6.
The House of Bread
Original Broadcast: December 26,
1941
Cast: Ben Morris (Scott Bishop), Eleanor
Naylor Caughron (Sonya), Fred Wayne (Boss), Garland Moss (Word).
Scott Bishop, author of pulp stories and radio
plays a-plenty, sits at his typewriter one night trying to strum up some
inspiration. A smell of incense and the reverential tones of an organ fill the
air and soon Bishop falls asleep. The writer dreams deeply, envisioning himself
atop the tallest peak in all of creation, able to hold a God’s-eye-view of the
“common clay that mankind calls the Earth.” Soon he is greeted by an older man,
one who speaks in vague tones of seeking the ultimate Truth in life. Despite
his mystic attitude, the man—who is named Word—tells Bishop that
the Truth is by no means unclear and that he will know it when he sees it. He
tells the writer that he shall find what he seeks in the House of Bread.
Awaking from the vision, Bishop realizes that
he must take on this new life mission. He turns in his resignation to his
unnamed boss (perhaps an editor?), despite his employer telling him what
promise his career has, including a request from “Fantastic Periodicals” for a
new series of supernatural tales. Bishop’s wife Sonya, on the other hand, is
much more understanding, astoundingly so. Sonya never once questions her
husband’s motives or mental health, chipper and supportive of the whole
endeavor regardless of the risk their journey will have and the time that it
will take to complete.
Withdrawing the necessary funds from the bank
and getting the car fixed, the Bishops start on their cross-country trek. Sonya
chronicles their progress in a diary, a nifty device used to economically describe
the couple’s advancement across the U.S. to the east coast where they board a
ship bound for London. Bishop muses at how “something [told] us our goal was
far beyond the sea.”
From there the Bishops hit all the big names
of Europe, from Buckingham Palace and gay Paree to the dilapidation of Morocco
and opulence of Tripoli. They stop at several sites of interest that go by such
holy titles as “The Light of the World” and the “Place of Peace” thinking they
will find their destination there, but to no avail. No one knows anything about
the House of Bread. Weeks become months and the countries whir past in a blur,
the Truth always eluding their desperate grasp.
The Three Kings by Phillip Brown Parsons |
Finally, the Bishops finds themselves in
Jerusalem. The date: December 25th. But the Bishops are not greeted
by idyllic snow on this Christmas Day but a ravaging storm, the clouds
“covering all newborn stars but one.” This solitary light overwhelms the couple
and they follow its brilliant rays to a humble house where they find shelter
from the harsh weather. Also in the abode is none other than the man named Word
himself, here to greet and congratulate the duo for their efforts. Scott
recognizes the old one from his dream and realizes that his mission has been
completed. The old man also reveals his true nature by quoting scripture: “And
the Word was God.” He also comments with just a touch of wise judgment that
Bishop now fully believes in the Truth only because he can see it. “Blessed is
he who has not seen Me and still believes,” the old man intones as the organ
pipes its sacred chorus.
It is only after Scott and Sonya awake the
next morning feeling incredibly refreshed that they understand Bishop’s dream
entirely. They learn from some locals that Jerusalem was named by the Hebrews,
a word when translated means “the house of bread.”
Though it might surprise contemporary
listeners, a religiously-themed play on a horror program was not exactly rare.
Wyllis Cooper, original creator of Lights
Out! and Quiet, Please, had
written one such story for the former show (the title varies in radio logs:
“Uninhabited,” “Three Men,” “Christmas Story”) that served as a Yuletide
special. It tells the tale of three WWI soldiers of varying ethnicities who are
united by chance around Christmastime when they share a train compartment only
to find out that they are contemporary variants of the Three Kings after they
are beset by powerful dreams and fragrances of myrrh, echoing Bishop’s similar
episode from “The House of Bread.”
This unofficial tradition makes for a surprising
entry in Dark Fantasy’s catalog of
wraiths and monsters, one that will either fascinate the listener as a
refreshingly different take on the hallmarks of the Bible being considered as
supernatural events or a thudding bore filled with saccharine homilies about
belief and good will. Or, like me, a little bit of both.
“The House of Bread” is strongest during its
hallucinogenic scenes, ones that portray the search for Truth that Bishop is
tasked with finding in the cryptically-named, titular site as a journey into
mystery where anything is possible. The effect of this episode, however, might
be dependent on the listener’s beliefs. The elucidations of Word might come off
as too preachy in his extensive quoting of the Bible, but if viewed in general
terms they take on a kind of mythic power and wisdom. When the elder tells
Bishop “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light,” Bishop asks who had said that.
Word’s response is moving in its simplicity: “They were words spoken by a man
who was about to die.”
The rest of the play has other affecting
passages. At hearing Bishop’s newfound mission, his boss asks him exasperatedly
“What in the name of heaven has come over you?” Bishop (the real one that is)
lets the statement’s irony register with the listener without thankfully having
one of his characters point it out. Sonya also makes a witty estimation of
Madrid’s two social classes, saying that the populace is divided into “those
who stay up past three and those who wake up before four.”
The characters themselves are, of course, of
interest in themselves. Continuing the tradition of Arch Oboler and Wyllis
Cooper casting “themselves” in their own respective shows (Oboler was the only
one to genuinely perform in his), Bishop puts himself in the middle of the drama
for “The House of Bread.” An unorthodox choice, considering that Oboler’s and
Cooper’s episodes dealt with them primarily as the writers and creators of
their radio programs (“The House of Bread” makes no such mention of Dark Fantasy). Perhaps “The House of
Bread” reflects Bishop’s own search for the truth, his metaphysical ponderings
worked out under the guise of a holiday special.
The satirical pokes are still present though,
especially in evidence during the exchange between “Bishop” and his boss. The
employer makes reference to “the trunk full of rejection slips” that the writer
received trying to submit to the slicks and the evening hours he spent penning
for the pulps, a background that Bishop (in reality George M. Hamaker) would
undoubtedly have sympathized with. He even makes dissatisfied reference to a
radio play he’s writing (“an Egyptian mummy thing”) and Sonya later purchases a
back issue of a magazine that has one of her husband’s stories in it, a
throwaway detail that adds a touch of genuineness to their relationship. Did
the real Dores Hamaker nee Hatfield
collect her husband’s work and bestow complete trust in him like Sonya in the
episode? Like the central Truth found in “The House of Bread,” it would
certainly be nice to believe.
7.
Resolution 1841
Original Broadcast: January 2, 1942
Cast: Charles Carshon (Duke Tobac),
Minnie Jo Curtis (Laura Cabot), Eleanor Naylor Caughron (Helen Richards), and Ben
Morris (Ed Richards).
Laura Cabot recounts the strange
events that occurred only a few hours previously when she and her friends
gathered together to celebrate the New Year, 1942. “I must tell someone,” she
explains. “And so… I’m telling you.”
Duke Tobac, a friend of Ed and Helen
Richards, is accompanying the couple and Laura as they make their way across
the snow-swept country lane in Quincy, Massachusetts, to the cabin that has been
in Laura’s family for centuries. The Richards are clearly hoping that Duke and
Laura will hit it off, which they certainly seem to be doing as they spend time
getting to know each other. A revelation suddenly comes to Laura: Duke’s last
name reversed is Cabot. Adding to the oddity is the fact that Duke recognizes
the house despite having never being there before.
Laura herself feels the complete
opposite. The usually cozy atmosphere of the familial estate somehow seems
different and off. Both Laura and Duke compound the mystery when they voice
their opinions of their “dates.” Duke says that Laura is charming but that “it
seems I have known her before. Somewhere. Sometime.” And Laura confesses to
Helen that she has felt a similar attraction to Duke, “something greater” than
love.
Later the group bids farewell to
1941 and look forward to what lies ahead. “May all our troubles disappear like
bubbles of champagne,” Laura toasts, an optimistic attitude for Bishop to give
his characters considering the fact that it wasn’t even a month prior to this
broadcast that radio listeners received a very different kind of New Year’s
resolution from President Roosevelt. Seeing that the fire is starting to get
low, Duke volunteers to brave the cold and fetch some wood.
Laura comes back wearing a dress
that belonged to her mother she found in an old trunk, her friends commenting
on how quaint and antiquated it makes her look. At the mention of her family,
Laura reveals the trouble she’s in: the house has been heavily mortgaged and
she can’t afford to keep it with all the debt she’s accumulated. Quick to
reinforce his status as a man, Ed tells her they can’t help her out. Just then
a loud clattering is heard from outside. Ed rushes to the rescue and finds Duke
sprawled in the snow with a semi-serious head wound.
Times Square, New Year's Eve 1941 |
Duke is barely lucid as he’s carried
back into the cabin, finally calling out to Laura in a hoarse, aged voice. He
refers to Ed and Helen as strangers and asks Laura why she keeps addressing him
so informally. He tells her that he is not Duke but Jeremiah Cabot, Laura’s
great-great-grandfather, and she his daughter. Laura is stunned: Jeremiah was
the source of a Cabot family legend that held that the old codger made a New
Year’s resolution to return to earth after his death.
The purpose of the spiritual visit
isn’t made clear until Duke/Jeremiah indicates to Laura that there is a brick
in the fireplace that can be removed. In the stone hutch, Laura finds some
family photos, the original deed to the house, and ten thousand dollars stowed
away. His mission completed, Jeremiah’s whiskery spirit leaves Duke’s body and
the friendly lug is back to his old self. Laura reads the words from Jeremiah’s
last will and testament in awe, recording his sworn intent to come back to the
land of the living from the year 1841!
“Resolution 1841” is a quietly
magical though slight episode from Dark
Fantasy, relying on the old reincarnation theme without adding its own
flavor to the mix, leading the audience to feel just as much déjà vu as the
characters. It is an interesting progression for the series showing that, like
with the previous religious-themed story “The House of Bread,” there was ample
ground to cover besides the regular ghosts and ghouls.
The quaint narrative doesn’t ever
move past bland generalities in its exploration of the supernatural though—the
characters always refer to “something” that’s either “strange” or “odd”—and the
final wrap-up with the ancestor’s spirit pointing the way to the buried
treasure might smell a bit too much of Scooby-Doo and The Hardy Boys for some
tastes. The blustery wind effects do add a potent note of chilliness that give
the story a solid sense of place.
Sadly, it’s the moment when Helen
refers to Laura as being twenty-three years old—as portrayed by the very worn
and brittle voice of Minnie Jo Curtis—that accounts for the episode’s one truly
unbelievable incident.
8.
The Curse of the Neanderthal
Original Broadcast: January 9, 1942
Cast: Ben Morris (Reggie), Eleanor
Naylor Caughron (Amanda), Murillo Schofield (Hayes), Fred Wayne (Doctor
Gustaf), and Daryl McAllister (The Neanderthal Man).
Amanda Loveland is desperately
trying to call her sister Grace in London from the artist colony she’s residing
in at Lookout Point. Her beau Reggie and friend Hayes gently joke at Amanda’s
urgency, but despite her sarcasm—“Oh no, I’m just sitting here jiggling this
receiver for the exercise!”—Amanda is taking the matter very seriously. She
knows Grace is due to be at a tea party, but she has reason to believe that her
sister is nowhere near London.
As she explains to Reggie and Hayes,
earlier she had gone out to Nannau Canyon to do some painting. Nannau Canyon,
by the way, might be a reference to “The Demon Tree,” as the source of that
story was the legend of the Strangling Tree of Nannau Woods. This would be
corroborated by Hayes’ reaction to hearing Amanda’s tale: “They say the place
is simply oozing with ghosts at
night!”
Just as Amanda is starting to apply
the coloring to her portrait, she hears a great rumbling and sees that the path
back to the colony has completely caved-in, leaving her stranded in the middle
of the canyon. Trying to find her way out, Amanda hears the horrid screeching
of a bird (most likely provided by WKY animal impersonator Muir Hite) but
ponders why there is “No other night noises at all.” Suddenly Amanda spots a
light illuminating a figure in the distance. She’s shocked when she recognizes
it is her sister Grace, beckoning her sibling to the way out of the canyon.
Before Amanda can reach Grace, she has disappeared without a trace.
Back in the colony having told her
strange tale, Amanda gets a call from her sister. Grace confirms that she is in
fact in London and has been the whole time. So just who could it have been that
acted as Amanda’s guardian angel? Hayes believes that it was one of the
resident Nannau spirits that took the familiar form of her sister to help her
in her time of need, though Reggie is less inclined to believe in the
possibilities of the paranormal despite the evidence he’s already seen.
Hayes asks Amanda if he can look at
her painting, but when it’s unveiled the group is shocked to find a new
addition to the landscape that Amanda has no memory of creating. “A strange,
monstrous-looking creature lurking in the shadows” they gasp. “A huge, fiendish
thing” they utter. The mystery now ever so thicker, the group decides to
investigate further by journeying back to the canyon… but in the full light of
day.
Going back to the exact location
where the monster was painted, the trio spots a pile of human bones resting
there. Reggie concludes that the remains are from a Neanderthal man hundreds of
years old, and it is he who then posits that it was this ancient caveman’s
spirit who turned into Grace to save Amanda. Way to stick to your convictions,
Reggie.
The group takes the fossils to the
resident historian/archaeologist Dr. Gustaf, and the old man similarly concludes
that the bones are from a caveman. He also proves helpful in deciphering a
sample of the Neanderthal’s “picture writing” that the group found along with
the remains: “Who moves my bones will surely die as I have died.” Gustaf
insists on making an exhibit of the remains at the museum and poo-poos the
curse. The doctor then puts on his exhibit, is claimed a genius by the historic
community, and goes on to live a long and fruitful life.
Oh, you wanted to know how the story
actually ended?
Reggie and Amanda later return to
the museum to check out the caveman display but are perturbed to find the exhibit
missing. Just then an eight-foot tall man who speaks very slowly interrupts
them to ask the way to Gustaf’s study. Reggie gives the man the directions and
the stranger goes on his way. The couple marvels at the giant’s “bushy
eyebrows” and “wide forehead,” also noting the grotesque twist the stranger had
in his neck. Amanda has her suspicions, but before you can say “revenant” she
and Reggie are spooked to find the intact caveman skeleton inexplicably back in
its place. Rushing to the doctor’s study, they find Gustaf dead of a broken
neck. Reading the last line Gustaf scribbled in his notebook, Reggie discovers
that the caveman perished by the very same means.
“Curse of the Neanderthal” goes for
a sense of grave solemnity and mystery that unfortunately only seems to make it
more risible. Bishop cannot seem to settle on what properties he wants to
bestow upon his threat. It’s not enough that the caveman himself comes back to
life; his spirit must also have the power to transform at will too. He acts as
both savior and executioner. This dichotomy might not seem so bad but the
narrative is too confused to be truly suspenseful.
There are some just plain goofy
moments that level any kind of tension out. The encounter with the revived
Neanderthal (the sonorous tones of Daryl McAllister, previously seen as Emperor
Buul in the similarly odd “The Thing from the Sea”) is especially non-frightening.
McAllister talks in a stilted fashion to embody his inherent primitiveness, and
yet he still speaks perfect English, a power undoubtedly picked up during the
Changeling classes he took in the centuries after his death. Not to mention
that he has perfect manners for a knuckle-dragging brute. “Pardon me for having
disturbed you,” he tells the couple after asking for their assistance.
This episode also suffers from some
deterioration that hampers the listening experience in some spots. The scene of
Amanda talking to her sister Grace on the phone has prominent white noise and a
persistent “clapping” can be discerned when the group consults Dr. Gustaf’s
expertise. The finale in the museum is barely audible through the aural
scratching, but the pertinent information can still be gleaned if one listens
closely.
9.
Debt from the Past
Original Broadcast: January 16, 1942
Cast: Jane Wyatt (Mary Billings),
Ben Morris (Mark Matthew), Eleanor Naylor Caughron (Office Manager), and Muir
Hite (Mr. Gibson).
A woman asks a man sitting on a park
bench if she may peruse his copy of the newspaper and he gladly concedes. It
seems both of them (she Mary Billings, he Mark Matthew) are in the desperate
process of searching for employment. Mark jokingly acknowledges his shoes:
“Those are yesterday’s want ads I’m walking on.” He’s been sleeping on the same
bench for days and eating sparingly. Noticing Mary’s own hunger, Mark invites
her to hamburgers and coffee at the local diner.
Mary explains that she’s only been
in town for two weeks and her search has been just as fruitless as Mark’s. She
does point out a particular ad in the paper that seems promising. It asks for
an “ambitious, talented, and reasonably attractive” woman to apply for the
position of a typist at the Temple Building. Mark coyly references the fact
that Mary certainly has the looks for the job. But they both ponder the one odd
caveat in the ad: interested parties can only apply after midnight. Still, a
job’s a job.
Traveling to the deserted building in
the dead of night, Mary takes the elevator up to the appointed thirteenth floor
(!), praying that this may be her break. The lift doors open to reveal a huge
office that’s filled with “rows and rows of desks” and “brilliant lights.” It
looks by all appearances like a contemporary workplace, but Mary can’t help but
note the old-fashioned clothes that everyone seems to be wearing. Consulting
head honcho Mr. Gibson in his office, Mary is further confused when the manager
insists that he placed his want ad in the City
Bee, not the Times as Mary had
seen.
Testing his new applicant’s
dictation prowess, Mr. Gibson outlines a letter to be sent to an associate and
is astounded by how efficiently Mary takes it down. For this strong asset
Gibson is willing to offer Mary a cool twenty dollars a week for her services.
Mary is politely depressed by this news, telling Mr. Gibson that she might feel
the need to ask for a raise after a period of time when she has proved her work
ethic has earned it. Gibson is open to this, but he is a little more critical
of Mary’s appearance, telling her she must dress in more conservative long
sleeves and ankle-length skirts and do away with her makeup.
The young lady is eager to please,
so she offers to tidy up Gibson’s office, noting that the calendar is clearly
outdated. She tells him that it’s January 1942, not April 1912 as the calendar
says. “I can’t understand what would lead you to say a thing like that,” he
tells her. To further prove his point, he furnishes a crisp edition of the
daily paper, the headline of the R. M. S. Titanic’s tragic sinking screaming
out to her from the front page. Mary is completely mystified by these events,
and she can only dazedly agree when Mrs. Johnson, the office manager, takes
down her pertinents and observes that if Mary is twenty-two she must have been
born in 1890.
Jane Wyatt |
Mary tells Mark of the entire odd
experience and the two resolve to go right back to the office. But when they
arrive, the clerical setting has transformed into a shuttered room with “heaps
of junk and boxes and barrels” strewn about. Not only that, but Mark informs
her that the City Bee, the newspaper
Gibson insisted he advertised in, had gone out of business at least twenty
years earlier. And why is the check Gibson offered made out to Mary’s mother, Margaret
Billings?
It isn’t long before they find out.
Looking through her late mother’s diary, Mary comes across an entry that
explains she worked for Gibson’s company when it suddenly shut down operations,
leaving all its employees without a month’s pay. Gibson promised to pay back
his workers as soon as he could. Margaret laments this sad news in her diary
and mentions the terrible Titanic accident that occurred that same day. So it
seems that even though Gibson had to transcend life and death to do so, he
ensured that this was one debt that was fully settled.
“Debt from the Past” was a play
written by Scott Bishop especially for Jane Wyatt, the program’s only guest star
player. Wyatt would later be a three-time Emmy-winner for her performance as Margaret
Anderson in Father Knows Best, and
she certainly does an admirable job of playing the innocent but persevering
Mary. It’s too bad a more dynamic story couldn’t be provided, as “Debt from the
Past” is the type of rote “They were friendly ghosts the whole time” yarn that
you see in “true-life” titles like Ripley’s
Believe It or Not and Beyond Belief:
Fact or Fiction all the time. It’s fairly fluffy stuff, and when compared
to the premiere episode, “The Man Who Came Back,” it makes the latter seem like
a rip-roaring yarn of epic proportions.
There are some bizarre lapses in
logic that aren’t doing any favors for anyone either. Most glaringly, why would
Gibson’s ghost feel the need to stage this elaborate scenario of hiring Mary at
a phantom office just to give her eighty bucks he owed her mother? And why
would he pretend like he couldn’t understand Mary’s confusion with the
anachronistic surroundings while being fully aware (if his final words are any
indication) that this was all just a supernatural intervention from the
beginning? Couldn’t he just have appeared at her front door and said “This for
you-oo-oo-ooo…” before vanishing into thin air? That would have been a
decidedly shorter episode, but it reveals the true thinness of the premise.
Not only that, but the act of
charity that Gibson’s payment of the owed money seems to be is negated when one
considers that the spirit wasted Mary’s time working for a non-existent company
and ended up leaving her back in the unemployment line. So much for favors.
Mark’s acceptance of Mary’s
fantastic story is just as shaky. Upon returning to the dilapidated office,
Mark recovers a tube of Mary’s lipstick, an item she says she accidentally left
behind. “Then what you told me did
happen,” Mark responds in awe. No, it just proves that Mary might be a mentally
ill woman who was playing with makeup in an abandoned building. It’s strange
why Bishop didn’t save Mark’s reaction for a stronger piece of evidence, such
as the check Gibson wrote out.
“Debt from the Past” may lightly amuse
for its twenty-odd minutes, but when it comes to being well-written it doesn’t
have a ghost of a chance.
1 comment:
This is such a detailed and interesting series, Jose! I think I would enjoy "The House of Bread." I listened to that one about the scary tree last time and it was cool.
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