[This week we welcome back friend of this feature and Golden Age of Radio historian Karl Schadow. Karl has been kind enough to provide a brief history of the almost forgotten first iteration of The Avenger on radio, as well as providing this only surviving episode of the show for the benefit and enjoyment of Old Time Radio newcomers and aficionados alike. Thank you, Karl.]
The Chief of Justice, Inc. had his own radio show? Indeed he did, joining The Shadow, Doc Savage and Nick Carter, all Street & Smith pulp characters who on one or more occasions were brought to the aural medium. Though many OTR fans may be familiar with the Charles Michelson 1945 syndicated production of The Avenger—featuring biochemist Jim Brandon—there was a series broadcast earlier in the decade that was based on the stories by Paul Ernst (1899-1985, writing under the Kenneth Robeson byline). The Avenger pulp debuted with the September 1939 issue (cover at left) and continued through September 1942 (cover at right). After that title was discontinued, subsequent stories were published in Clues and The Shadow magazine.
During the summer of 1941, WHN, an independent station in New York City, originated a weekly, live, thirty-minute drama with Richard Henry Benson and his team battling the Gotham underworld. For decades, only a handful of scripts of this series had been retained (but not extensively studied). In a recent analysis comparing this batch and their pulp magazine counterparts, David Kalb and Brian Hochberg (see Blood ‘N’ Thunder 2019, Vol.2, No.1) determined that the radio scripts were loose adaptations of the pulp stories with significant omissions of key scenes from individual yarns. Moreover, it was noted that not all of the major supporting characters (including Cole Wilson and the African-American couple Joshua and Rosabel Newton) were carried over to the etherwaves version.
The episode featured in this posting, “High Speed Death” was originally broadcast during the late fall of 1941 (exact date remains unknown), a few months after the series debuted Friday, July 18, 1941. This audio is the sole extant episode of approximately 100 that were broadcast during the program’s two-year radio tenure. It is believed to be a home recording and has been remastered. The episode has been circulating among OTR collectors for at least twenty years without much fanfare. The script, by an unknown author was an original creation for radio, thus not culled from any of the pulp stories. It may have been written by Maurice Joachim who is credited as the author in some of the extant scripts. Enacting the role of Benson, Sherling Oliver 
had recently been assigned as the lead and is heard in this episode. (That Maurice Joachim has been touted as the first to play The Avenger is still debated.) Two of Benson’s team from the pulps, Smitty (the Giant) and Nellie Gray also appear in this episode. They are portrayed by Wendell Holmes and Betty Ann Painter, respectively. The rest of the cast is still to be determined. Fergus “Mac” MacMurdie does not appear in this installment. The executive producer of the series was WHN production manager Maurice Bennett with the station’s assistant music director, Dick Ballou, providing the theme and incidental organ music.
The Avenger was broadcast by WHN through June of 1943. In addition to the live version, the series was syndicated and distributed to stations throughout the country. At least three actors portrayed Benson as Vinton Hayworth had assumed the lead in the spring of 1943. To learn more about The Avenger radio series, the issue of Blood ‘N’ Thunder cited above along with a follow up piece by this author in a subsequent issue of the same publication (2019, Vol. 2, No. 2) may be obtained at https://muraniapress.com. If you have questions or additional information regarding The Avenger contact the author at bluecar91@hotmail.com
[Photos at right: Top, Sherling Oliver, Middle, Wendell Holmes, Bottom, Betty Ann Painter]
Play Time: 26:49
{While no specific air date is known for “High Speed Death,” the debut episode of this early incarnation of The Avenger was July 18, 1941–a Friday. That said, it is known that “High Speed Death” did air sometime in the fall of 1941, roughly two months following the debut show. Thus, we will postulate for purposes here that it, too, most likely aired on a Friday, and that the neighborhood gang, as always, found itself at the nearby newsstand early the following Saturday morning, in search of issues of their favorite pulp magazines they had yet to acquire for their collections, be they science fiction/fantasy/horror, superhero detective, or detective/mystery of the more classic variety. Astounding SF (1930-present, now Analog) was a longtime favorite and must buy, but little did the gang know at the time that the lead story in this issue, Robert A. Heinlein’s “By His Bootstraps,” would become a legendary classic in the SF field. Astounding was a monthly in 1941. Luckily, a copy of the September issue of The Avenger could still be found, and with the previous evening’s adventure still fresh in their minds, it too was an instant purchase. The Avenger was a bi-monthly in 1941. Attracted by the dark, supernatural, monstrously evil beings as depicted on many of its covers, the gang never missed an issue of “the unique magazine” as it came to be known. Weird Tales (1923-1954) held an honored place among its readers and with (as below) stories by the likes of Robert Bloch, Seabury Quinn, and August Derleth it is easy to see why. WT was a bi-monthly in 1941.}
[Left: Astounding, Oct. 1941 – Center: The Avenger, Sept. 1941 – Right: Weird Tales, Sept. 1941]
To view the entire list of weekly Old Time Radio episodes at Tangent Online, click here.