“No… No… stay where you are. Do not break the stillness of this moment. For this is a time of mystery. A time when imagination is free, and moves forward swiftly, silently…. This is — The Haunting Hour!”
The Haunting Hour aired “Death by Request” on September 8, 1945 (this date provided by one source for an unstated regional market’s broadcast date). Only 52 episodes were produced, of which it is estimated 41 have survived. This is only the 9th The Haunting Hour episode we have showcased since the first in 2012 and only the third since 2021, so we felt with the Halloween season close upon us it was high time for another.
Frustrated by not being able to pin down a definite date for this episode, I turned to Old Time Radio historian and friend of this weekly OTR feature Karl Schadow for help. Karl explains:
“As to dates and program numbers, The Haunting Hour was a transcribed, syndicated program which was available to stations and sponsors for some 15 years. There are no official broadcast dates for these episodes. I realize that some logs and vendors have to put dates on their products, but this may cause confusion down the road if an episode ends up with two different dates. My suggestion is that you state it was first broadcast in 1945 and could still be heard on various markets into the early 1960s.” … “Moreover, there were no official seasons of The Haunting Hour. Not all of the 52 episodes have extant audio.”
Once again, I would like to thank Karl for his help with his extensive historian’s background in such matters, as much OTR misinformation still floods both print and internet sources, some of which makes the phrase caveat emptor more relevant than ever for the unwary, novice buyer.
“Death by Request” is a successful examination of terror, but not that of the supernatural kind. A man picks up his telephone to hear a man threatening to expose him for a murder the man claims he committed ten years in the past. The stunned man has no idea who this threatening caller is or of the crime he is accused of committing. The stranger on the other end of the phone gives him 48 hours to admit his guilt to the police and get what’s coming to him or he will take extreme measures to make the man pay for his crime by killing him himself. Frightened, the surprised recipient of this threat gets the police involved, but they are not inclined to take the threat seriously at this point, saying it doesn’t rise to the threat level requiring their involvement, especially since the man can’t trace the call, doesn’t have the name of the anonymous caller, and unless the threats persist, there’s nothing they can do. Well, the threats do persist, escalating in frightening ways, as the anonymous stalker finds our man in various places and at various times of the day, increasing the threat level so that soon enough the poor soul receiving the threats as time runs out is totally beside himself and sick with panic, the police still not willing to intercede or take him seriously. Feeling abandoned, afraid for his life, and terrorized beyond belief, he unwittingly falls prey to an elaborate scheme…and therein lies the rest of our story, and a tension-filled sequence of surprises it is, well worth a few minutes of your listening time as we learn how this dark slice of life turns into one of “Death by Request.”
Play Time: 25:00
{“Death by Request” aired the first Saturday in September of 1945, the first after the new school year had begun, and to celebrate making it through the first week after summer vacation the neighborhood gang headed for the nearby newsstand after changing out of their Sunday church clothes, this visit with mystery or detective stories on their mind. Black Book Detective (1933-53) was a decent enough detective pulp, but with the July 1939 issue it introduced the character of the Black Bat, which boosted sales and made the magazine popular enough to last into the 1950s, when most other detective pulps had ceased publication. Its schedule was mostly helter skelter over its run but in 1945 it was a quarterly. Two Complete Detective Books (1939-54) hit the ground running with its unique format, that being two complete novels for an extremely affordable price the public could afford. It was bi-monthly in 1945. Thrilling Detective (1931-53) was a detective pulp that found a winning formula early, ensuring its long run of well over 200 issues. It was a solid monthly until 1946 when it cut back to a bi-monthly schedule which is maintained until its final two years. The September issue shown below was its last monthly issue of 1945. The November issue following it was the first of its new bi-monthly schedule.}
[Left: Black Book Det., Fall/45 – Center: Two Complete Det. Books, 9/45 – Right: Thrilling Det., 9/45]
To view the entire list of weekly Old Time Radio episodes at Tangent Online, click here.