The Black Museum
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Image:Wellesradio.jpg The Black Museum was a 1951 radio crime drama program produced by Harry Alan Towers for the BBC and based on real-life cases from the files of Scotland Yard's Black Museum. Ira Marion wrote the scripts, and music for the series was composed and conducted by Sidney Torch.
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 crime cases. The show's opening began, “The Black Museum, a repository of death. Here in a grim, stone structure on the Thames which houses Scotland Yard is a warehouse of homicide, a very strange room where everyday objects... of a woman’s shoe, a tiny white box, a quilted robe... all are touched by murder.”
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 tale of terror or a brutal murder. In the weekly closing, Welles concluded with his signature radio phrase, "I remain... obediently yours".
With the story themes deriving from objects in the collection, the 52 episodes had such titles as "The Yellow Scarf," "A Piece of Iron Chain," "Frosted Glass Shards" and "A Khaki Handkerchief."
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.