Long thought only a ghostly rumor, the horror radio drama Charnel Bells never aired in its day. Recorded from 1949-51, the show's content and storytelling was deemed "too crazy by half" by then-influential critic Chester Keswick and "downright un-Christian" by legendary radio producer Jean Wooder.
Time has not been kind to these old ribbons of magnetic fear, but the painstakingly slow process of restoration will, hopefully, be worth the decades-long wait. Tonight, you are invited to experience a strange phantom, a whispered rumor from the haunted past.
Charnel Bells toll once more.
Fair warning: this one's a smoker! Heavy, weird and gloriously profane, Viola Curtis' seánce channeling Darvon Bluedeer has always been a favorite among a certain set of spiritualists with a penchant for the psychedelic.
Truth be told, I just figured Guarrault never recorded a reading of Bluedeer's seánce because of the restrictive radio culture of the '40's and '50's, but then I found it on a reel mislabeled as...well, I'll save that surprise for a later date, once I've gotten it cleaned up and restored.
In any event, the echoes of other wars, clashes of other cultures in different eras is well-known in Miss Curtis' seánces of the '40's, but the reading here by one Oliver Holloway brings a strange corrosive rattiness to this famous transcript that, I hope, will evoke appreciation for the Charnel Bells vision, even if it never made it to the airwaves in its day.
31 May 2023
"The Yellow Parch", (SBCP5mF1) (May, 1950)
From a set of reels labelled "Studio Black Catacomb Presents" comes this little gem. From a subset identified as "Five Minute Fictions", this brief piece seems to be another effort by Van Guarrault and his little studio staff to popularize the very short audio story, just about the length of two pop songs of the era. Though the effort never took off, as with several of Guarrault's innovations, there's also something genuinely delicious in these tiny brushes with the world of weird and dark storytelling.
Though it's difficult to connect names to voices, especially with the spontaneous pseudonyms the Black Catacomb crew seemed so enamored of concocting, that's clearly Guarrault reading the copy for the "Yarborough's Atomic Silver" there in the middle of the radioplay. As for the narrator, it's uncertain just who is playing our lead on this piece, though my best guess would be Robert Gary Terrace, who enjoyed a fine career as a studio regular on the famous "Boston Blackie" series.
15 Oct 2022
A Campfire Ghost Story, of Sorts (1949)
Recorded in April of 1949, Van Guarrault of Studio Black Catacomb here gives us a fascinating glimpse into the unspoken traumas of his generation's soldiers. Though famously tight-lipped on the subject of mental and psychological hardship, the WWII generation's storytellers occasionally set aside the covenant of silence to whisper an artifact such as this story into existence. A look into service records for the time and location show that all the names in the story are fictionalized, but are a mix of recombinants and phonically similar names of actual servicemen with whom Guarrault served. And, hauntingly, a record for a Pvt. Ivan R. Lewis of Guarrault's unit is filed as missing in action. Still.
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Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
6 ratings
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