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"Wherever there is mystery, adventure, intrigue, in all the strange and dangerous places in the world, there you will find the man called X!" Debonair British actor Herbert Marshall stars as FBI secret agent Ken Thurston, "the man who crosses the ocean as readily as you and I cross town; he is the man who fights today's war in his unique fashion, so that tomorrow's peace will make the world a neighborhood for all of us." Leon Belasco plays Mr. X's comedic sidekick, Pagan Zeldchmidt, who always turns up in remote parts of the world.

Among several newspaper-based dramas during radio's golden age, Night Beat was a cut above the others. It was the story of Randy Stone, a hard-nosed Chicago Star newsman, and his quest for the human-interest story behind the headlines. Frank Lovejoy starred as Randy Stone, who came to vivid life thanks to expert scripts by Russell Hughes, Larry Marcus, E. Jack Neuman, and John Michael Hayes. Lovejoy's distinctive voice and approach to the role, combined with top performances by veteran radio actors, gave Night Beat a noir style that listeners loved.

Conceived as a potential radio vehicle for Alfred Hitchcock to direct, Suspense was a radio series of epic proportion. It aired on CBS from 1942 to 1962, and is considered by many to be the best mystery/drama series of the golden age. Often referred to as "Radio's Outstanding Theater of Thrills" it focused on suspenseful thrillers starring the biggest names in Hollywood.

Jack Webb (1920 - 1982) was a popular American actor, television producer, director, and screenwriter. He started out in the entertainment industry in comedy, but achieved his first success playing the title character in the radio show Pat Novak, for Hire. His greater success came from his role as Los Angeles Police Department sergeant Joe Friday in the show Dragnet, which he created based on actual LAPD criminal case files and which ran for many years on both radio and television.

Every week, Inner Sanctum Mysteries told a story of ghosts, murderers, and lunatics. Taking its name from a popular series of mystery novels, Inner Sanctum Mysteries debuted over NBC radio's Blue Network in January 1941 and featured one of the most memorable and atmospheric openings in radio history, as an organist hit a dissonant chord, a doorknob turned, and a creaking door slowly began to open.

Dimension X was one of radio's first adult science fiction series, and made its mark by adapting short stories by acknowledged masters in the field, including Isaac Asimov, Clifford D. Simak, and William Tenn. Scriptwriters Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts, who also contributed their own original scripts, adapted the original stories. At the start of every broadcast, host Norman Rose promised us "adventures in time and space, told in future tense" and you knew you were about to be transported from your everyday existence.

The Cisco Kid was a popular film, radio, television, and comic-book series based on the fictional Western character created by O. Henry in his short story, "The Caballero's Way," published in 1907 in the collection Heart of the West. Films and television depicted the Cisco Kid as a heroic Mexican caballero, a more honorable character than in O. Henry's original story.

Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll made their radio debut on January 12, 1926, as the comedic blackface characters Sam 'n' Henry. On March 19, 1928, they introduced Amos 'n' Andy, which went on to become one of the most popular and longest-running programs in radio history. During the height of its popularity, almost the entire country tuned in to their adventures.

The Lineup was a hard-boiled drama. Like Dragnet, it realistically showed police doing their jobs. The show always began with a police sergeant ordering suspects to stand at attention so that the victim, behind one-way glass, could try to identify the criminal. While the lineup was rarely the key to solving the case, it did give the show a rhythm and also allowed for humor in the interrogation of the suspects by the sergeant. The series began as a summer replacement for The FBI in Peace and War in 1950, but soon got its own time slot.

Here are 12 episodes of the horror and mystery series written and produced by radio announcers beginning in 1946. There were several series under the Hall of Fantasy banner, all produced by Richard Thorne. The first originated from radio station KALL in Salt Lake City. Richard Thorne and Carl Greyson were announcers for the station and coproduced the bare-bones horror series beginning in 1946. Written or adapted by Robert Olson and directed by Thorne, the stories were mostly murder mysteries with traditional endings.

In 1949, NBC brought handsome Irish American actor Brian Donlevy to the radio microphones as international troubleshooter Steve Mitchell in the spy series Dangerous Assignment. Mitchell worked for an unnamed US government intelligence agency, whose boss, "the Commissioner," dispatched him to world trouble spots. Mitchell's assignment was to solve problems in record time and in accordance with US interests.

Although "Ol' Blue Eyes" would conquer records, film, and television, it was radio that first made Frank Sinatra a star. Spanning the years 1943 to 1954, this collection showcases Sinatra from such shows as Suspense, The Frank Sinatra Show, The Jack Benny Program, The Burns and Allen Show, and more. Included is the final episode of Sinatra's action/detective series, Rocky Fortune, a low-budget radio series that he decided not to continue after winning his Academy Award.

Frontier Gentleman was a radio western series aimed at adults that aired on CBS radio for one season in 1958. It starred radio veteran John Dehner as J. B. Kendall, a reporter for the London Times. The series followed the adventures of the freelance journalist as he roamed the western United States in search of stories for his newspaper. Kendall often crossed paths with well-known historical figures, such as Jesse James, Calamity Jane, and Wild Bill Hickok.

Made as a prequel to the hit film The Third Man, this radio show was created to follow the adventures of the popular character Harry Lime, played here and in the movie by Orson Welles. The 1949 film The Third Man won an Academy Award and was an international success, called "magic" by Roger Ebert and "one of the finest films ever made" by The New York Times.

Michael Shayne, "the reckless, redheaded Irishman", was a popular hard-boiled detective created by crime novelist Brett Halliday. In the novels, Michael Shayne settled in Miami just after WWII, making crime pay by fighting it with a license and an attitude. Like Mike Hammer and Philip Marlowe, Shayne was a loner. The backstory on Mike is that he was happily married, but it hit him hard when his wife was tragically murdered. Grief stricken, Shayne loses himself in his work as a private eye, prowling the dark streets of the city.

Lyon, portrayed by Wilms Herbert, ran the International Detective Bureau, a small private investigations firm in downtown Los Angeles, with often oversized ambitions. Regan handled rough assignments from Lyon, with whom he was not always on good terms. Actor Jack Webb played Regan as tough and tenacious, with a dry sense of humor. The series ended when Webb left the show in December 1948, but was resurrected in October 1949 with a new cast.

Here are 12 episodes from the greatest Western shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio! You'll hear William Conrad as Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke; John Dehner as the man called Paladin in Have Gun - Will Travel; Alan Ladd in a Western tale well calculated to keep you in suspense; John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and Gregory Peck reprising their film roles in Fort Apache, Destry Rides Again, and Yellow Sky; plus other great Western radio episodes, including four episodes of the high-adventure series Escape.

Sam Spade was a hard-boiled detective with cold detachment, a keen eye for detail, and unflinching determination to achieve his own justice. The character of Sam Spade was created by writer Dashiell Hammett in 1930 for his crime story The Maltese Falcon, and for most people, the character is closely associated with actor Humphrey Bogart, who played Sam Spade in the third and most famous film version of the story. In 1946, William Spier, one of radio's top producers, brought Sam Spade to the airwaves.

The CBS Radio Workshop regularly featured the works of the world's greatest writers, including Ray Bradbury, Archibald MacLeish, William Saroyan, Lord Dunsany, and Ambrose Bierce, among others. The radio series aired from January 27, 1956, through September 22, 1957, and was a revival of the prestigious Columbia Workshop from the 1930s and 1940s. Creator William Froug launched the series with this powerhouse two-part adaptation of Brave New World and booked author Aldous Huxley to narrate his famous novel.

The Aldrich Family was a popular situation comedy that was heard on radio and seen in films, on television, and in comic books. Teenager Henry Aldrich, the creation of playwright Clifford Goldsmith, was an endearingly bumbling kid growing awkwardly into adolescence. Episodes revolved around Henry's misadventures with girls, his family, and his friends.