The Strange Dr. Weird (1944-45) aired “The Pearls of Freedom” (aka “The Pearls of Terror” & “The Pearls of Death”) on December 19, 1944 as its 7th episode of 29. We have run only six earlier episodes of this show since 2018, the last being over two years ago in March of 2021. The show ran from November of 1944 through May of 1945 in short 15-minute episodes (a few minutes less without commercials), and was dubbed by some as a poor man’s Mysterious Traveler. Indeed, there are similarities between the shows, though MT had a much longer run of nine years (1943-52) and was a full half-hour program. Maurice Tarplin (photo at right, 1911-1975) was the host/narrator for both shows, and one of the writers for MT, Robert A. Arthur (photo lower right, 1909-1969), also penned the scripts for The Strange Dr. Weird. While MT‘s shows included tales of mystery and suspense along with SF and the supernatural, The Strange Dr. Weird concentrated mostly on the supernatural. Both shows opened with the narrator setting the stage with a tease for what was to follow, but where MT stories were told in conversation while on a train and ended with the narrator beginning another story only to stop when the unnamed passenger to whom the story was being told had to get off, The Strange Dr. Weird ends with a variation on the same gimmick, the narrator beginning a story just as his “guest” has to leave. As you might imagine, with actual story lengths running to around a scant 12 minutes, there’s not much room for characterization or extraneous detail, so only the essentials are conveyed—the idea or dilemma takes center stage and remains front and center. And there is always an unexpected twist at the end, providing the moral comeuppance knife in the heart for the bad guy or evil doer. Short and to the creepy point, there’s no lavish musical score or expensive production values here, only the quintessential organ riffs manipulating and accentuating listener emotion at the proper moments in conjunction with the plights of the actors.

“The Pearls of Freedom” finds us in the South Pacific, on a tiny island where a pair of adventurers have been trying unsuccessfully to dive for pearls  from their old boat. They are about to give up empty-handed and leave the godforsaken place and its magic-worshipping natives. Unfortunately, both men were born with a dominant scumbag gene and without a second thought steal a handful of big, beautiful pearls from a native boy, who advises them that the witch doctor has placed a curse on them. Desperation and greed have deafened their ears to the boy’s declaration, and they turn to their boat for escape before a large storm hits the island. They are too late, however, and a massive hurricane has ravaged the island and destroyed their only chance of escape. Their only hope now is for a passing ship to find this remote bump of sand in the middle of nowhere and rescue them, returning them to civilization where they can spend the many thousands of dollars they have estimated their stolen pearls to be worth. The problem is that after weeks, then months, and finally a year their hopes are dashed when no rescue ship is in sight. As madness seizes them they remember the native boy’s words about the witch-doctor’s curse on the pearls, but just what the curse is only now becomes known to them and is something more horrible than they could ever have imagined. Pearls of terror? Pearls of death? or Pearls of freedom? You be the judge after listening to this short foray into madness as told by The Strange Dr. Weird.

Play Time: 11:59

{Airing on a Tuesday evening a mere week before what promised to be a joyous Christmas, and a welcome holiday from school, the neighborhood gang was up bright and early the next morning before heading for the corner newsstand, to score enough adventurous reading material to tide them over for the upcoming Christmas holiday. Astounding SF (1930–present, now Analog) had long been a favorite, and this issue would prove no different, with the 1st of a 3-part serial by George O. Smith, and the first appearance of what would become an oft-reprinted classic, C. L. Moore’s “No Woman Born.” ASF was a monthly in 1944. Famous Fantastic Mysteries (1939-53), as we have reported previous times when it was showcased here, featured classic reprints of a scientific or fantastical nature, and was handily edited by Mary Gnaedinger. It was a quarterly in 1944. Thrilling Wonder Stories (1931-55) was a third of the loosely grouped trio of colorful adventure SF pulps along with Planet Stories and Startling Stories. Pure page-turning action and adventure were the order of the day, and strict adherence to the known science of the day was given little more than a wink and a nod. Fast-paced thrills of all stripe abounded, as did evils of imaginative variety, both animal and alien, on many a strange and menacing world. Hardly Nobel quality literature, but then it wasn’t meant to be as it never failed to provide some of the most beloved, cherished stories from some of the most popular authors of the time. TWS was a quarterly in 1944. Though the issue below is cover dated Fall as its final 1944 issue, its cover dating began the year with a Winter issue, so the cover below was indeed that of the magazine’s final (Oct/Nov/Dec) quarterly 1944 issue.}

[Left: Astounding SF, 12/44 – Center: Famous Fantastic Mysteries, 12/44 – Right: Thrilling Wonder Stories, Fall/44)

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