The Black Museum: ‘The Silencer’ – Hosted By Orson Welles

Here is an episode of The Black Museum hosted by Orson Welles which is titled, “The Silencer”. I don’t have an air date for this one though.

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A little background from Archive.org…

Opening in 1875, the Crime Museum at Scotland Yard is the oldest museum in the world purely for recording crime. The name “Black Museum” was coined in 1877 by a reporter from “The Observer”, a London newspaper, although the museum is still referred to as the Crime Museum. It is this museum that inspired The Black Museum radio series, produced in London by Harry Alan Towers.

From Jay Hickerson’s “The Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming and Guide To All Circulating Shows”, the earliest US broadcast date was January 1, 1952. Thirty nine shows, from the full syndication of fifty two shows, aired over Mutual stations from January 1, 1952 through June 24, 1952 and September 30, 1952 through December 30, 1952.

This may be the earliest broadcast of the series worldwide. It was later broadcast over Radio Luxembourg starting May 7, 1953. Radio Luxembourg broadcast sponsored programs at night to England (the BBC was state-owned and had no commercials). The shows were sponsored by Dreft and Mirro (cleaning products).

The series continued to be offered in syndication and was heard on AFRTS broadcasts and in the US on NPR stations through the 1960′s, 70′s and 80′s. Some shows were broadcast by the BBC in England in 1994.

This murder mystery series was based on true life cases from Scotland Yard’s files. Each episode was based on an item or items of evidence in the museum.

Orsen Welles hosted and narrated the shows. Mr. Welles opened each show slightly differently but followed a standard format. For example, the show, “The Bathtub”, open as follows:

“This is Orson Welles speaking from London.” (Big Ben starts himing in the background). “The Black Museum, repository of death… Here, in this grim stone structure on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard, is a warehouse of homocide, where everyday objects, a piece of wire, a chemist’s flask, a silver shilling, all are touched by murder.” (dramatic music)

Following the opening, Mr. Welles would introduce the museum’s item or items of evidence that was central to the case, leading into the dramatization. He also provided narration during the show and ended each show with his characteristic closing from the days of his Mercury Theater of the Air, remaining “obediently yours”.

Harry Alan Towers produced the series from scripts written by Ira Marion. Music was composed and conducted by Sidney Torch.

The museum was not open to the general public. It’s purpose was then, and still is, for police training, although it did receive a considerable number of famous people, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is currently used as a lecture theater for the police and like bodies in various subjects of Criminology. But, thanks to Mr. Towers and Mr. Welles, we can still get a glimpse of what secrets are housed in The Black Museum.

Marvel Digital Comics – Free Mondays (11/16/09)

Welcome to FREE Mondays! Each week we focus on all of the newly digitized books you can read for FREE inside the greatest collection of Marvel comics available online: Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited! Plus, we’ll let you know what’s coming up next week for FREE, too! With each book, not only are you getting a free peek inside Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, but each free Digital Comic either gives you a look at a book featured in a recent collection or a comic that’s in stores now.

How would you like to have five free digital comics to help get you through the school and work week? Here ‘ya go!

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #36
X-FACTOR #40 (2005)
WOLVERINE: WEAPON X #1
X-MEN LEGACY #220
X-MEN: MANIFEST DESTINY #4

Find out what next week’s five free digital comics will be below!

DAREDEVIL NOIR #1
DARK AVENGERS #2
MIGHTY AVENGERS #21
NEW AVENGERS #52
PUNISHER #1 (2008)

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Thor Movie Update: ‘Warriors Three’ Cast

Are you waiting for the hammer to fall on the big screen (Mjolnir, that is)?! Of course you are and so are we!

When Thor makes his big screen debut on May 20, 2011, he’ll have some company with him—as reported today by Variety.com!

Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg, longtime friends and fellow Asgardians who usually work together as a team known as the Warriors Three, are Thor’s allies and companions.

Fandral will be played by Stuart Townsend. The job of Hogun goes to Tadanobu Asano. And Volstagg will be portrayed Ray Stevenson.

They join the previously announced Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Tom Hiddleston as Loki and Natalie Portman as Jane Foster. Kenneth Branagh will direct.

“Thor” is one of a continuing slate of films being produced by Marvel Studios based on the Marvel characters, including “Iron Man 2″ on May 7, 2010, “The First Avenger: Captain America” on July 22, 2011 and “The Avengers” on May 4, 2012.

Stay tuned to Marvel.com for the official word on all things to do with Marvel movies!

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Commands & Colors Napoleonics From GMT Games

Commands & Colors Napoleonics has just gone up on GMT’s P500 list.

Commands & Colors: Napoleonics allows you to re-fight epic battles of the Napoleonic era. In this core volume, the focus is on the French and the British, two bitter rivals in the struggle for European preeminence during the time of Napoleon.

As with other games in the Commands & Colors genre, units in both armies can only move and fight when ordered. The command playing cards supply those orders, providing an element of luck that creates a fog of war and presents players with both challenges and opportunities. You must maximize your opportunities by playing your command cards judiciously. How well you handle the diverse units, their weapons, and the terrain, will determine victory.

Core Game Contents:

·1 Mounted Battlefield Gameboard
·4 Sheets containing 56 double-sided Terrain Tiles and 2 Infantry in Square tracks
·70 Command cards
·8 Battle dice
·French, British and Portuguese Blocks and Label sheets
·3 National Unit Reference Cards
·1 Rule Book
·1 Scenario Booklet containing 15 battle scenarios Read more

Lux Radio Theater – Captain Blood – 2/22/1937

The Lux Radio Theater presents Captain Blood Starring Errol Flynn, Oliiva de Havilland and Basil Rathbone.

Air date February 22, 1937

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The Shadow – The Temple Bells Of Neban – Air Date 10/24/1937

A dangerous woman threatens to destroy the Shadow with powers that might rival his own.

Starring Orson Welles as Lamont Cranston/The Shadow and Agnes Moorehead as Margo Lane

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On September 26, 1937, The Shadow radio drama officially premiered with the story “The Deathhouse Rescue”, in which the character had “the power to cloud men’s minds so they cannot see him.” The Shadow did not have the ability to become literally invisible; he could be detected by photoelectric beams and other mindless devices. Rather, the minds of his opponents simply overlooked him due to his psychic influence, even if they knew he was in the room.

Even after decades, the unmistakable introduction from The Shadow radio program, originally intoned by actor Frank Readick Jr., has earned a place in the American idiom: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!” These words were accompanied by a an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns’ Le Rouet d’Omphale (“Omphale’s Spinning Wheel”, composed in 1872). At the end of each episode, The Shadow reminded listeners, “The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay…. The Shadow knows!”

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Razer Leads The Way With Abyssus Gaming Mouse

Gamers tend to take their “vocation” seriously, as bragging rights are up for stake with winners feeling that nice, warm glow all over while losers look at their mouse and start cursing. That’s right – watch any average gamer duke it out with the rest of their mates at a LAN party and you’ll realize that the losing side tend to be more frustrated in terms of body language, sending forth a smattering of cuss words alongside banging the mouse on the table, touting that they missed that crucial shot due to being let down by inferior gaming hardware. Razer has been in the business long enough to know what they’re doing, and their latest release would be the Razer Abyssus gaming mouse that target those who are new to the world of gaming and want a feel of what professional gaming equipment is like before diving headlong later on with the gaming bug going at full steam ahead.

The Razer Abyssus gaming mouse will merge both simplicity with a state-of-the-art 3.5G 3500dpi infrared sensor to make sure you can make the shot just about any and every time as long as you have the ability to do so. Targeting gamers who demand reliability and functionality under the fiercest gameplay conditions, the Razer Abyssus will come equipped with a couple of large non-slip buttons that have been tuned for maximum tactile feedback, featuring Razer’s built-in Hyperesponse technology. Located underneath, Razer has placed a couple of easily accessible mechanical switches, where one of them is used for on-the-fly dpi switching for a choice of 450, 1800, or 3500dpi, while the other offers a polling rate switch that enables instant adjustment from a standard 125hz to 1000hz Ultrapolling.

Expect the Razer Abyssus to hit North America for $49.99, while our friends living across the Atlantic have it slightly cheaper (dollar-for-dollar) at €39.99. As for the other regions of the world, they’ll just have to wait until later next month – hopefully in time for the holiday season.

Press Release

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Forget Skype, Google Acquires Gizmo5 VoIP Startup Instead

Wow, remember a few weeks ago when Skype was beset by multiple legal actions from its founders and was in talks to acquire VoIP startup Gizmo5 to replace the underlying codebase that they were being sued over? Well things seem to be moving fast in the VoIP world because today, not only did Skype and its founders come to an agreement and save the underlying codebase, but Gizmo5 got acquired after all–just not by who’d we expect.

Google pounced on the peer-to-peer VoIP provider Gizmo5 just as its chances of being acquired by Skype had been dashed. Gizmo5 is an unscaled, but proven peer-to-peer VoIP provider. It has six million users for its SIP-based P2P VoIP service. The service would add the a PSTN link to allow incoming or outbound calls to real phones which Google Voice currently lacks. According to TechCrunch sources, Google has bought Gizmo5 for $30 million, but the official announcement has yet to be made.

According to the Washington Post, Skype was going to purchase peer-to-peer VoIP startup Gizmo5 for around $50 million. The purchase was part of a back-up plan in the event that it’s lawsuit with Joltid resulted in the company not having access to the underlying code Skype uses to make VoIP calls.

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To Borderlands Director, A Sequel Please?

If you build it, they will come — mostly for the loot. That’s how Borderlands creative director Mike Neumann candidly describes the possibility of a sequel to his game. "Yes, I can probably confirm that there’s a chance of a Borderlands 2 ," he told VG247 with a chuckle. "I mean, with anything, especially a new IP, if people want more and you can make more, and everybody can make money and do good business there, it obviously makes really good sense to do that."

An unexpectedly large number of people thought it made really good sense to purchase the colorful, FPS-RPG hybrid. Neumann jokingly admits surprise at seeing stores running out of stock, even though "it certainly doesn’t suck to be the people who made the game you can’t keep in stock."

Though plans for a sequel have yet to manifest outside of the water cooler area — Gearbox is currently grinding through Borderlands DLC — Neumann believes the "praise and love" for the franchise will make that first decision easier. "So yeah, if everything makes sense, Borderlands 2 seems like a no-brainer to me."

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Clash Of The Titans Teaser Trailer Online

Warner Bros has released the first teaser trailer for Louis Leterrier’s remake of Clash of the Titans. With speed ramp, heavy guitar riffs, and fast paced edits, this definitely isn’t “your father’s Clash of the Titans”. And I’m not really a fan of the “Titans will Clash” slogan. I know a lot of you will probably be impressed by this trailer, calling it “bad ass”. But for me, much of the low-fi magic that made the original special appears to be missing from this version, instead replaced with loads of CG and Lord of the Rings-style flyby shots. It could just be the “lets appeal to the mainstream Mountain Dew drinkers” edit. Who knows what the actual film will look like… We’ll see. Watch the trailer for yourself after the jump. And leave your thoughts in the comments below. I look forward to a lot of you explaining why I’m wrong. Bring it on…

Watch the trailer in High Definition: 480p, 720p, 1080p

In “Clash of the Titans,” the ultimate struggle for power pits men against kings and kings against gods. But the war between the gods themselves could destroy the world. Born of a god but raised as a man, Perseus (Sam Worthington) is helpless to save his family from Hades (Ralph Fiennes), vengeful god of the underworld. With nothing left to lose, Perseus volunteers to lead a dangerous mission to defeat Hades before he can seize power from Zeus (Liam Neeson) and unleash hell on earth. Leading a daring band of warriors, Perseus sets off on a perilous journey deep into forbidden worlds. Battling unholy demons and fearsome beasts, he will only survive if he can accept his power as a god, defy his fate and create his own destiny. Read more

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