The War of the Worlds Murder - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,54
and Sanborn Hour—thanks to the vocal gymnastics required to keep such characters as Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd and Effie Clinker as vivid and real as himself (more so, some would say)—needed a nice break after each week’s opening monologue, which he and Charlie (which is to say, Bergen himself) did alone.
So tonight, while Bergen sipped a glass of water, Eddy—singing star of radio and film—began to warble “Neapolitan Love Song.”
Bergen felt confident about this booking—Eddy, half of a wildly popular screen team (the other half, of course, was Jeanette MacDonald), would surely keep listeners rapt at their radios. The singer seemed a fine preventative, if not cure, for that spreading disease of dial-turning (pushbuttons and airplane dials made it so easy!) that especially plagued a rigidly formatted show like Bergen and McCarthy. Listeners knew just how long they could sample the wares of other stations, before returning for the next dose of humor from the ventriloquist and his dummy—unless, of course, some other show caught the dial-turner’s attention and held it....
Still, Bergen figured he didn’t have much to worry about. In addition to Eddy, he had Madeline Carroll and Dorothy Lamour, two top actresses, and Dottie Lamour would sing several of her biggest hits.
So even in the unlikely event that Eddy lost a listener, momentarily, that listener would be back.
After all, who would want to miss out on all that excitement?
CHAPTER SEVEN
JOURNEY INTO FEAR
AT 8:11 P.M., E.S.T., IN Studio One, Bernard Herrmann’s undistinctive dance-band music was interrupted by announcer Kenny Delmar, saying: “We take you now to Grovers Mill, New Jersey.”
After a long, rather ominous beat, the sound of the remote location kicked in, as all of the actors, on their feet, circling about a single microphone like Indians around a campfire of war, created a convincing aural approximation of a much larger, milling crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Frank Readick said into another mike, reading from his script, “this is Carl Phillips again, out at the Wilmuth farm, Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Professor Pierson and myself made the eleven miles from Princeton in ten minutes.”
Ora Nichols had already dropped the needle on a disc that layered police sirens and the sound of wind into background of the “Carl Phillips” remote report.
Readick, as Phillips, was describing the scene as being like something out of a modern Arabian Nights.
“...I guess that’s the thing, directly in front of me, half buried in a vast pit. Must have struck with terrific force. The ground is...covered with splinters of a tree it must have struck on its way down. What I can see of the object itself doesn’t look very much like a meteor...at least not the meteors I’ve seen. It looks more like a huge cylinder. It has a diameter of...of...what would you say, Professor Pierson?”
All of that had been heard by Grandfather Chapman and his three grandchildren in the living room of the Chapman farmhouse, just outside Grovers Mill, the airplane dial having been turned to avoid a boring song by Nelson Eddy.
Even Grandfather, who wasn’t keen on much that was current, knew after weeks and weeks of Charlie McCarthy just how long the family could get away with cruising rival stations, looking for something more interesting to pass a few minutes than a sissy tenor.
“Grandpa,” the younger boy, Leroy, said, “we’re Grovers Mill!”
Grandfather, sitting forward on his armchair, said, “We sure are, Leroy. Did he say Wilson farm?”
Les said, “I think he said Wilmuth.”
“City reporter musta got it wrong,” Grandfather said. “They must be at the Wilson farm.... Turn that up, a shade.”
The children all looked toward their grandfather with surprise—usually he demanded just the opposite. With caution, Les raised the volume on the glowing magic box.
“What would you say,” the reporter was asking the professor, “what’s the diameter of this?”
“About thirty yards.”
Les and Grandfather exchanged glances. Thirty yards was a lot. Thirty yards was...big.
“The metal on the sheath is, well, I’ve never...seen...anything...like it. The color is sort of...yellowish-white. Curious spectators now are pressing close to the object in spite of the efforts of the police to keep them back, uh, getting in front of my line of vision. Would you mind standing to one side, please?”
Leroy asked, “That other man? The professor?”
Somewhat impatiently, Les said to his kid brother, “What about him?”
“I think he’s the Shadow.”
“Leroy, be quiet.”
“The old Shadow, the good Shadow.”
Sharply, the grandfather said, “Leroy!”
Sitting up on his knees, the little boy looked at the adult with earnest eyes. “Grandpa, I think this is just a story.”