Original Airdate: Jun 20, 1974

Episode 0108 "The Secret Doctrine"

Written by Elspeth Eric, Directed by Himan Brown, Host: E.G. Marshall

An obsessed fan has a witch develop a love potion so she can make a famous movie star fall in love with her.

Welcome to another hour with the Great Forces of the unknown. Those majestic forces that move around above and beneath us pushing and pulling at our lives our bodies our brains forces no less powerful because we know them not and here's a thought how much of their power actually derives from their mystery were we to fathom them explode their secrets. Would they then become as comprehensible as, say, the centrifugal force in the spin dryer at the laundromat? Well, the day is far off when we can be that knowledgeable. So, in the meantime, listen.

Be careful, they say, what you ask for, lest it be given to you. Who of us knows what to ask for? Who can see far enough into the future to know what gift will delight and which destroy? Better simply to accept whatever comes, with gratitude, whenever possible. Listen with me now to the somber story called The Secret Doctrine.

***Severe Weather Statement(1974) for Chicago area between Act One and Two***

Starring: Mercedes McCambridge, Nick Pryor, Mildred Clinton, Bill Johnston, Robert Dryden

Original Airdate: June 18, 1974

Episode 0107 "Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde"

Original Story by Robert Louis Stevenson, Adapted by George Lowther, Directed by Himan Brown, Host: E.G. Marshall

Classic Tale. Dr Jekyll is a kind, well-respected and intelligent scientist who meddles with the darker side of science, as he wants to bring out his 'second' nature. He does this through transforming himself into Mr Hyde - his evil alter ego who doesn't repent or accept responsibility for his evil crimes and ways. Jekyll tries to control his alter ego, Hyde, and for a while, Jekyll has the power. However, Hyde finally takes over and this results in more deaths.

For nearly a hundred years, the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been thought of as a tale of horror, which of course it is, but it is also an intriguing mystery. For example, take the matter of Dr. Jekyll's curious will and the scene that took place one foggy London afternoon in the office of Jekyll's attorney, Jeffrey Utterson.

Come, come with me now back through the years to London, England in 1896. It is late on a pleasant spring evening and we find ourselves strolling in Cavendish Square along with Jeffrey Utterson and his friend Dr. Mortimer Lanyon.

Starring:Kevin McCarthy, Court Benson, Marian Seldes, Ian Martin

Original Airdate: June 17, 1974

Episode 0106 "Three Times Dead"

Original Story by Sam Dann Directed by Himan Brown Host: E.G. Marshall

After a cop is forced to kill robbers, the grateful shop owner gives his wife a statue that will grant three wishes.

Won't you join me once again for an adventure in mystery and suspense, where space is as boundless and as unlimited as your imagination and time is measured by the beat of your heart. Most of us know who we are but how many of us know why we are. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief is each man's lot ordained from the beginning and fated to be or not to be or is it all a random throw of the dice a casual flip of a coin do we tamper with fate at our peril.

Consider Napoleon. Historians agree that his doom at Waterloo had been ordained some three years before in his costly victory at Borodino, a tiny village on the road to Moscow. They say that at Borodino, he lost the flower of his army. And why did he lose so many of his best soldiers? Because he was unable to think clearly. The reason? He was suffering from a severe cold. Why? Well, we know that his orderly had gotten drunk the day before, and thus neglected to have a pair of dry boots ready for the great general. So, in a very real sense, this unnamed, unknown, obscure military servant changed the course of history. Those are the facts. We may ask, why was the orderly drunk? Did it just happen Or was it all part of a plan? Is every single action on the part of every living thing prescribed, ordained, decreed? We don't know. We're just asking. As will some of the people you're about to meet.

Starring: Suzanne Grossman, William Redfield, Sam Gray, Dan Ocko

Original Airdate: June 13, 1974

Episode 0105 "The House Of Seven Gables"

Original Story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, adapted by Ian Martin, Directed by Himan Brown, Host: E.G. Marshall

The surviving members of two families that have locked horns for generations, do battle with a lethal curse that hangs over the titular house that is the root cause of their blood feud.

Once upon a time there was a poor and common man named Matthew Maul, who owned a couple of acres that were desired by a rich and titled man named Colonel Pinchian, who wished to build a house on the property. Since the Colonel could not acquire the land by lawful means, He took others. The year was 1650, and he connived to have Matthew Maul declared a wizard, condemned to die on the scaffold, which is where our story begins.

Halfway down a biased street in one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house with seven acutely peaked gables facing towards various points of the compass and a huge clustered chimney in the midst. So begins the second novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. And to tell you the rest of it, here is the tortured uneasy spirit of the wizard Matthew Maul who died before his time and left a curse that endured for over two centuries.

Starring: Norman Rose, Arnold Moss, Bryna Raeburn, Jada Rowland, Staats Cotsworth

Original Airdate: June 12, 1974

Episode 0104 "The Rat"

Original Story by George Lowther, Directed by Himan Brown, Host: E.G. Marshall

Enraged by the faithlessness of his wife, a genius scientist creates a highly-evolved rodent and sends it to attack his wife's lover.

Welcome to our world of mystery and the macabre. How much do you know about rats? About as much as I did, I suppose, before I heard of the strange crimes at the Merriweather Research Institute. It all began with certain experiments on a strain of rat known in scientific circles as Ratus Novigicus and ended with death.

Still there? Good. I admire your nerve. All right then. Come along with me to the laboratory of Dr. Grayson Carter, behavioral scientist at the Merriweather Research Institute. As you see, in that cage there, which covers one wall of the laboratory, are about 150 rats. Big, too, aren't they? That handsome, dark-haired man in the white coat is Dr. Carter and as you can hear, he's dictating a report.

Starring: Tony Roberts, Evie Juster, Robert Dryden, Mandel Kramer, Jack Grimes, Gilbert Mack

Original Airdate: June 10, 1974

Episode 0103 "A Bargain In Blood"

Original Story by Henry Slesar, Directed by Himan Brown, Host: E.G. Marshall

A young man acquires the ability to trade afflictions with sick people. He tries to make a living at it to impress the woman he loves and her father.

Yes, we know it's dark in here. But you won't need any light to experience the terrors we have in store for you. Just keep your ears open and your imagination at work, and even in the dark, you will see such miracles as you've never known before. Yet, we said miracles because our tale concerns the miraculous. When you meet Mr. Ross, he may seem like a most unlikely person to be a miracle worker. But the gods make strange choices sometimes. And in the case of Salvador Ross, they gave him the ability to make choices of a most unusual nature.

We promised you a story about miracles. This one begins with one of the oldest miracles in nature. The miracle of love. In a not so quiet booth at the Neptune Seafood Restaurant, we see a young couple. The boy is Salvador Ross. The girl is named Ruthie Maitland. And Sal is looking into her lovely brown eyes, searching for an answer to the most important question he has ever asked anyone.

Starring: Tony Roberts, Evie Juster, Robert Dryden, Mandel Kramer, Jack Grimes, Gilbert Mack

Original Airdate: June 06, 1974

Episode 0102 "Darling Deadly Delores"

Original Story by Sam Dann, Directed by Himan Brown, Host: E.G. Marshall

A scientist working on a top secret super-weapon is horrified to discover that the project's computer plans to utilize the weapon to purge the Earth of humans in favor of metal-based life.

Once again, I would like to lead you through the terrifying, suspenseful world of the imagination. And on this journey, we will ask ourselves... What is life? Is life something that man and animals alone may experience? Well, there's vegetable life, too. But how about mineral life? Is there life in a piece of metal? That metal fender, which has been so artfully created to fit your automobile, does it feel the pain of being mined, melted, shaped? How do you know?

Man is basically an animal and so it might be better perhaps if man accepted this fact graciously and tried to live with it. If you look at the thing calmly, dispassionately, wherein does lie our superiority to the species we so arrogantly classify as the lower orders? Morally, we have much to learn from wolves who make better parents, from foxes who make morefaithful spouses, and from dogs who make more devoted friends. Admitted, we do have a higher intelligence. Perhaps that is precisely the problem. Man the intelligent is never happy unless he is developing, making better, improving and it's entirely possible that if this keeps up, we may just manage to improve ourselves out of existence. Our story begins on a gray winter's afternoon in a lovely rural section of western Massachusetts.

Starring: Nat Polen, Marian Seldes, Earl Hammond, Roger DeKoven

Original Airdate: June 04, 1974

Episode 0101 "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge"

Original Story by Ambrose Bierce, Adapted by Sam Dann, Directed by Himan Brown,

Host: E.G. Marshall

In 1862, during the American Civil War, a Southern civilian is about to be hanged for attempting to sabotage a railway bridge. The execution is about to take place from the bridge, but when the plank is kicked away, instead of breaking his neck, he manages to miraculously escape unscathed or did he?

Join me in a journey over a strange terrain. A terrain filled with terror. and clouded by suspense. And ask, ask yourself, how long is a minute? What is eternity? And learn, perhaps, that one can be as long as the other.

They're going to hang Peyton Forrester, hang him by the neck until he is dead. Hang him high from the top of the Owl Creek Bridge, 50 feet above the rushing torrent, which is now raging in full flood. Peyton Forrester stands on a single fragile plank. The rope is already around his neck. 30 feet of slack neatly coiled beside his boots. But this is not a lynching, nor even an ordinary execution. This is a formal military ceremony. Peyton Forrester is a rebel, literally a southern civilian, and he has been captured by the Union Army in the fall of this year of 1863, as he tried to sabotage the Owl Creek railroad bridge, and now he must pay the price. Actually, the only distress evident in the entire scene seems to be manifested by a young soldier, who with his corporal is stationed some 10 feet from Peyton Forrester where they serve solemnly. as his guards.

Starring: William Prince, Mildred Clinton, Jack Grimes, Leon Janney, William Redfield

This show has become a Halloween Tradition For me, Every year at this time I lkisten to this program at least once.

"The War of the Worlds" was a Halloween episode of the radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air which was broadcast live at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938 over the CBS Radio Network. The episode was directed and narrated by Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds and is infamous for inciting a panic by convincing some members of the listening audience that a Martian invasion was actually taking place.

EPISODES 0001-0100 COMPLETE

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT. MOVING ON TO THE NEXT 100. Episodes 0101-200

Original Airdate: June 03, 1974

Episode 0100 "To Kill With Confidence"

Original Story by Sam Dann Directed by Himan Brown Host: E.G. Marshall

A newlywed couple traveling across the country has car trouble and stops in a small town for repairs. She leaves him to go have lunch. When she comes back, her husband, the mechanic, and the garage are gone.

You're just in time to join me for an adventure in suspense and terror, the most heart -stopping terror of all. Not the terror of the eccentric, the grotesque, or bizarre, but the chilling terror that slowly emerges when one discovers that all the standards, the laws, the customs that have so naturally governed our existence have suddenly been revoked or repealed and no longer apply gone are the familiar the everyday usages which regulated life in a comfortable predictable flow and you are suddenly confronted with a living nightmare of chaos and anarchy.

There are men who give more solid thought to the choosing of a car than to the selection of a wife. There are girls who will take more time and care in deciding on a fall outfit than in picking a husband. Who is to blame? A good deal of it can be placed on the shoulders of society, which somehow tries to imply that marriages are made in heaven. This being the case, why bother being too careful down here below? At any rate, let us consider this extremely attractive newly married young couple driving along a super highway near a Midwestern city.

Starring: Marian Seldes, George Petrie, Gilbert Mack, Larry Haines