Nine Prisoners (Aired February 20, 1939)
This was drama with a difference. Columbia Workshop was not everybody’s cup of tea and in terms of audience popularity it was always noted that it was never a strong contender for the title “Radios Top Rated Drama Series” and yet it was always considered to be the drama program that led the way in radio standards. Columbia was the first to experiment with what radio drama was all about, introducing new techniques never before used in over the airwaves drama and because it received little encouragement from established writers, actors, etc., it was only by breaking new ground with new ideas and new techniques from writers who were not versed in the old ways that it was going to survive. Unlike theater drama, which required scenery to stage the settings of a play, radio drama relied only on the imagination of the listener to interpret the scene. But without the right kind of writer the whole thing could fall flat on it’s face. It required a blend of words and music coupled with each listener’s imagination to make the whole thing work successfully.
THIS EPISODE:
February 20, 1939. CBS network. "Nine Prisoners". Sustaining. Nine American soldiers are ordered to kill twenty-two unarmed Nazi prisoners in cold blood. A very well-done story, produced almost cinematically, each man's thoughts telling the story. William March (author). 1/2 hour.
FOR THIS EPISODE AND HUNDREDS MORE, FOLLOW THIS LINK TO BOXCARS711
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