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Mystery, Crime & Detective · Syndicated

Strange Wills

January 15, 1946 – December 21, 1946 · 30 broadcasts

Strange Wills turned the driest document in the law -- a last will and testament -- into a half-hour of menace. Syndicated out of Hollywood in 1946 by Teleways Radio Company with Charles Michelson, it starred the film actor Warren William as probate attorney John Frances O'Connell, who narrates each case and, in the better episodes, walks straight into it. The premise was that the stories were true: they were compiled by a lawyer turned author, Ken Krippene, from ten years of case research, with names and places changed. What a will could reach for after its author's death was the whole point -- the early shows open on a roll call of the seven deadly sins, and from the tenth episode on with a plainer line, that dead men's wills are often strange. The device let the series go anywhere. Across twenty-six stories it produced a Scottish moor ghost story, an 18th-century pirate voyage, a Colombian emerald hunt, a science-fiction tale about images recovered from light waves, and a straight courtroom reprieve. Lurene Tuttle, William Conrad, Marvin Miller, Howard Culver, Carleton Young and Peggy Webber move through the supporting casts, with an organ score by Del Castillo throughout. It was among Warren William's last work; he died of multiple myeloma in September 1948.

Collection status: 28 of 30 held (93% complete)
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Episode Spine

1946

January 15, 1946 Audition & Sales Presention Listen (MP3)
Marvin Miller presents the series to prospective sponsors, laying out the format and playing excerpts from several episodes.
June 8, 1946 The Mad Concerto Listen (MP3)
A rich benefactor's money keeps a gifted young pianist housebound and unmarried for eighteen years, and the probate lawyer who loved her is shut out until she finally sends for him.
June 15, 1946 Alias Doctor Svengali Listen (MP3)
A dying man rewrites his will to name two people as his murderers: his own wife, and the hypnotic psychiatrist who has drawn her under his spell.
June 22, 1946 Black Interlude Listen (MP3)
A father cuts his son out of the will and swears his hatred will outlast him; two embittered years later he dies, and the son's guilt closes over him until he cannot speak.
June 29, 1946 The Lady and the Pirate Listen (MP3)
In 1724 an ancestor and namesake of O'Connell sails for the Carolinas under the King's orders to see a notorious pirate hanged, while a headstrong noblewoman aboard means to tame the man instead.
July 6, 1946 The Prince of Broadway Listen (MP3)
A Broadway showman builds an unknown into a star, then signs away his own claim on her rather than let his feelings cost her the career.
July 13, 1946 Treasure to Starboard Listen (MP3)
A sea captain wills away a fortune that sank with his ship in 1703, and the salvage hunt two centuries later runs up against rival German treasure seekers.
July 20, 1946 One Shining Night Listen (MP3)
A descendant of the Borgias leaves a sealed envelope to be opened on his daughter's nineteenth birthday, disclosing at last the nature of the experiments he has been conducting.
July 27, 1946 Midnight on the Moor Listen (MP3)
A Scottish patriarch promises O'Connell he will name his son's killer even from the grave, and out on the fog-covered moor he makes good on it.
August 3, 1946 Seven Flights to Glory Listen (MP3)
An industrialist's will gives her painter son a choice: fifteen years running the family empire, or five thousand dollars and passage to Paris to go on painting.
August 10, 1946 The Girl from Shadowland Listen (MP3)
A dead professor's diary describes a machine that recovers images from light waves, and the young woman he sent into the world it uncovered.
August 17, 1946 Madman's Diary Listen (MP3)
A dead professor's diary describes a machine that recovers images from light waves, and the young woman he sent into the world it uncovered. (Broadcast a week after the same story went out as "The Girl from Shadowland".)
August 24, 1946 Emeralds Come High Listen (MP3)
A burlesque headliner inherits a map to an emerald mine in Colombia, and her probate lawyer finds himself along for the expedition.
August 31, 1946 Emelie Listen (MP3)
Two hundred years in the life of one Stradivarius violin, from the Cremona workshop through gypsy hands and Nazi confiscation to the claim O'Connell has to settle.
September 7, 1946 Margin for Love Listen (MP3)
A man is condemned to the chair for a killing he did not do, and a detail about how many shots were fired sends O'Connell after the real murderer.
September 14, 1946 They Met in Monte Carlo Listen (MP3)
A romance struck up at the casino in 1935 turns dangerous once the woman's fiance proves to belong to the German Reich.
September 21, 1946 The Girl in Cell 13 Listen (MP3)
A collector wills O'Connell a pair of blood-red rubies with a long history of murder behind them, charging him to return them where they were stolen -- then is knifed before he can hand them over.
September 28, 1946 So Deep the Stream Listen (MP3)
A dead playwright bequeaths his son a trunk of work that failed only because it came too early, and the son gives up the woman he loves to get it staged.
October 5, 1946 Miser's Gold Listen (MP3)
A ragged old prospector sitting on ten sacks of gold works out a posthumous scheme to keep it away from the three grasping relatives who once tried to rob him.
October 12, 1946 East of Hudson's Bay Listen (MP3)
A woman inherits ten thousand acres that turn out to lie in frozen northern Quebec, and a French-Canadian guide takes her north to claim them.
October 19, 1946 Autograph Girl Listen (MP3)
A film star signs his will and meets an admirer the same day; they marry at once, and her sudden appetite for stardom turns out to be the real hazard.
October 26, 1946 Penthouse Orphan Listen (MP3)
A confirmed bachelor is left money to look after a young cousin from France, and finds his ward is eighteen and more than a match for him.
November 2, 1946 Singapore Liz Listen (MP3)
Hunting the Singapore docks for the beneficiary of a million-dollar will, O'Connell is drawn instead into the story of the waterfront's most famous woman.
November 9, 1946 Crosswind Listen (MP3)
A condemned killer's break for freedom crosses the path of a shipping heiress bound for South America, with O'Connell watching mostly from the sidelines.
November 16, 1946 Dance Director Listen (MP3)
A Broadway opening night calls up the performer whose rise was governed by the terms her father wrote into his will.
November 23, 1946 Death Has Ten Words Listen (MP3)
A scrawl on a scrap of newspaper turns out to be a gangster's will, and it leaves his estate to a waitress who barely knew him. O'Connell has to work out why.
November 30, 1946 The Killer and the Saint Listen (MP3)
Identical twins -- a safecracker just paroled and the bank man engaged to the woman they both want -- meet across their father's grave, and a run of robberies follows.
December 7, 1946 Portsmouth Square Listen (MP3)
On the Barbary Coast a dive owner takes in a young woman searching for her shanghaied brother, and has a concert piano built for her.
December 14, 1946 The Silver Buckles
December 21, 1946 The Unwanted
The Story

Strange Wills turned the driest document in the law -- a last will and testament -- into a half-hour of menace. Syndicated out of Hollywood in 1946 by Teleways Radio Company with Charles Michelson, it starred the film actor Warren William as probate attorney John Frances O'Connell, who narrates each case and, in the better episodes, walks straight into it. The premise was that the stories were true: they were compiled by a lawyer turned author, Ken Krippene, from ten years of case research, with names and places changed. What a will could reach for after its author's death was the whole point -- the early shows open on a roll call of the seven deadly sins, and from the tenth episode on with a plainer line, that dead men's wills are often strange. The device let the series go anywhere. Across twenty-six stories it produced a Scottish moor ghost story, an 18th-century pirate voyage, a Colombian emerald hunt, a science-fiction tale about images recovered from light waves, and a straight courtroom reprieve. Lurene Tuttle, William Conrad, Marvin Miller, Howard Culver, Carleton Young and Peggy Webber move through the supporting casts, with an organ score by Del Castillo throughout. It was among Warren William's last work; he died of multiple myeloma in September 1948.

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