The Black Museum
The Black Museum was a 1951 radio crime drama program independently produced by Harry Alan Towers and based on real-life cases from the files of Scotland Yard's Black Museum. Ira Marion was the scriptwriter, and music for the series was composed and conducted by Sidney Torch. Although often mistakenly cited as being produced for the BBC, the series was produced and syndicated commercially by Towers throughout the English speaking world.
Orson Welles was both host and narrator for stories of horror and mystery based on Scotland Yard's collection of murder weapons and various ordinary objects once associated with historical true crime cases. The show's opening began:
- This is Orson Welles, speaking from London.
- (Sound of Big Ben chimes)
- The Black Museum... a repository of death. Here in the grim stone structure on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard is a warehouse of homicide, where everyday objects... a woman’s shoe, a tiny white box, a quilted robe... all are touched by murder.
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[edit] Program format and themes
Walking through the museum, Welles would pause at one of the exhibits, and his description of an artifact served as a device to lead into a wryly-narrated dramatised tale of a brutal murder or a vicious crime. In the closing: "Now until we meet again in the same place and I tell you another tale of the Black Museum", Welles would conclude with his signature radio phrase, "I remain, as always, obediently yours".
With the story themes deriving from objects in the collection (usually with the names of the people involved changed but the facts remaining true to history), the 52 episodes had such titles as "The Tartan Scarf," "A Piece of Iron Chain," "Frosted Glass Shards" and "A Khaki Handkerchief.". An anomaly to the series was an episode called "The Letter"; this was the only story not about murder but about forgery.
[edit] Broadcast history
In the United States, the series aired on the Mutual Network between January 1 and December 30, 1952.
Beginning May 7, 1953, it was also broadcast over Radio Luxembourg sponsored by the cleaning products Dreft and Mirro. Since the BBC carried no commercials, Radio Luxembourg aired sponsored programs at night to England.
In the United States, a program of similar scope, using many of the same picked cases as The Black Museum, and nearly mirroring its broadcast run was broadcast by NBC called Whitehall 1212. The two shows were different in the respect that while Whitehall 1212 told the story of a case entirely from the point of view of the police starting from the crime scene, The Black Museum was more heavily dramatized and played out scenes of the actual murders and included scenes from the criminal's point of view.
[edit] Episodes
Black Museum - 01 The .22 Caliber Pistol AKA Little Blue 22
Black Museum - 02 .32 Calibre Bullet
Black Museum - 03 Bath Tub
Black Museum - 04 The Black Gladstone Bag
Black Museum - 05 The Brick
Black Museum - 06 The Brass Button
Black Museum - 07 Can of Weed Killer
Black Museum - 08 Canvas Bag
Black Museum - 09 The Car Tire
Black Museum - 10 The Champagne Glass
Black Museum - 11 A Claw Hammer
Black Museum - 12 Door Key
Black Museum - 13 The Yellow Scarf
Black Museum - 14 Four Small Bottles
Black Museum - 15 French-English Dictionary
Black Museum - 16 Gas Receipt
Black Museum - 17 Frosted Glass Shards
Black Museum - 18 The Hammerhead
Black Museum - 19 The Jack Handle
Black Museum - 20 Jar of Acid
Black Museum - 21 The Khaki Handkerchief
Black Museum - 22 A Lady's Shoe
Black Museum - 23 The Leather Bag
Black Museum - 24 A Letter
Black Museum - 25 The Mandolin String
Black Museum - 26 Meat Juice
Black Museum - 27 The Notes
Black Museum - 28 The Old Wooden Mallet
Black Museum - 29 The Open End Wrench
Black Museum - 30 A Pair Of Spectacles
Black Museum - 31 A Piece Of Iron Chain
Black Museum - 32 The Pink Powderpuff
Black Museum - 33 Post Card With Picture Of The Rising Sun
Black Museum - 34 A Prescription
Black Museum - 35 The Raincoat
Black Museum - 36 Length of Sash Cord
Black Museum - 37 Auto Service Card
Black Museum - 38 The Sheath Knife
Black Museum - 39 The Shopping Bag
Black Museum - 40 Shilling
Black Museum - 41 A Silencer
Black Museum - 42 The Small White Boxes
Black Museum - 43 The Spotted Bedsheet
Black Museum - 44 The Straight Razor
Black Museum - 45 The Tan Shoe
Black Museum - 46 The Telegram
Black Museum - 47 The Trunk
Black Museum - 48 Two Bullets
Black Museum - 49 Walking Stick
Black Museum - 50 A Women's Pigskin Glove
Black Museum - 51 The Wool Jacket
[edit] Trivia
- Two episodes, "The Car Tire" and "The Gas Receipt," were the same story with minor differences between the two. Another pair of episodes, "The Baby's Jacket" and "The Spectacles," were based on the same case, as were "The Tan Shoe" and "The Leather Bag."
- Four famous murder cases were dramatized on The Black Museum: John George Haigh, the "Acid Bath Murderer"; George Joseph Smith, the "Brides in the Bath Murderer"; Adelaide Bartlett, whose husband died from chloroform poisoning; and Florence Maybrick, who allegedly used arsenic from fly-paper to murder her husband James Maybrick (who was recently suspected of being Jack the Ripper courtesy of the 1993 publication of The Diary of Jack the Ripper).
- In "Open End Wrench" it's mistakenly stated that the culprit was executed in Dartmoor. No 20th century executions were carried out in Dartmoor. Built during the Napoleonic Wars to contain French and American POWs, it was, after lying idle from 1815 to 1850, later commissioned as a convict gaol and used for dangerous long-term prisoners only.
[edit] Cases
The below-listed actual cases were used as the basis for episodes of The Black Museum:
- Thomas Henry Allaway - "The Telegram"
- Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong - "The Champagne Glass"
- Elvira Dolores Barney - "The .22 Caliber Pistol"
- Adelaide Bartlett - "4 Small Bottles"
- Frederick Browne & Pat Kennedy - "The Car Tire" & "The Gas Receipt"
- James Camb - "The Spotted Bedsheet"
- George Chapman - "The Straight Razor"
- Christopher Craig & Derek Bentley -"Two Bullets"
- John Alexander Dickman - "The Tan Shoe" & "The Leather Bag"
- Samuel Herbert Dougal - "The Lady's Shoe"
- Miles Giffard - "The Service Card"
- Harold Greenwood - "Weed Killer"
- John George Haigh - "The Jar of Acid"
- Neville Heath - "The Powder Puff"
- Harold Hill - "The Khaki Handkerchief"
- Karl Hulton & Elizabeth Jones - "The Jack Handle"
- Charles Jenkins, Christopher Geraghty & Terence Rolt - "The .32 :Caliber Bullet"
- Patrick Mahon - "The Gladstone Bag"
- Brighton trunk murders - "The Hammerhead"
- Florence Maybrick - "Meat Juice"
- William Henry Podmore - "The Receipt"
- Dr. Edward Pritchard - "The Walking Stick"
- Florence Ransom - "The Glove"
- John Robinson - "The Trunk"
- Alfred Arthur Rouse - "The Mallet"
- Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters - "The Sheath Knife"
- August Sangret - "The Brass Button"
- James Townsend Saward (alias "Jim the Penman") - "The Letter"
- Henry Daniel Seymour - "The Claw Hammer"
- George Joseph Smith - "The Bath Tub"
- Madeleine Smith - "Small White Boxes"
- Frederick Stewart - "The Frosted Glass Shards"
- George Stoner - "The Brickbat"
- Norman Thorne - "The Wool Jacket" & "The Spectacles"
- Jean-Pierre Vaquier - "The Dictionary"
- Nurse Dorothea Waddingham - "The Prescription"
- William Herbert Wallace - "The Raincoat"
- Robert Wood - "The Postcard"
- Episodes yet to be matched with true case histories are:
- Canvas Bag
- Door Key
- Piece of Iron Chain
- Mandolin String
- Notes - Kilroy was Here
- Open End Wrench
- Length of Sash Cord
- Shilling
- Shopping Bag
- Silencer
- Yellow Scarf.
[edit] Listen to
[edit] References
- Tullet, Tom (1979), Murder Squad: Famous Cases of Scotland Yard's Murder Squad from Crippen to The Black Panther, Granada Publishing Ltd., London, ISBN 0-586-05218-6
- Fido, Martin (1986), The Murder Guide to London, Grafton Books, London, ISBN 0-586-07179-2
- Simpson (Professor), Keith (1978), Forty Years of Murder, Grafton Books, London, ISBN 0-586-05038-8
- Browne, Douglas; Tullett, Tom (1951), Bernard Spilsbury, Grafton Books, London, ISBN 0-586-05574-6
