Friday's Favorite OTR

 Mysterious Traveler: "They Struck it Rich" 3/16/48

Two men attempt to tunnel into a bank vault and end up in a very unusual place.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Mysterious Traveler: "Locomotive Ghost" 7/6/47

Do trains have a life of their own? If so, do they continue to travel the rails after death? Two men, both murderers, will soon find out. 

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Mysterious Traveler: "The Accusing Corpse" 4/16/44

A supposedly perfect blackmail plot gradually begins to unravel.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Mysterious Traveler: "I Died Last Night" 4/25/50

A man obsessed with studying life after death gets an unexpected opportunity to experience the matter personally.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Mysterious Traveler: "Change of Address" 1/22/52

A man wants to get away from his controlling wife. He sees an opportunity to do so when he rents a house that is "made for murder."

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Mysterious Traveler: "Death Writes a Letter" 5/18/48

A letter from a dead man might have given someone the information he needs to save two lives--including his own.  

Then again, he might not be able to save anyone.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Mysterious Traveler: "The Accusing Corpse" 4/16/44

Roger's plan to profit from blackmail and murder is perfect down to the last detail. Or is it?

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Friday's Favorite OTR

 Mysterious Traveler: "The Last Survivor" 10/11/49

The first manned mission to Mars returns to Earth only to find that things aren't going well at home.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

Mysterious Traveler: "The Knives of Death" 3/13/51

Two old ladies--retired schoolteachers--are tasked with solving a classic locked room mystery. Fortunately, the two have read many mystery stories, which (of course) leaves them more than qualified to handle a real murder.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

The Mysterious Traveler: “The Big Brain” 3/14/50

As an experiment, a scientist uses an experimental super-computer (the Big Brain) to predict the winners at the horse track. That leads to the temptation to place a few bets, which in turn leads him to be blackmailed by a gangster.

To get out from under the thumb of the gangster, the scientist attempts to find out if the Big Brain can be used to plan the perfect murder.

The ending is a little too willing to absolve the scientist of his moral responsibility for his actions, but it’s a well-plotted episode nonetheless.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

Mysterious Traveler: “Death is the Visitor” 8/18/46

The protagonist in this episode murders his mother-in-law about five minutes into the story. From what little we hear from her, you really don’t blame the guy.

But now he has to dispose of the body. He hides it in a trunk and… well, how hard can it be to get rid of an old trunk?  That should be no problem at all, don’t you think?

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Friday's Favorite OTR

Mysterious Traveler: “No one on the Line” 9/1/46

A man is convinced his wife is having an affair. Determined that no one else will ever take anything that “belongs” to him, he plots to murder his wife’s lover.

The “surprise twist” at the end of this episode is telegraphed far too obviously early on. Normally, that would come close to ruining a show like this, but Ted Osborne as the lead character gives such an effectively ruthless and arrogant performance that it’s still a lot of fun to hear him get his comeuppance at the end.

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Friday's Favorite OTR

The Mysterious Traveler: "No Grave Can Hold Me" 1/12/47


A professional magician is sentenced to death for committing a murder--but he vows to return from the grave to take revenge on the judge, the DA and all twelve jurors. Sure enough, a month after his execution, someone strangles the jury foreman.


The Mysterious Traveler is one of those shows that normally has a "rational" explanation for supposed supernatural events (though they did delve into science fiction from time to time). This one manages to keep you guessing right up to the end, though--making you think that maybe this time there is a supernatural explanation for the whole thing. There's several possible twists the plot can take at the tense climax and many listeners probably won't guess just which way that final twist will take us. I didn't, at least.

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