Voices In The Night

Hallmark Playhouse – 2/17/1949

James Hilton – “Good evening ladies and gentleman, this is James Hilton.  Tonight on our Hallmark Playhouse we present the dramatization of my own novel Random Harvest. You know for years I’ve been queried by both friends and strangers, ‘How do you get an idea for a story?’  Well there are many ways, but in the case of Random Harvest, I’d like to put myself in the position of one of the characters and go back to a moment when I met a man on a train”.

 

Beyond Our Ken – 4/1/1962 –The Great Train Robbery

“Here’s an excerpt from The Great Train Robbery

 

Calling All Detectives – 7/26/1948 – Girl With Gun On Train

“A transcontinental train, a pretty girl, and a revolver slipped into a handbag.  Those are exhibits on this page of my case book.”

 

Ellery Queen – 3/25/1943 – The Circus Train

“And among are suspects are included a giant, a midget, and a fortune teller.  I call it, the adventure of The Circus Train”

 

Wild Bill Hickock – 11/15/1954 –Grandpa Grangers Train Ride

“Grandpa, before they tried to push you off the train, what did they have to say?”

 

Suspense – 4/13/1953 – The Great Train Robbery

Fred MacMurray – “I’d appreciate it if you put your hands up.”

Train Guy – “What is this?”

Fred MacMurray – “In simple language, a train robbery.  Now I have one more favor to ask of you sir, kindly open the side door of the car.”

Train Guy – “He’s going to jump, he’s crazy!”

Fred MacMurray – “No, no.  Not just yet.”

 

Abbott And Costello – 11/16/1944 – Return To PS 15

Bud Abbott – “Could you tell use how the trains run?”

Train Guy – “Oh yes, there’s a big black thing that pulls them and it goes ‘choo-choo’ and ‘whoo-hoo’”

 

Bud Abbott – “Unless you go higher for a lower, then you’re stuck with an upper and you’ll have to get up when you go to bed and you’ll have to get down when you want to get up.”

 

Jack Benny –2/21/1954 – Jack at the Train Station

“Oh yeah, we all, all have upper berths except Bagby, the piano player.  He has a compartment”

Judy – “A compartment?  Well why should Bagby have such nice accommodations when everyone else has an upper berth?”

“Well Judy, you need uh extra room when you’re handcuffed to a deputy sheriff.”

 

Vic_And_Sade – April 1941 – Forty Pounds Of Golf Clubs

“He was on the train going someplace and got a tooth ache and borrowed the conductors ticket puncher and yanked out his sore tooth without turnin’ a hair.”

 

Ozzie And Harriet – 1/29/1954 – The Electric Train

“Trains have meant trouble for me for the last twenty years…ever since I stepped on Catherine’s on the way to the altar.”

 

Grand Central Station – 8/24/1946 – Moon Blind

“All aboard for better baking.  You’re on the right track with Pillsbury, greatest name in flour.”

 

Jack Benny – 1/29/1950 – To New York On The Train For The Heart Fund

Mel Blanc – “Train leaving on Track five for Anaheim, Azusa and Cuc—-amonga!”

 

Fibber McGee And Molly – 2/20/1945 – Catching A Train

“Passengers may now board the Panhandle express for Tulsa, Amarillo, San Antonion, two towns I can’t pronounce and Galveston”

 

Jack Benny – 1/29/1950 – To New York On The Train For The Heart Fund

Mel Blanc – “Train leaving on Track three, for all points south and Tennessee, well shut my mouth a magnolia tree.”

 

Red Skelton – 12/3/1946 –Railroads

“Train leaving New York on track five for Hackensack, Hoboken, Newark, and all points in New Jersey.  Please let the bookies on first.”

 

Jack Benny – 1/29/1950 – To New York On The Train For The Heart Fund

Mel Blanc – “Train now leaving on track eight, through Illinois and New York State, South Pacific, and Kiss Me Kate”

 

Ellery Queen – 3/25/1943 – The Circus Train

“OK, that gives me time enough to introduce my friend, and your friend, the one an only educated train known to man, the talking Bromo-Seltzer train.”

Bromo-Seltzer Train – “Fight headaches three ways.  Bromo-Seltzer, Bromo-Seltzer, Bromo-Seltzer.”

 

Milton Berle Show – 8/26/1947 – Railroads

Milton Berle – “The story of the railroads is the story of America.  To tell about it isn’t very exciting, but to read about it is even duller.”

 

Red Skelton – 12/3/1946 – Railroads

“Looking back we find the building of our great railway system was difficult.  Each day, progress was delayed by the men of the west”

 

“Well, we don’t want no cattle rustlin’ outfits going through our land.”
“We ain’t cattle rustlers.”
“Oh no, then what’s them cow catchers on the front of them engines?”

 

American History Through The Eyes of Radio – 1863 Frontier Fighters – Union Pacific and Central Pacific

Abraham Lincoln – “Uh Mary uh, knittin’ and war go together, but uh not knittin’ and railroads.”

 

Milton Berle Show – 8/26/1947 – Railroads

Milton Berle – “That is the story of the railroads and today, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you cannot escape hearing that haunting rhythm of the railroads that so richly fills the air of America.”

Cast – “Bromo-Seltzer, Bromo-Seltzer, Bromo-Seltzer. Wooo-hooo”

 

Quiet_Please – 1/26/1948 – Green Light

“In my time you could pretty near always tell a railroader.  Know how?  Well sir, if he had a thumb or a couple of fingers missing, you could tell he was a brakeman.  And if you seen a fellar with one leg, you was pretty certain he was a railroader, eh cause there wasn’t so many wars and automobiles and things like to cut a fellars leg off then.  Pretty nearly always he left it on a railroad track somewheres.”

 

Mysterious_Traveler – 7/6/1947 – The Locomotive Ghost

“Ain’t that whistle far off in the night a sweet mournful sound, though?  Sounds so far off and ghostly, don’t it? Well sometimes it is a ghost you hear and not a real train at all.  Sometimes when you hear a train whistling, it’s a ghost train.  Anything as live as a train bound to have a ghost.”

 

“Oh, all this talk about trains is making you nervous and you have to get off here.  I’m sorry. But I’m sure we’ll meet again.  Shall we say next week and the same time?”