Hall of Fantasy (1946-47 from station KALL in Utah, and 1949-53 from station WGN in Chicago) aired “The Black Figurine of Death” on Monday, January 26, 1953. It is the 16th episode of Hall of Fantasy we have run since the first in October of 2011. Our last came in March of 2024 over a year and a half ago, and this one is only the 3rd since April of 2020, almost five and a half years ago. Therefore, a recap is in order for newcomers to the program.

Hall of Fantasy broadcast an estimated 200+ scripts or (combined) broadcasts, yet only between 40-45 are thought to still exist (though estimates vary), which is a shame, for creator, writer, director, and sometimes Hall of Fantasy actor Richard Thorne (1925-2007*, photo top right) was an extremely talented individual, and those episodes still surviving are held in high regard by OTR fans.

The first two years were broadcast from Utah (on those stations on the Intermountain Network) and the show concentrated on straight mysteries or murder plots, but when the show ended up in Chicago and was subsequently revived due to a fortunate turn of fate, it shifted focus to the supernatural or straight horror story format for which it became famous, all but adaptations of the classics being written by Thorne. The show went national on the syndicated Mutual Network in 1952.

[*I would like to express my thanks to Old Time Radio historian Karl Schadow for supplying the birth and death dates for Richard Thorne after my own search came up empty.]

The network would run rebroadcasts from late 1953 into 1954, though because of the shoddiness of research and/or outright collusion on the part of a few commercial sellers attempting to fob off a number of rebroadcasts as originals to aid their sales, it is quite possible that many of their shows are broadcasts from years earlier, with no foreseeable hope of pinning down their first airings due to the incomplete and/or unverifiable historical record.

“The Black Figurine of Death” opens with a not unusual scenario for old time radio. A rich old man is dying and his three young kinfolk (two nephews and a niece) are circling their bedridden uncle like starving vultures. His will states that the  entire estate is to be divided equally among the three of them, on the condition they live together in the house for an entire year, but should any of them leave the estate before the year is up all will be forfeited. He curses them with a prophecy focused around the small black figurine he holds, which, exhaling his last breath, slips from his lifeless grasp and breaks on the floor into three pieces. Bad luck then appears to plague them after the patriarch’s death as a supernatural foreboding creeps slowly into their thoughts as the felt but unseen presence of death becomes more a solid reality to them when the first servant meets a curious death, and then death befalls another victim. While they seek to survive in the once welcome spaces of the old house as it becomes a swiftly growing nightmare, it is only fitting that we share the tale of “The Black Figurine of Death” as Halloween comes our way this Friday. 

Play Time: 22:36

Mausoleum

Classic Horror Film Monsters

To view the entire list of weekly Old Time Radio episodes at Tangent Online, click here.