VISUAL RADIO PLAYS

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jewel Theatre presented a series of classic mystery/thriller radio plays produced exclusively for online viewing.
These are visual versions of old radio programs where you are the studio audience watching the actors reading the script and creating multiple characters with their voices in front of the microphone. We’ve accompanied the actors with a unique visual landscape and the foley (sound) artist creating the sound effects, bringing you a distinctive storytelling experience.
 
No fee is required to watch.

 

 

 

 

VISUAL
RADIO PLAYS

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jewel Theatre presented a series of classic mystery/thriller radio plays produced exclusively for online viewing.
These are visual versions of old radio programs where you are the studio audience watching the actors reading the script and creating multiple characters with their voices in front of the microphone. We’ve accompanied the actors with a unique visual landscape and the foley (sound) artist creating the sound effects, bringing you a distinctive storytelling experience. No fee is required to watch.

Watch for FREE

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

Based on a 1937 Hungarian play by Miklos Laszlo called Parfumerie

Running Time: approximately 1 hr. 9 min.
It’s holiday time and two people who work in the same novelty shop can barely stand each other and don’t realize they are falling in love as anonymous correspondents through their letters. If this plot sounds familiar it’s because it was a 1940 romantic comedy film written by Samson Raphaelson and produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch staring Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart, based on the 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo. The plot conceit was also revived in the 1997 film You’ve Got Mail starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

Watch for FREE

THE STRANGE SISTERS

By Bernard Gerard

Running Time: approximately 32 min.
The three Randal girls were as different from each other as day and night. Pamela and Cathy were of two extremes, and Sally was in the middle. When a traumatic event happens, this dynamic trio’s true relationship is exposed, for better or worse.

Watch for FREE

THE DAY I DIED

By Ken Pettis and Lou Schofield

Running Time: approximately 32 min.
Welles Gallaway was stealing from his law practice. He stole hundreds of thousands of dollars but now he is broke. Welles doesn’t have an answer to his troubles, but he goes up to his cabin with a revolver to figure it out. He doesn’t bother to ask his wife, Leslie, to come because she is in love with another man. While there, a visit from his law partner changes everything and gives Welles a new way to fix his life.

Watch for FREE

AUGUST HEAT

Adaptation by Mel Dinelli, based on a short story by W. F. Harvey

Running Time: 27 minutes.
On a scorching August day, artist James Clarence Withencroft is mysteriously compelled to draw an image from his mind of a criminal in the dock immediately after the judge has given him a sentence. That evening, Withencroft goes for a walk and wanders into the workshop of a stonemason who Withencroft is surprised to see resembles the criminal in his sketch. The two men talk as the stonemason works on a headstone and despite the oppressive temperature, the stone worker’s comment that a “man’s not responsible for what he does in this heat” brings a chill to Withencroft. The rest of the day unnerves Withencroft to his core as he sees his sketch’s premonition coming to fruition in ways he could never imagine.

Watch for FREE

THE HOUSE IN CYPRESS CANYON

Running Time: approximately 33 min.
A chilling story of the supernatural. A young couple move to Los Angeles and rent a furnished house. In the course of unpacking and exploring their new home, they discover a locked closet to which there is no key. Neither of them thinks anything of it until later that night, when they hear unearthly shrieks, first coming from a distance, then apparently coming from inside the house. When they investigate, they discover a stream of blood running from underneath the closet door….

Watch for FREE

SORRY, WRONG NUMBER

By Lucille Fletcher

Running Time: approximately 36 min.

When wires get crossed, a woman accidentally overhears the telephone conversation of two men plotting a murder. Suspense and terror mounts as the woman tries to save the intended victim. This legendary one-act became one of radio’s most famous plays, and was later adapted into a now classic work of film noir starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster.

Watch for FREE

The Whistler – STRANGER IN THE HOUSE

Running Time: approximately 36 min.

Helen has been waiting for news of her brother for six years. When the brother finally shows up… she’s sure he’s an imposter! Yet it has been six years since her brother Ted left for the Orient on that government mission just before Pearl Harbor and she was sure he was still out there somewhere between Manila and Shanghai, alive or dead. But tired of waiting for any kind of message, even one telling her Ted was dead, Helen tries giving the benefit of the doubt to this stranger in her house…

Watch for FREE

EBENEZER

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Adapted by Brian R. G. Heath

It’s that time of year again when we get to watch our favorite ghost story with famous killjoy Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by spirits and eventually discovers his own humanity and the joy of giving to others. This readers theatre adaptation is presented in our visual radio play format with added special effects and performed by some of your favorite Jewel Theatre actors.

Watch for FREE

Mercury Theatre On the Air – WAR OF THE WORLDS

The radio play adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel

Running Time: approximately 1 hour

See Jewel Theatre’s version of this classic radio play which was performed and broadcast live as a Halloween episode at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 30, 1938, over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. Approximately 6 million people tuned into Welles’ “Mercury Theater on the Air” innovative adaptation of H.G. Wells’ sci-fi classic about a Martian invasion, and most reportedly realized it was drama. But because of its realistic news bulletin format being broadcast to an anxious nation reeling from the Great Depression, some believed aliens from the Red Planet had actually landed and overrun the small town of Grover’s Mill, N.J., and were on the move through the rest of the country.

Watch for FREE

The Mystery Traveler – THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

By Robert Arthur and David Kogan

Running Time: approximately 33 minutes

This mystery/thriller depicts the rising tension between a precocious girl and her father’s new wife.

Watch for FREE

THE HITCH-HIKER

By Lucille Fletcher

Running Time: 26 minutes

Ronald Adams is driving cross-country from Brooklyn to California. On the first day of his trip, in the rain, Ronald sees a mysterious man on the Brooklyn Bridge who seems to be waiting for a lift. As he proceeds on his journey, Ronald is haunted by the hitch-hiker in more ways than one.