Inner Sanctum Mysteries
Encyclopedia
Old-time radio
Old-Time Radio and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s...
program that aired from January 7, 1941 to October 5, 1952, was created by producer Himan Brown
Himan Brown
Himan Brown , also known as Hi Brown and Mende Brown, was an American producer of radio programs. Producing for the major radio networks and also for syndication, Brown worked with such actors as Helen Hayes, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra and Orson Welles while creating...
. A total of 526 episodes were broadcast.
Horror hosts
The anthology series featured stories of mystery, terror and suspense, and its tongue-in-cheek introductions were in sharp contrast to shows like SuspenseSuspense (radio program)
-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
and The Whistler
The Whistler
The Whistler was an American radio mystery drama which ran from May 16, 1942 until September 22, 1955. It was sponsored by the Signal Oil Company: "That whistle is your signal for the Signal Oil program, The Whistler." The program was adapted into a film noir series by Columbia Pictures in...
. The early 1940s programs opened with Raymond Edward Johnson
Raymond Edward Johnson
Raymond Edward Johnson was an American radio and stage actor best remembered for his work on Inner Sanctum Mysteries....
introducing himself as, "Your host, Raymond," in a mocking sardonic voice. A spooky melodramatic organ score (played by Lew White) punctuated Raymond's many morbid jokes and playful puns. Raymond's closing was an elongated "Pleasant dreeeeaams, hmmmmm?" His tongue-in-cheek style and ghoulish relish of his own tales became the standard for many such horror narrators to follow, from fellow radio hosts like Ernest Chappell
Ernest Chappell
Ernest E. Chappell was an American radio announcer and actor, best remembered for his featured role in the late 1940s radio program Quiet, Please. The show ran from 1947 to 1949, and Quiet, Please was Chappell's major acting credit...
(on Wyllis Cooper's later series, Quiet, Please
Quiet, Please
Quiet, Please! was a radio fantasy and horror program created by Wyllis Cooper, also known for creating Lights Out. Ernest Chappell was the show's announcer and lead actor. Quiet, Please! debuted June 8, 1947 on the Mutual Broadcasting System, and its last episode was broadcast June 25, 1949, on...
) and Maurice Tarplin
Maurice Tarplin
Maurice Tarplin was a novelist and a radio actor best known as the narrator of The Mysterious Traveler, employing a voice once described as "eerily sardonic."-Biography:...
(on The Mysterious Traveler
The Mysterious Traveler
The Mysterious Traveler was an anthology radio series, a magazine and a comic book. All three featured stories which ran the gamut from fantasy and science fiction to straight crime dramas of mystery and suspense.-Radio:...
).
When Johnson left the series in May 1945 to serve in the Army, he was replaced by Paul McGrath
Paul McGrath (actor)
Paul McGrath was an American film, television, Broadway, and Pittsburgh actor best known for his radio appearances in the 1940s and 1950s. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and died in London, England.-See also:...
, who did not keep the "Raymond" name and was known only as "Your Host" or "Mr. Host". (Berry Kroeger had substituted earlier for a total of four episodes). McGrath was a Broadway actor who turned to radio for a regular income. Beginning in 1945, Lipton Tea
Lipton
Lipton is a brand of tea currently owned by Unilever.-History of Lipton Tea:Lipton was created at the end of the 19th century by a grocer, Sir Thomas Lipton, in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1893, he established the Thomas J. Lipton Co., a tea packing company with its headquarters and factory in Hobo ken,...
sponsored the series, pairing first Raymond and then McGrath with cheery commercial spokeswoman Mary Bennett (aka the "Tea Lady"), whose blithesome pitches for Lipton Tea contrasted sharply with the macabre themes of the stories. She primly chided the host for his trademark dark humor and creepy manner.
The creaking door
The program's familiar and famed audio trademark was the eerie creaking door which opened and closed the broadcasts. Himan Brown got the idea from a door in the basement that "squeaked like Hell." The door sound was actually made by a rusty desk chair. The program did originally intend to use a door, but on its first use, the door did not creak. Undaunted, Brown grabbed a nearby chair, sat in it and turned, causing a hair-raising squeak. The chair was used from then on as the sound prop. On at least one memorable occasion, a staffer innocently repaired and oiled the chair, thus forcing the sound man to mimic the squeak orally.Guest stars
Its campy comedy notwithstanding, the stories were usually effective little chillers, mixing horror and humor in equal doses. Memorable episodes included "Terror by Night" (September 18, 1945) and an adaptation of "The Tell-Tale HeartThe Tell-Tale Heart
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the...
" (August 3, 1941). The latter starred Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
, who was heard regularly in the first season, starring in more than 15 episodes and returning sporadically thereafter.
Other established stars in the early years included Mary Astor
Mary Astor
Mary Astor was an American actress. Most remembered for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart, Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s.She eventually made a successful transition to talkies, but almost...
, Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
, Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
, Paul Lukas
Paul Lukas
Paul Lukas was an Austrian-Hungarian-born actor.-Biography:Born Pál Lukács in Budapest, he arrived in Hollywood in 1927 after a successful stage and film career in Hungary, Germany and Austria where he worked with Max Reinhardt. He made his stage debut in Budapest in 1916 and his film debut in 1917...
, Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
. Most of the lead and supporting players were stalwarts of New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
radio. These included Santos Ortega
Santos Ortega
Santos Ortega was an American actor.-Radio:Ortega was active in radio, starring in The Adventures of Nero Wolfe and narrating a popular radio show called Gangbusters as well as Stroke of Fate. Perhaps his most famous and notable radio role was Commissioner Weston on The Shadow...
, Larry Haines
Larry Haines
Larry Haines, born Larry Hecht was an American actor. He was born in Mount Vernon, New York.-Biography:He was born on August 3, 1918....
, Ted Osborne
Ted Osborne
Ted Osborne was an American writer of comics, radio shows and animated films, remembered for his contributions to the creation and refinement, during the 1930s, of Walt Disney cartoon characters....
, Luis van Rooten
Luis van Rooten
Luis van Rooten, was an American film actor. He was christened Luis d'Antin van Rooten.Van Rooten earned his BA at the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an architect before deciding to pursue film work in Hollywood during World War II...
, Stefan Schnabel
Stefan Schnabel
Stefan Schnabel was an actor best remembered for having portrayed Dr. Stephen Jackson for sixteen years on the CBS soap opera The Guiding Light, on which he appeared from 1965 to 1981...
, Ralph Bell
Ralph Bell
Ralph Albert "Lefty" Bell was a professional baseball pitcher from 1909 to 1916. He appeared in three Major League Baseball games for the Chicago White Sox in 1912. Bell was 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed 170 pounds....
, Mercedes McCambridge
Mercedes McCambridge
Carlotta Mercedes McCambridge was an American actress. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress."-Early life:...
, Berry Kroeger
Berry Kroeger
Berry Kroeger was an American film, television, and stage actor.Born in San Antonio, Texas, Kroeger got his acting start on radio as an announcer and actor, playing for a time The Falcon and The Shadow...
, Lawson Zerbe, Arnold Moss
Arnold Moss
Arnold Moss was an American character actor.His son is songwriter Jeff Moss....
, Leon Janney
Leon Janney
Leon Janney was an American actor and radio personality between 1920 to 1980.-Career:Born Leon Ramon in Ogden, Utah, Janney made his first theatrical appearance at age two before an audience at the Pantages Theatre in his hometown...
, Myron McCormick
Myron McCormick
Myron McCormick was an American actor of stage, radio and film.McCormick was born as Walter Myron McCormick in Albany, Indiana....
, Ian Martin
Ian Martin
Ian Martin, from the United Kingdom, is a human rights activist who has been involved in a number of human rights organisations. He was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal for the United Nations Mission in Nepal from 2007 to 2009....
, and Mason Adams
Mason Adams
Mason Adams was an American character actor and voice-over artist.-Early life:Adams was born in Brooklyn, New York. He earned an MA degree from the University of Michigan in Theatre Arts and Speech and also attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, studying theater arts...
. Players like Richard Widmark
Richard Widmark
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
, Everett Sloane
Everett Sloane
Everett Sloane was an American stage, film and television actor, songwriter, and theatre director.-Early life:...
, Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith
Oliver Burgess Meredith , known professionally as Burgess Meredith, was an American actor in theatre, film, and television, who also worked as a director...
, Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...
, Ken Lynch
Ken Lynch
Ken Lynch was an American film and TV actor best known for his starring role as 'the Lieutenant' on the 1949-1954 Dumont detective series The Plainclothesman, on which his face was never seen, and for his co-starring role as Sergeant Grover on McCloud.-Career:Lynch appeared in numerous TV series...
, Anne Seymour
Anne Seymour
Anne Seymour may refer to:* Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, née Stanhope, wife of the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and aunt of Edward VI of England...
, and Santos Ortega
Santos Ortega
Santos Ortega was an American actor.-Radio:Ortega was active in radio, starring in The Adventures of Nero Wolfe and narrating a popular radio show called Gangbusters as well as Stroke of Fate. Perhaps his most famous and notable radio role was Commissioner Weston on The Shadow...
also found fame or notability in film or television.
Of more than 500 programs broadcast, only about 200 remain in circulation, sometimes minus dates or titles.
Program opening
Sound effect: A door with squeaky hinges is slowly opened. Organ begins to play.Raymond: Good evening, friends of the Inner Sanctum. This is Raymond, your host. I'm glad you came tonight, because we have a very special guest of horror with us. I'd like you meet the late Johnny Gravestone. The most celebrated member of the Inner Sanctum Ghost Society. He's the best haunter of the all. Johnny's the tall figure in the white sheet wearing the blue ribbon. He's haunted everything from a palace to a telephone booth. And uh, if you're very nice to him, he'll be glad to consider giving your house the once over. Who knows? He might even haunt you? Ha-ha-ha-ha!
(Commercial)
Raymond: Well, we're about to begin our story. Oh, I forgot to warn you about the Tremblins. They're those pesky, invisible cousins of the gremlins. They uh, you, give quick little shoves, and give the false impression that you're trembling. If you're being troubled by a Tremblin, just grab him by his invisible little horns and stick him into the nearest pin cushion.
Films
Lon Chaney, Jr.
Lon Chaney, Jr. , born Creighton Tull Chaney, was an American character actor. He was best known for his roles in monster movies and as the son of famous silent film actor, Lon Chaney...
and based on the radio show was produced in the 1940s: Calling Dr. Death
Calling Dr. Death
Calling Dr. Death was the first of the Universal Pictures Inner Sanctum mystery films. The movie stars Lon Chaney, Jr. and Patricia Morison, and was directed by Reginald Le Borg. The "Inner Sanctum" franchise originated with a popular radio series and all of the films star Chaney.-Plot:Dr...
(1943), Weird Woman
Weird Woman
Weird Woman is an Inner Sanctum mystery film directed by Reginald Le Borg, and starring Lon Chaney, Jr., Anne Gwynne, and Evelyn Ankers. The "Inner Sanctum" franchise originated with a popular radio series and all of the films star Lon Chaney, Jr....
(1944), Dead Man's Eyes
Dead Man's Eyes
Dead Man's Eyes is a 1944 Inner Sanctum mystery film directed by Reginald Le Borg, and starring Lon Chaney, Jr. and Jean Parker. The film was distributed by Universal Pictures. The "Inner Sanctum" franchise originated with a popular radio series and all of the films star Lon Chaney, Jr.-Plot:Artist...
(1944), The Frozen Ghost
The Frozen Ghost
The Frozen Ghost is a mystery film starring Lon Chaney, Jr. and Evelyn Ankers, and directed by Harold Young. It is the fourth of the six "Inner Sanctum" mystery films.-Plot:...
(1945), Strange Confession
Strange Confession
Strange Confession was an Inner Sanctum mystery film, released by Universal Pictures and starring Lon Chaney, Jr., J. Carrol Naish and Brenda Joyce. The movie was directed by John Hoffman and was later rereleased under the title The Missing Head...
(1945) and Pillow of Death
Pillow of Death
Pillow of Death was the last of the Inner Sanctum mystery films. The movie stars Lon Chaney, Jr. and Brenda Joyce, was directed by Wallace Fox, and based on a story by Dwight V. Babcock...
(1945). A Film Classics release Inner Sanctum
Inner Sanctum (1948 film)
- Plot summary :Inner Sanctum is a movie about a murderer who is on the lam and hiding out in a small town. Unbeknownst to him, he is not only hiding in the same boarding house as the only witness to his crime, he is sharing the same room....
was made in 1948.
Television
The 1954 syndicated televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
series featured Paul McGrath as the off-camera host/narrator. The TV shows were produced at the Chelsea Studios
Chelsea Studios
Chelsea Studios is a television studio and sound stage at 221 West 26th Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.-History:The building was originally an armory that was home to Ninth Mounted Calvary which moved to 14th Street in 1914....
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
"Pleasant dreeeeaaams, hmmmmm?"
In the 1970s, with his CBS Radio Mystery TheaterCBS Radio Mystery Theater
CBS Radio Mystery Theater was a radio drama series created by Himan Brown that was broadcast on CBS affiliates from 1974 to 1982....
series, Himan Brown recycled both the creaking door opening, and to a lesser extent, the manner of Raymond. The hosts were E. G. Marshall
E. G. Marshall
E. G. Marshall was an American actor, best known for his television roles as the lawyer Lawrence Preston on The Defenders in the 1960s, and as neurosurgeon David Craig on The Bold Ones: The New Doctors in the 1970s...
and Tammy Grimes
Tammy Grimes
-Early life:Grimes was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, the daughter of Eola Willard , a naturalist and spiritualist, and Nicholas Luther Grimes, an innkeeper, country-club manager, and farmer. She attended high school at the then-all girls school, Beaver Country Day School, in Chestnut Hill,...
. In later repeats during the 1990s, Brown himself mimicked Raymond's "Pleasant dreeeeaaams, hmmmmm?" for the familiar closing.
Satires
Harvey KurtzmanHarvey Kurtzman
Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic books and magazines. Kurtzman often signed his name H. Kurtz, followed by a stick figure Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924, Brooklyn, New York – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic...
and Will Elder
Will Elder
William Elder was an American illustrator and comic book artist who worked in numerous areas of commercial art, but is best known for a zany cartoon style that helped launch Harvey Kurtzman's Mad comic book in 1952....
satirized the series in Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
s fifth issue (June-July 1953) with "Outer Sanctum!" In the opening panels, host Ramon greets the reader: "Come in, I've been waiting for you! I've been waiting for you to fix my squeaking door!... What?... You say you're not the carpenter?... You have come to hear a story?... Very well!"
In the Three Stooges
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...
short The Ghost Talks
The Ghost Talks (1949 film)
The Ghost Talks is the 113th short subject starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges. The trio made a total of 190 shorts for Columbia Pictures between 1934 and 1959.-Plot:...
, a creaking door prompts Shemp to parody the opening narration of the program, naming it "The Outer Sanctorum."
The opening of an Inner Sanctum episode was used to open one side of The Whole Burbank Catalog, a 1972 compilation album
Compilation album
A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
in the Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders
Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders
The Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders were a series of promotional sampler compilation albums released by Warner Bros. Records throughout the 1970s. Each album contained a wide variety of tracks by artists under contract to Warner Bros...
series from Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
. The announcer's jokey pun in this case concerned an author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
friend, specializing in best-sellers, who "tried to bury [him] in one, because all the very best sellers (cellars) have corpses in them." A backwards version of the creaking door sound effect led directly into "Get It On"
Get It On (T. Rex song)
"Get It On" was covered by the Power Station in 1985. Their version – titled "Get It On " – was released as their second single from their debut album. The track was a hit in both the UK, reaching number 22 on the UK Singles Chart, and the U.S., where the song peaked at number nine on the...
by T. Rex
T. Rex (band)
T. Rex were a British rock band, formed in 1967 by singer/songwriter and guitarist Marc Bolan. The band formed as Tyrannosaurus Rex, releasing four folk albums under the name...
.
The 1946 Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is a animated character created in 1938 at Leon Schlesinger Productions, later Warner Bros. Cartoons. Bugs is an anthropomorphic gray rabbit and is famous for his flippant, insouciant personality and his portrayal as a trickster. He has primarily appeared in animated cartoons, most...
cartoon, Racketeer Rabbit
Racketeer Rabbit
Racketeer Rabbit is a 1946 animated short film in the Looney Tunes series produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. It stars Bugs Bunny, who duels with a pair of racketeers or gangsters, Rocky and Hugo forerunners who resemble Edward G. Robinson and Peter Lorre...
had Bugs enter an abandoned Victorian house (which was actually the gangsters' hideout) that had a squeaky door. Bugs said as he was entering the house, "Huh? Sounds like Inner Sanctum!"