RKO Orson Welles - The Shadow - radio recordings
Mutual
Mutual · 1940–1950
Broadcasts
32
Cadence
Weekly
Rated
PG
Since
1940
The run
- Network
- Mutual
- Years active
- 1940–1950
- Surviving broadcasts
- 32
- Genre
- detective
33 radio recordings of RKO's The Shadow, recorded as main character by Orson Welles between 1937 and 1938 It doesn't happen that often that a cultural icon plays a \"genre\" role, and in the 1930's it probably happened even less. But before a certain well-documented Martian Invasion rocketed him to fame and a contract with RKO, a 22 year-old Orson Welles funded his theatrical productions with radio work, including a year on the Mutual Network's now-legendary \"superhero\" radio program The Shadow. The program, loosely adapted from the popular pulp magazine series, told the story of Lamont Cranston, a wealthy young man-about-town who used his hypnotic powers to cloud men's minds so that they could not see him, fighting crime as an Invisible Avenger known only as The Shadow. Digitised by the Old Time Radio Researchers and streamed from the Internet Archive item “RkoOrsonWelles-TheShadow-RadioRecodings”; these recordings are in the public domain.
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
9 dated broadcasts across 14 years on the air, with 12 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1937, in original transmission order.
- 1. The Shadow 37-09-26 Death House Rescue · 26 Sep 1937
- 2. The Shadow 37-10-24 The Temple Bells of Neban · 24 Oct 1937
- 3. The Shadow 37-11-28 Circle of Death · 28 Nov 1937
- 01
The Shadow 37-09-26 Death House Rescue
26 Sep 1937 · 57 min
- 02
The Shadow 37-10-24 The Temple Bells of Neban
24 Oct 1937 · 32 min
- 03
The Shadow 37-11-28 Circle of Death
28 Nov 1937 · 28 min
- 04
The Shadow 38-01-16 Sabotage
16 Jan 1938 · 30 min
- 05
The Shadow 38-01-30 The Poison Death
30 Jan 1938 · 28 min
- 06
The Shadow 38-02-13 The House of Horror
13 Feb 1938 · 24 min
- 07
The Shadow 38-02-27 The Plot Murder
27 Feb 1938 · 29 min
- 08
The Shadow 38-03-13 The Silent Avenger
13 Mar 1938 · 30 min
Also on Mutual
Mutual in 1940–1950
Other series the network carried while RKO Orson Welles - The Shadow - radio recordings was on the air.
Same seasons
detective on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
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