October 29, 2009
The Sealed Book - Pgm 5
Well, here’s something to keep the kiddies scared on Halloween.
“The Sealed Book” was a horror program from the 1940s that was a bit of a mish-mash. It was hosted by a “keeper of the book” that remind you of “The Hermit’s Cave” or “The Witch’s Tale”. And most of the scripts were originally produced on Mutual’s series, “The Mysterious Traveler”. The show isn’t particularly well regarded for its acting and direction, but it can be campy, gruesome fun.
“Escape by Death” is program 5 in the series and tells the story of an elderly woman who comes to believe that her relatives are trying to kill her. The show is dated by Goldin to April 14, 1945, and it was originally broadcast on Mutual. According to otrsite.com’s log of the series, the script was originally produced on “The Mysterious Traveler” on April 23, 1944.
The show was transferred from an original vinyl Charles Michelson transcription set, matrix numbers WOR-7-2315A and WOR-7-2315B.
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Jim Blackson said,
October 29, 2009 @ 9:23 pm
Thanks Randy
dbf said,
October 30, 2009 @ 7:32 am
Thanks much!! I love these types of horro shows (Mys Traveler/Strange Dr Weird/Sealed Book/Witch’s Tale)….it broke my heart to read that Alonzo Dean Cole destroyed all his transcription discs of WT because he thought they had no more commercial value!
Jim Blackson said,
November 1, 2009 @ 8:07 am
Alonzo Cole didn’t destroy all of his discs - the author was wrong
dbf said,
November 7, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
Jim, do you mean there are more ETs lying around than the episodes that are in circulation?? That would be great news
Jim said,
November 7, 2009 @ 7:36 pm
Yes… some will get into circulation… Some of the discs were too pricey and went back into the collectors vault. None of Coles live recordings were in this lot as far as I know, but I suspect they still exist.
Check out GAOR #81 and you should get a good part of the story. Alonzo Deen Cole moved from Newtown CT to California (and not Schenectedy NY to California) but you don’t find this out until you get the Casey book. This was important because I couldn’t figure out how Ed got the discs in CT if Cole Moved from NY to CA. Actually Dave Siegel should have checked with Ed Corchoran before/while he wrote his book. Dave was known to Ed and they give him credit for an X Minus One recording they used on the GAOR Jackson Beck interview. There are more factual errors in that book “The Witch’s Tale” that, in my opinion, a good editor should have caught.
As far as more verified existing recordings; the Australian Museum of Broadcasting is holding 20+ full recordings and collectors are sitting on some episodes, so there’s still more to be heard.
Jim Blackson said,
November 9, 2009 @ 2:15 pm
Here is a pretty good list of what is known to exist, less an australian version of the Loralie, the snakehouse, and a syndicated version of gypsy hands. I imagine there are more recordings, but its nothing I can verify…
http://sites.google.com/site/otrerrors/w-errors/witch-s-tale-errors
[All thanks to the original poster]
Jim Blackson said,
November 9, 2009 @ 2:16 pm
oh, and Honeymoon Cottage part 2 from the all star broadcasts syndication.
Take care
dbf said,
November 15, 2009 @ 2:36 pm
Thanks for the info….hope more of them turn up soon….