Golden Radio Theater
Home/Drama & Anthology/Moon Over Africa
Drama & Anthology · Syndicated

Moon Over Africa

March 16, 1935 – September 7, 1935 · 26 broadcasts

A syndicated cliffhanger serial in twenty-six quarter-hour chapters, cut to disc and sold outright to any station that wanted it. Professor Anton Edwards is camped two hundred miles from the upper Congo with his daughter Lorna and the Masai prince Umguru -- his assistant, Jack Martin, catches up with them in chapter two -- when the expedition acquires a mummified head that speaks -- in the language of Atlantis, the professor believes, and pointing the way to the lost Golden Race hidden somewhere in the African interior. What follows is pure 1930s adventure pulp: snake worshippers, cannibal captors, a dead volcano with a medieval kingdom on its floor, a queen at war with her own priests, a village of leopard men, and a forest the story calls devil-infested. The trade press sold it as an African mystery of devil dances and witchcraft; the show is at least honest enough to pull the rug out at the halfway mark, in chapter thirteen, and admit that its central marvel was never magic at all. Nobody knows who acted in it -- no source names a single performer -- and the collector literature credits the scripts to the adventure novelist Talbot Mundy, who really had hunted ivory in East Africa before he ever wrote a word of fiction. All twenty-six chapters survive.

Collection status: 26 of 26 held (100% complete)
◆ ◆ ◆

Episode Spine

1935

March 16, 1935 The Talking Head Listen (MP3)
Camped two hundred miles from the upper Congo, Professor Anton Edwards waits with his daughter Lorna and the Masai prince Umguru for the assistant who must arrive before they can push further inland, and night comes down on the jungle.
March 23, 1935 The Atlantis Quest Listen (MP3)
A severed head that speaks passes into the professor's hands and his assistant Jack Martin reaches camp; their argument over the thing breaks off when Lorna screams from her tent.
March 30, 1935 Jungle Trance Listen (MP3)
Lorna is found sleepwalking and tied to her bed for safety, then vanishes with the ropes still knotted, into bush that holds a white python and a pair of lions.
April 6, 1935 The Sacred Python Listen (MP3)
Getting Lorna back costs the life of a sacred snake, and its worshippers gather to avenge their god while the expedition breaks camp and marches.
April 13, 1935 The Rhinocerous Hill Listen (MP3)
Carvings on a rock -- a horned horse that runs although it has no eyes -- give the professor a clue to the snuffbox, as the party camps believing it has thrown off pursuit.
April 20, 1935 Captured by Cannibals Listen (MP3)
Hunting a carved snuffbox whose markings will open the road ahead, the professor, Lorna and Jack are set upon and marched off with their hands bound behind them.
April 27, 1935 Escape Listen (MP3)
Held in a native hut with the weapons Umguru has smuggled in, Jack and the professor wait for his signal -- and hear Lorna cry out instead.
May 4, 1935 A New Land Listen (MP3)
Hostile tribesmen drive the party off the Bacari River, and a week's march later a mountain range rises ahead that the professor means to climb -- Umguru carrying the head along in its basket.
May 11, 1935 Inside the Volcano Listen (MP3)
From the summit they look down into an enormous dead volcano, and the slab of rock they are standing on starts to slide into the crater.
May 18, 1935 Prisoners in the Palace Listen (MP3)
Volcanic gas puts the party to sleep; they wake among people who dress and speak as if from the Middle Ages, and shooting two sacred apes makes them prisoners in a temple cut from solid rock.
May 25, 1935 Sacrificed Listen (MP3)
Sentenced for sacrilege, the party is quietly asked by the queen to break her priests' grip on the country -- and then the head speaks again.
June 1, 1935 Revolution Listen (MP3)
Hauled before the priests, the professor shoots their high priest dead, and the crater kingdom falls into civil war between the queen's followers and the temple's.
June 8, 1935 The Secret of the Talking Head Listen (MP3)
The battle won, the professor learns the talking head is a radio receiver built by Lamberti, a madman who has shadowed the expedition all along and is now setting explosives for Lorna.
June 15, 1935 Passage of the Rock Listen (MP3)
With the riddle solved and its inventor dead, the queen sends Umguru away with a Crusader's sword, and the party braves the dark passage through the cliffs -- where a dead man stands watch.
June 22, 1935 Witch Woman of the Rock Listen (MP3)
Deep in the cave a silent figure looms out of the torchlight, and a blind, cackling old woman warns them about the eyes of the moon.
June 29, 1935 Back to the Jungle Listen (MP3)
A crocodile blocks the underground river until the blind woman -- the queen's own mother -- guides them across, still warning about the moon, with apes snarling somewhere ahead.
July 6, 1935 The Eyes of the Moon Listen (MP3)
They emerge on a mountainside under a full moon, ceremonial drums beating in a village below, and something in Jack begins to change as he looks up at it.
July 13, 1935 The Leopard Cult Listen (MP3)
In the firelight the Witch of the Moon dances in a leopard skin and seems to become the animal, and the leopard that charges the watchers stops to purr at Jack.
July 20, 1935 Leopard Woman Listen (MP3)
Ifabie, called Daughter of the Moon, tells the party never to shoot a leopard because the animal may be one of the village men -- while a leopard with her own yellow eyes sits watching Lorna's hut.
July 27, 1935 The Devil Doll Listen (MP3)
Trailing the leopard to prove that the girl and the beast are two separate creatures, the professor fires, and in the flashlight beam the snarls turn into a woman's groans.
August 3, 1935 White Magic Listen (MP3)
Jealous of the attention Ifabie pays Jack, the warrior Adacko gets the witch doctor to shape an image of him, then works a needle toward its heart while Jack feels the pain crawl down his side.
August 10, 1935 Native Revenge Listen (MP3)
The death charm broken, Ifabie hands the professor an old golden goblet with Roman lettering and promises to show him where the rest of the treasure lies.
August 17, 1935 Whispering Forest of Death Listen (MP3)
A week's march brings the party into the whispering forest of death, where something almost human is glimpsed, Lorna and Umguru go missing, and a village of lake dwellers is found.
August 24, 1935 Treachery Listen (MP3)
Umguru is left guarding Lorna and Ifabie while the two men go off after water, and at the stream something not quite human brushes past them and is gone into the trees.
August 31, 1935 The Orchids of Death Listen (MP3)
Lorna and Ifabie are rescued from the lake dwellers and the trail leads on to tombstones, Latin inscriptions and an iron box, past orchids whose scent nearly overpowers everyone.
September 7, 1935 The Treasure of the Ancients Listen (MP3)
Ifabie and Adacko, the chief's son, agree to let the strangers haul the treasure clear of the haunted forest first -- and kill them for it afterwards.
The Story

A syndicated cliffhanger serial in twenty-six quarter-hour chapters, cut to disc and sold outright to any station that wanted it. Professor Anton Edwards is camped two hundred miles from the upper Congo with his daughter Lorna and the Masai prince Umguru -- his assistant, Jack Martin, catches up with them in chapter two -- when the expedition acquires a mummified head that speaks -- in the language of Atlantis, the professor believes, and pointing the way to the lost Golden Race hidden somewhere in the African interior. What follows is pure 1930s adventure pulp: snake worshippers, cannibal captors, a dead volcano with a medieval kingdom on its floor, a queen at war with her own priests, a village of leopard men, and a forest the story calls devil-infested. The trade press sold it as an African mystery of devil dances and witchcraft; the show is at least honest enough to pull the rug out at the halfway mark, in chapter thirteen, and admit that its central marvel was never magic at all. Nobody knows who acted in it -- no source names a single performer -- and the collector literature credits the scripts to the adventure novelist Talbot Mundy, who really had hunted ivory in East Africa before he ever wrote a word of fiction. All twenty-six chapters survive.

Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
Gallery
Art pending