Charnel Bells

Fair warning: this one's a smoker! Heavy, weird and gloriously profane, Viola Curtis' seánce channeling Darvon Bluedeer has always been a favorite among a certain set of spiritualists with a penchant for the psychedelic. Truth be told, I just figured Guarrault never recorded a reading of Bluedeer's seánce because of the restrictive radio culture of the '40's and '50's, but then I found it on a ree...

From a set of reels labelled "Studio Black Catacomb Presents" comes this little gem. From a subset identified as "Five Minute Fictions", this brief piece seems to be another effort by Van Guarrault and his little studio staff to popularize the very short audio story, just about the length of two pop songs of the era. Though the effort never took off, as with several of Guarrault's innovations, the...

Recorded in April of 1949, Van Guarrault of Studio Black Catacomb here gives us a fascinating glimpse into the unspoken traumas of his generation's soldiers. Though famously tight-lipped on the subject of mental and psychological hardship, the WWII generation's storytellers occasionally set aside the covenant of silence to whisper an artifact such as this story into existence. A look into service...

Keen-eared listeners will note that Van Guarrault refers to the show as "The Black Catacomb", not just his studio. This may have been recorded before Guarrault had settled on a name for the show, or it may imply that he had other shows on the drawing board. It is something of a forbidden fruit, too, to hear a segment from his "Illustrations" translation. In 1951 Hoover's FBI raided the Golden Gobl...

The 1949 "Sketch Reel" continues to surprise with odd pieces that may have been Mr. Guarrault's early demos and tests for what would ultimately become Charnel Bells. This one is interesting in that it hints at a possible literary review or book spotlight show. There probably wasn't much of a market for a show about how H. P. Lovecraft wrote a weird dark riff on "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland",...

Found on what must have been a test reel, this strange little story has all the telltale elements of a Van Guarrault original. Perhaps it was an exercise, a dark story of supernatural murder with an undeniably absurd premise. In any event, this bizarre fable was never developed into anything more, and sits as the first of several odd one-offs on a reel marked "VG Sketches '49-'50".

This listing can only have been either a demo ad read, or more sadly, wishful thinking on Mr. Guarrault's part. BRS never gained the footing to compete with the network titans of the era, and didn't actually carry any of the programs named in the ad. Though most of the named performers were noted talents of the day, the shows were almost certainly fictitious. Also of note, the tape reel containing...

Another example of the kind of weird dark poetic prose of Lovecraft's post-Dunsany phase, this was recorded (according to the date pencilled on the tape reel) on Halloween, 1949. Desmond Lawrence's ashy, desolate voice is in fine form on this brief recording, and it is to be lamented that Studio Black Catacomb had so much going against it; else his might be another name well-known to listeners of...

This piece is a real enigma; it seems likely that this was a satirical piece that Mr. Van Guarrault, the producer of Charnel Bells, recorded sometime in late 1950 or early '51 in frustration at the rise of jingoism and censorship of American radio. As the fear of Communism pervaded all aspects of life in 1950's America, any sort of non-conformity was at risk of being treated as a crime. This may h...

This interesting episode offers three pieces of verse written by Banquo Walker, read by the poet, along with Charnel Bells creator, host and producer, Van Guarrault, and the gravel-voiced Briton, Roman Clifford, who achieved some small renown during the London Blitz as the voice of several public service announcements warning citizens not to approach unexploded German munitions. His menacing, heav...

An excellent example of the weird atmospheric fiction abroad in the pulps of the '20's and '30's, Lovecraft's "The Festival" is that rarest of joys: truly literate and artistic horror fiction. An appropriate (if somewhat morbid) piece to air at Yuletide, Charnel Bells' production of it was never aired for being "unholy pagan poison". Incidentally, the purported reader here, "Desmond Lawrence", see...

This ad read seems to be Van Guarrault, host of the Charnel Bells radio show and producer at Studio Black Catacomb, doing his best to sound like a snappy salesman instead of himself. As the likelihood of Charnel Bells making it past the censors to the air dwindled, Guarrault took on more and more of a role, reading ads, writing scripts and even masquerading as other people. This ad read, for insta...

This is the controversial ad copy that first stirred up trouble for the Charnel Bells radio show. Recorded in February of 1949, it features the voice talent of Ramsey Abdurrahman, but it's the last line that sparked concern among certain censors. Along with the problematic use of the words "intoxicating herbs" early in the copy, the implication that smoking a cigarette might consummate a sinister...

Thought to have been recorded in spring or summer of 1949. The voice is believed to be Charnel Bells host Van Guarrault, though it's near impossible now to say for certain.

Thought to have been recorded in September or October of 1949, this piece features the work of Banquo Walker, a poet and editor of the then-emerging Greenwich Village Bohemian scene. Of further interest is an odd historical footnote in the journal of a Lt. Chivalry A. Faraday, who served as aide-de-camp to Gen. Montgomery during the Valley Forge campaign. He mentions a scout's report of spying a c...

Viola Curtis claimed to have channelled the spirit of a Norseman named Kjeld Olbertsen, who was apparently living in exile somewhere in Ireland some time between the 5th and 9th centuries. Of particular note is the transcript reading by Per Gunnolfsen, who was slain in a bank robbery in Madison, Wisconsin in June of 1954.

The famous medium Viola Curtis, "The Oracle of Otherwhere", had hundreds of her seances recorded live between 1933 and her untimely death in 1952. Transcripts of these recordings appeared in magazines, medical journals and, of course, collected for publication as the Calling Out to the Dark book series in the 'Fifties. Here, Van Guarrault reads the seance Miss Curtis conducted with unknown writer...

A demo ad read, likely read by Loy P. Thompson, a company rep for Squamous Foetor. Recorded in 1950.

An unaired advertisement recorded in 1949.

An unaired advertisement recorded in 1949.