“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 “A Corpse There Was” on Saturday, April 21, 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. 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.
This is only the 8th The Haunting Hour episode we have showcased since the first in 2012 and only the third since 2018, so we felt with the Halloween season close upon us it was high time for another.
Appropriately for a Halloween tale, “A Corpse There Was” takes place within the cold confines of a cemetery. We are introduced to the elderly resident stone cutter who is a master at carving names and dates on tombstones, and the younger graveyard caretaker who we learn spends too much of his time wandering the grounds talking to those who cannot hear him. Unexpected death and cold-blooded murder add dark spice to the unseen but ever-present predatory atmosphere pervading this final home of the dead, now only silent corpses, as does a freshly dug grave appearing out of nowhere. Of the small cast of introduced characters, who becomes the one to die and how, and who becomes the victim of murder and why are the main attractions in this depressing little theatrical exercise, but then there’s the puzzle of the freshly dug grave appearing out of nowhere to keep the suspense alive. So with the No Trick or Treat sign nailed to the front door of your old house at the end of the block this chilly Halloween night, you lock the doors and windows (upstairs and down), turn the library lights down low (your favorite place to listen to the radio without being disturbed), then curl up on the couch near the fireplace with the radio positioned just so in front of you on the small coffee table, and steel yourself in the false security of your surroundings, waiting with growing anticipation for the tale to be told by the young female housekeeper of the elderly stone-cutter, who has given her sworn promise never to leave her employer’s side until death ends their compact, in the tale strangely titled “A Corpse There Was.” Think you’ve got it figured out? Guess again.
Play Time: 25:00
Happy Halloween!
To view the entire list of weekly Old Time Radio episodes at Tangent Online, click here.