess, The Hall of Fantasy is my favorite series on this list. Why? The sheer macabre bleakness of creator Richard Thorne’s vision. Evil often wins in his stories and adaptations, reminding us of the inevitability of our own deaths. Isn’t that why we take pleasure in horror? Aren’t we inoculating ourselves against the ultimate bad news of our existence? (Sorry, I’ve had too much black tea today, and it makes me melancholic.)

Transplanting M.R. James’s “Count Magnus” to 1940s America, this episode centers on the unfortunate fate of two travelers who unwittingly stumble into the mausoleum of a man known as “the death that walks.”

24. “The Shadow People” – The Hall of Fantasy – September 5, 1952

A horde of murderous entities that only come out at night are hellbent on wiping out a family. This suspenseful episode showcases the unnerving brilliance of Richard Thorne in full force. It will literally make you afraid of the dark, as all great horror should.

25. “The Masks of Ashor” – The Hall of Fantasy – March 9, 1953

A happy, normal couple receives a pair of exotic solid gold masks from a globetrotting relative. And things get strange. Deadly strange.

26. “The Man in Black” – Hall of Fantasy – July 6, 1953

Two men out for a stroll one night run into a terrified woman babbling about a devilish man in black. Soon they become the next targets of this undead menace. This episode’s power lies in the nightmare logic of its storyline. It’s like some feverish, nocturnal hallucination that you can’t quite shake even as day breaks.

27. “An Evening’s Entertainment” – The Black Mass – October 31, 1964

Gathered around the fire with her grandchildren, an old woman unravels the gory legends surrounding a forbidden tract of land, once the site of bloody pagan rituals, and the dire deaths that befell anyone foolhardy enough to trespass on it—or to try to revive those ancient rites.

28. “Lancerford House” – Beyond Midnight – January 24, 1969

Don’t move the ugly green vase that sits in the parlor at Lancerford House. Don’t lift it. Don’t even touch it. Because, if you do, something in the attic won’t like it.

29. “The Wendigo” – Theater 10:30 – before 1971

A party of hunters lost in the deep woods encounter a malicious whirlwind of Native legend that drags humans along and steals their souls. This radio adaptation of Algernon Blackwood’s bone-chiller captures the creeping tension and disorientation of confident men forced to confront a terrifying manifestation of nature’s power. And the howling of that wind… it stays with you.

30. “Possessed by the Devil” – CBS Radio Mystery Theater – October 10, 1974

Just as horror movies upped the ante during the 1970s, so too did radio. Still, I sort of can’t believe that CBS got away with this episode, which features, among other things, satanic rites at a college and a brutal sex crime. Most stomach-churning of all is the utterly credible demonic voice emanating from the man possessed.

31. “Hickory, Dickory Doom” – CBS Radio Mystery Theater – February 26, 1979

At a garage sale, a couple buys an antique grandfather clock with strange shapes in the wood grain. In fact, the heirloom conceals a sinister portal that, once opened, could have cataclysmic consequences for the world as we know it.

As our friend Raymond from Inner Sanctum would say,“Pleasant dreams, hmmmmmm…?”

Do Not Pass Go: Each Dawn I Die (1939)

“When I first came here, I believed in justice. I believed that someday I’d be released! Then I began to figure on weeks and months and now I hate the whole world and everyone in it for letting me in for this. Buried in a black filthy hole because I was a good citizen. Because I worked my head off to expose crime—and now I’m a convict. I act like a convict, smell like a convict. I think and hate like a convict!”

—Frank Ross (James Cagney)

If you’re looking for a feel-good flick, I wouldn’t recommend William Keighley’s Each Dawn I Die—as the title might suggest. If, on the other hand, you’re seeking one of James Cagney’s most poignant, edgy performances, you came to the right movie. 

In this indelibly brutal look at America’s prison system, Cagney plays neither a fearsome gangster nor even a petty hustler, but rather a good guy locked up due to a miscarriage of justice. Crack reporter Frank Ross got a little too close to the corruption he was trying to expose—so the crooked politicians he threatened decided to keep him quiet with a nasty frame-up. Sent to Rocky Point with a twenty-year sentence, Ross forges an unlikely friendship with big shot racketeer Stacey (a sly, swaggering George Raft) who offers to help Ross dig up evidence of his innocence… if Ross helps him escape.

Now, whenever two stars at the top of their game appear in the same movie—receiving equal billing—it’s mighty tempting to see them as competition in a zero-sum contest of “who came off better?” In this case, I applaud how well Each Dawn I Die both stretches and showcases Cagney’s and Raft’s respective talents. Right off the bat, I’ll confess my bias: to my mind Cagney possessed the far greater range as an actor—and I think even George Raft would agree with me.

However, Cagney’s earnestness, his relentless intensity, and his ability to structure his performances, usually building up to a climactic freak-out—all these qualities are nicely balanced out by Raft’s laconic, under-emotive coolness. Frank Ross’ sensitivity to the world and his awareness of the moral stakes of any given situation provide the catalyst for glib tough-guy Stacey to grow as a person. Ross’s energy and his righteous indignation force Stacey to actually weigh the ethical consequences of his actions for once. In this way, Cagney’s and Raft’s acting styles (and abilities) translate beautifully into their onscreen characters.

If Raft plays a more automatically charismatic character—a slang-slinging outlaw—Cagney certainly rips into the more difficult of the two lead roles. We understand his Frank Ross as a wronged man; yet, Cagney brings a strength and complexity to this risky victim role, a part that could have easily seemed like a wimp or a weakling in the hands of a less capable performer.

Frank Ross initially recalls Paul Muni’s similar role as a man incarcerated through a quirk of fate in I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. However, Cagney’s Ross ironically “earned” his punishment, by fighting long and hard against unscrupulous politicians who unjustly imprison him. Indeed, in the opening scenes of Each Dawn I Die, Cagney channels all of the virile aggression he displayed in his gangster roles, only turned to serve a social purpose.

Stalking through the rain in a trench coat, scaling walls into a fortress of profiteers, and smiling to himself as he watches the bad guys incriminate themselves, Cagney exudes a malevolence twisted for good, an anger born of hard-knocks and displaced onto corruption. His risk-taking star reporter doesn’t just want a story—he genuinely despises the grifters and crooked politicians he strives to unmask.

He wants to bring them down—and he pursues their downfall with the same sort of single-minded ferocity that we tend to associate with Cagney’s less benevolent characters, like Tom Powers and Cody Jarrett. Cagney’s variation on the muckraking reporter adds a deep subtext to that stock character of the 1930s. He doesn’t just breeze through the world of racketeers looking for newspaper fodder, like many a wisecracking movie journalist. Frank Ross, who, as we later find out, rose from the slums to make something out of himself, hates criminals and exploiters of the public confidence. He hates them deeply. Personally. Intensely. Implacably.

About to spill his big scoop on the district attorney and the governor, Ross leaves his office one night, only to be seized by two ugly henchmen who hustle him into his car. Even in a moment of danger, Ross exhibits the typical Cagney moxie—he bares his teeth like a frustrated shark. We can practically hear his thoughts, saying, “Why, I oughta…!”

Unfortunately, Ross doesn’t have a chance to fight back. The baddies knock him out, force him into the driver’s seat of the car, smash a bottle of liquor, and send him out into the city traffic—to make the killing look like a drunk driving accident. Even more unfortunately, Ross wakes to discover that, although he survived the collision, three people in the other car were killed on impact. Pleading innocence, Ross nevertheless receives a harsh sentence from a judge most likely in league with the hypocritical politicos that engineered the frame-up.

GO TO JAIL. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

When Ross first meets ‘Hood’ Stacey, on the way to Rocky point, he’s chained to him. Unsurprisingly, given his disdain for all manner of crooks, Ross hates the kingpin on sight. Their immediate baiting dialogue offers one of the rare moments of levity in this grim movie.

Stacey: Write a piece about me when you get out, will ya? The name’s Stacey. Life sentence. I like to read my name in the papers.

Ross: If you don’t shut up, you may find it in the obituary column.

Stacey (sarcastically): Oh my goodness! Hey, deputy, willya change my seat? I don’t like to play so rough. He run over a coupla guys so he thinks he’s tough. You know how it is with the first coupla guys.

Cagney doesn’t take that talk from anybody, so, with one well-placed swing, these very different men enter into their first brawl—and win a modicum of respect for each other.

Although the unusual bromance between Raft and Cagney sustains the film, the emotional core of the movie witnesses Ross slowly transforming into a hardened, bitter man. He quickly learns to curry favor with big gangsters like Stacey. On his first day, he saves Stacey’s life by tripping a man who was about to stab him with a shiv. Soon, Ross has made the choice to look the other way when Stacey decides to murder a fellow inmate, a dirty rat called Limpy Julian.

The scene where Ross catches Stacey practicing his knife technique—but agrees to remain silent—stands out as a key moral reversal for our protagonist. “I don’t see any shiv,” He tells Stacey, with a grin, pretending not to see what’s right in front of his face. Denying physical reality, even in a metaphorical way, Ross signifies that he’s splitting from the ethics that he cherished “on the outside.”

I don’t see nothing… Cagney, Raft, and shiv.

Ross’s behavior shifts to reflect a logic more germane to outlaws and gangsters, because those social menaces at least embrace their own code of honor. We perceive less justice operating in society at large than in the tightly knit circle of cons and shysters who follow their own unwritten laws of loyalty.

Ross’s eventual descent into madness proves that prisons don’t turn bad men into good ones—on the contrary, they beat an exemplary citizen into a feverish con. Seeing his basically decent comrades being abused by guards, Ross learns that Rocky Point, like the outside world, is a playground for underhanded tyrants.

In one particularly chilling scene, Pete Kassock, the sadistic head guard, accuses Ross of helping Stacey escape and proceeds to slap and punch our hero around a cell. As the camera follows Ross, being propelled around the room by the force of Pete’s blows, we the viewers can hardly believe that we’re watching Cagney passively taking this. But, then again, any protest would only equate out to more beatings.

Finally, Pete gives the nod to his men to take over the interrogation and the camera turns away, although we can still hear the dull thuds of hard punches. Whenever off-screen violence occurs in a Cagney movie, it’s usually Jimmy dishing out the beating! In this case, we the viewers feel totally helpless and shocked by the brutalizing of our protagonist, so awful that we’re not even allowed to see it. When the camera turns back, Cagney hangs limply, a broken man.

During his days in solitary confinement, in a cell quaintly nicknamed “The Hole,” the fighting spirit returns to Ross. He yells at his guards and alternately begs to be released and threatens to be worst con any of them have ever seen. Unjust punishment has turned the crime-fighter into a criminal. When Ross’ girlfriend intercedes on his behalf and the kindly warden arranges a brief respite from The Hole, we can hardly recognize the man that the guards drag into the warden’s office.

Ross sports a ratty beard and speaks with an almost mechanical rhythm, as if he’s spewing invective that he rehearsed many, many times in his head while chained in his cell. An exemplary citizen has devolved into an animal. It’s a horrific spectacle. The burden of this film’s social critique lies squarely on Cagney’s shoulders. And, boy, does he make it work.

Cagney’s performance astounded me not only with the facet of rage that he brought roaring out of the character, but also with the moments of vulnerability and tenderness. When his mother comes for a visit, bringing a basket of sweets and goodies, the ashen-faced prisoner can barely manage to eat a bite. You can tell by his halting delivery and the little catch in his throat that he’s choking back tears at every moment. When his mother eventually breaks into sobs, his whole face crumples. Those luminous eyes fold under their lids. With a nod, he lets the guard know that he can’t take his mother’s pain any more and she’s escorted away.

As Cagney walks back to the workroom, the camera tracks back in front of him and we watch him cope with his own anguish during the rare few seconds when he’s not surrounded by guards and prisoners. He wipes two tears away and steels himself back into his impassive tough-guy act.

Similarly, when Frank Ross comes up for parole only to discover that the man who’s going to make the final decision actually participated in the frame-up. Overcome with injustice and disgusted by the “sanctimonious” speeches of the parole board, Ross yells at the whole pack of them. He leaps from his seat and we’re not quite sure what he’s going to do. He shouts and screams… and then realizes that he’s killed what little chance he had of winning parole. Back-pedaling, he begins to weep, to implore the stony men before him for a second chance, for something he knows he’s not ever going to get from them.

Just as Cagney’s strength and cockiness taught America how to be strong and cocky, his grief and despair taught America how to grieve without self-pity: “You ain’t so tough,” as he sneers to himself in The Public Enemy.

In Each Dawn I Die, his wild cries of defeat howl from the heart of America’s dark side. He gives us the shadow of the American Dream: the man who rightfully clawed up from the gutter, and got wrongfully kicked back to oblivion. His passionate dismay holds all the power of a wake—a one-man wake for the freedom that was supposed to be his, but never really was.

Cagney can wring the spectator’s hearts because, through the emotional arcs he creates in his performances, his characters earn their breakdowns. His characters weep only when the situation becomes truly, utterly hopeless. Long before today’s “sensitive manhood” and overactive male tear ducts (I mean, James Bond cries these days; God help us all!), Cagney merged toughness with the occasional glimpse of raw emotional wounds and boyish tenderness.

I especially love the way he puts one caring hand to protect George Raft’s head as guns shatter a glass window above him. Orson Welles once praised Cagney for the way he could take the truth of his roles, then expand the scope of the performance to be larger than life, but no larger than truth. Never more so than in Each Dawn I Die.

Because this film was made after Joseph Breen and his reinforced Production Code, Cagney is denied the opportunity to give his performance the haunting ambiguity that we get from I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, for instance. The movie insists that innocence and virtue will eventually be rewarded. Each Dawn I Die lacks the hard-hitting conclusion that could have made it a masterpiece.

If you’re a “square guy,” eventually the system will come through for you. That seems to be the affirmative message of Each Dawn I Die. But I don’t buy that redemptive claptrap, the stuff that the screenwriters clearly slapped onto the end to show us that the world is just. The ending of this movie should comfort us. It doesn’t. The echoes of the beatings and the miscarriages of justice and the dirty political deals still chill us to the bone.

In the world of Each Dawn I Die, a man is guilty because the right people say he is. A shiv dematerializes because one man decides to be loyal to another. Rage against criminals galvanizes into an uncontrollable criminal rage. Reality warps under the dehumanizing rhythms of days, weeks, months in jail.

And, through the magic of Cagney’s searing interpretation of Frank Ross, a happy ending doesn’t seem so happy anymore.

I didn’t end this post on such a happy note, so here’s a fun fact. According to Cagney’s autobiography, when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild, he tried to rid Hollywood of mob influences. So the mafia decided to put a hit out on him. However, lucky for Cagney, a friend of his had some pull with the gangster crowd and decided to convince his buddies to spare ol’ Jimmy. That friend was George Raft. Life imitates art, doesn’t it? 

This blog post is part of the Cagney Blogathon, hosted by The Movie Projector. Cagney was a fascinating and versatile guy, so be sure to check out the other entries and learn as much as you can about this screen legend.