Saturday, March 04, 2006

H. P. Lovecraft on Old Time Radio!


Poor old H. P. Lovecraft. Unlike Poe, he has not fared too well in translation. His stories, with a few exceptions, really just don't translate well into other media. Which is a pity. Don't get me wrong, "Re-Animator" ROCKS, as does "From Beyond" and "The Haunted Palace" with Vincent Price is pretty darn good too - but something gets lost on the way. On the other extreme, the film version of "The Dunwich Horror", with my man Dean Stockwell, was a little iffy to say the least. Too much of Lovecraft's work depends on the internal monologue of the characters, and of course his prose style. Here is a MUCH better adaption of "The Dunwich Horror" from the Golden Age of Radio, with Ronald Coleman. I really like the way they present the story as a "live" you-are-there-as-it-happens radio broadcast, much as Orson Welles had done years earlier with his notorious War of the Worlds presentation on the Mercury Theatre. So it back, turn out the lights, and listen to....

"SUSPENSE - Nov 11th 1945 - The Dunwich Horror"
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