#frank readick

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Journey into Fear (1943) Norman Foster

October 28th 2024

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This week on Content Abnormal we present Orson Welles in The Shadow adventure "Murders In Wax"!

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Frank Readick as ‘The Shadow’ in one of the six ‘Detective Story Hour’ shorts from 1931

Readick also performed ‘The Shadow’ for the vast majority of the character’s original, pre-Pulp run on ‘The Detective Story Magazine Hour’ (1930). While none of those radio episodes has, to our knowledge, ever survived, this is quite close to what the radio show would have sounded like. 

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The Voices of The Shadow (Pulp Radio Drama) 1930-1954

James La Curto (1930) Frank Readick, Jr. (1930-35) Orson Welles (1937-38) Bill Johnstone (1938-1943) John Archer (1944-45) Steve Courtleigh (1945) and Bret Morrison (1943-44, 1945-1954)

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One of the most famous voices of the Golden Age of Radio, Frank Readick was born November 6, 1896.  Perhaps his two most famous roles are as doomed reporter Carl Phillips in Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast and as The Shadow in the character’s earliest incarnation as a sinister storyteller on Street & Smith’s Detective Story Hour.  Readick’s intonation of the program’s famous introduction and sign-off bookended the Shadow episodes starring Orson Welles; if you’ve heard an Orson Welles episode, it is Frank Readick who says “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?“  Seen above with his son Robert (a talented radio actor and writer in his own right who starred as Johnny Dollar), Frank Readick’s voice is one of the most celebrated in radio history.

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In the character’s earliest days as an announcer on Detective Story Hour, Frank Readick voiced The Shadow. Readick may be best known to old time radio fans as “Carl Phillips,” the reporter who vividly describes the Martian attack in Orson Welles’ production of The War of the Worlds. In the 1940s, Readick returned to The Shadow in supporting roles opposite Bill Johnstone. In “The Shadow Challenged,” one of my favorite episodes, Readick appears as a rival who’s figured out the Shadow’s secret of invisibility and begins framing the real Shadow for murder.

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Actor Frank Readick was born November 6, 1897. Readick was one of the first actors to give voice to The Shadow as announcer and narrator of Street & Smith’s Detective Story Hour radio program. Readick’s sinister intonations made the character a national sensation and paved the way for The Shadow’s transformation to radio detective. His most famous performance is that of reporter Carl Phillips, reporting from the front on the Martian invasion in Orson Welles’ “The War of the Worlds.”

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Frank Readick stars in this story of an international manhunt (involving state and federal agencies as well as the Canadian Mounties) for crooks trafficking in drugs.