
Lights Out
Lights Out was an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contributed three of the scripts. NBC asked Cooper to write the script for the premiere, "First Person Singular", which is told entirely from the point of view of an unseen murderer who kills his obnoxious wife and winds up being executed. Variety gave this first episode a rave review ("undoubtedly one of the best dramatic shows yet seen on a television screen"), but Lights Out did not become a regular NBC-TV series until 1949.
Cast
Seasons & Episodes
E1Edna Warren
Jul 19, 1949
E2Promise
Jul 26, 1949
E3Long Distance
Aug 2, 1949
E4Crater
Aug 9, 1949
E5SOUVENIERS OF HIS DEAD WIFE
Aug 16, 1949
E6The Housekeeper
Aug 23, 1949
E7Dressing Gown
Aug 30, 1949
E8The Whisper
Sep 23, 1949
After defeating Morales, Lights hires trainer Ed Romeo (Eamonn Walker), who once trained Death Row Reynolds. Romeo is part boxing guru and part psychologist, and his approach is very different from Pops'. Meanwhile, Theresa worries about Ava's attitude about life.
E9Conqueror's Isle
Nov 7, 1949
The training regimen Ed Romeo (Eamonn Walker) is imposing on Lights splits the Leary family: Theresa and the girls don't like its late-night hours, but they do like Ed. Johnny doesn't, and he's upset that Ed won't let Lights promote the Reynolds fight. For his part, Ed thinks that Lights' brother is "bleeding him dry."
E10Pengallen's Bell
Nov 14, 1949
E11The Fall of the House of Usher
Nov 21, 1949
E12I Dreamt I Died
Nov 28, 1949
E13SOMETHING IN THE WIND
Dec 5, 1949
E14Justice Lies Waiting
Dec 12, 1949
E15The Elevator
Dec 19, 1949
E16The Man Who Couldn't Lose
Dec 26, 1949
E17The Riverman
Jan 2, 1950
E18JUDGEMENT REVERSED
Jan 9, 1950
E19The Green Dress
Jan 16, 1950
E20The Devil to Pay
Jan 23, 1950
E21Reservations for Four
Jan 30, 1950
E22Dead Pigeon
Feb 6, 1950
E23The Invisible Staircase
Feb 13, 1950
E24Graven Image
Feb 20, 1950
E25Portrait of a Dead Man
Feb 27, 1950
E26The Strange Case of John Kingman
Mar 6, 1950
E27The Emerald Lavalier
Mar 13, 1950
E28The Scarab
Mar 20, 1950
E29Mary, Mary Quite Contrary
Mar 29, 1950
E30The Queen is Dead
Apr 3, 1950
E31The Faithful Heart
Apr 10, 1950
E32A Toast to Sergeant Farnsworth
Apr 17, 1950
E33The Man Who Couldn't Remember
Apr 24, 1950
E34GLOVES OF GINO
May 1, 1950
E35The Silent Voice
May 8, 1950
E36The House That Time Forgot
May 15, 1950
E37Rendezvous
Sep 22, 1950
E38HOW LOVE CAME TO PROFESSOR GULDIA
May 29, 1950
E39The Heart of Jonathan O'Rourke
Jun 5, 1950
E40DETERMINED LADY
Jun 12, 1950
E41A Child is Crying
Jun 19, 1950
E42An Encore
Jun 26, 1950
E43THE WHISPER (RESTAGING)
Jul 3, 1950
E44I DREAMT I DIED (RESTAGING)
Jul 10, 1950
E45THE DEVIL TO PAY (RESTAGING)
Jul 17, 1950
E46THE STRANGE CASE OF JOHN KINGMAN (RESTAGING)
Jul 31, 1950
E47THE QUEEN IS DEAD (RESTAGING)
Aug 14, 1950
E48THE HEART OF JONATHAN O'ROURKE (RESTAGING)
Aug 21, 1950
E1IDES OF APRIL
Aug 28, 1950
E2Benuili Chant
Sep 4, 1950
E3The Dark Corner
Sep 11, 1950
E4The Leopard Lady
Sep 18, 1950
E5SISTER OF SHADOW
Sep 25, 1950
E6The Posthumous Dead
Oct 2, 1950
E7Just What Happened
Oct 9, 1950
A man stands trial for murdering another man by throwing him out a window.
E8The Thing Upstairs
Oct 16, 1950
E9The Skeptics
Oct 16, 1950
E10The Martian Eyes
Oct 30, 1950
An odd professor claims he can spot Martians, who masquerade as humans, using a pair of infrared glasses he wears. Only then can you see the third eyeball in the middle of their forehead. He relates his wild theory to a photographer sitting by him in a bar--and the man believes him. While playing around with infrared film, the photographer says he's snapped a shot of a man with three eyes. The two team up to convince authorities of their find.
E11The Half Pint Flask
Nov 6, 1950
E12The Waxwork
Nov 13, 1950
E13THE EXPERIMENT
Nov 20, 1950
E14THE MULE MEN
Nov 27, 1950
E15Beware This Woman
Dec 4, 1950
A woman experiencing poltergeist activity in her home secures the services of a reluctant, non-believer in the supernatural, scientist to resolve her problem.
E16THE MASQUE
Dec 11, 1950
E17The Men on the Mountain
Dec 18, 1950
E18Jasper
Dec 25, 1950
Songwriter Charlie has suffered with writer's block" since he and his wife moved to the country. Betty wants them to sell the house to pay the bills, but Charlie doesn't want to part with the family estate. His late ancestor, Jasper, isn't thrilled with the idea either.
E19The Haunted Skyscraper
Jan 1, 1951
E20Bird of Time
Jan 8, 1951
E21The Bottle Imp
Jan 15, 1951
E22For Release Today
Jan 22, 1951
Maggie, the press agent for actor Henry Crawford, is horrified by his lifeless performances during dress rehearsals for his new play. She comments that he seems dead, to which his wife, Elaine, declares that he is. A year earlier, Elaine's ex-fiancรฉ Balsamo had cursed Henry when he stole her away, promising Henry that he'd be through in one year.
E23The Masque of the Red Death
Jan 29, 1951
E24THE HOUSE OF DUST (AKA) 1962
Feb 5, 1951
E25Curtain Call
Feb 12, 1951
Off-his-rocker Kruger, a famous actor coming out of retirement for a new play with his daughter (Randel), suddenly is tormented by the ghost of his late, thought-to-be-a-suicide wife. His daughter is a triumph in her first big stage role, but ... can Kruger take the adulation she receives ...
E26Strange Legacy
Feb 19, 1951
After suffering a concussion in a car accident on the Oregon coast, Stephen Elliott is carried to the home of an old man and his beautiful daughter-in-law to recover. The young woman tells Stephen that her husband, a World War II pilot, had died the year before and left an uncompleted musical composition, a model airplane and a piece of sculpture, as well as a strange will.
E27The Dispossessed
Feb 26, 1951
E28THE MAN WITH ASTRAKHAN HAT
Mar 5, 1951
E29Leda's Portrait
Mar 12, 1951
E30Western Night
Mar 19, 1951
E31THE POWER OF BRUTE
Mar 26, 1951
E32The Mad Dullaghan
Apr 2, 1951
A man finds his missing fiancรฉ in a mental hospital. She believes she's possessed a Dullaghan, a spirit of Irish folklore that jumped to her from her late father when she kissed him farewell at his funeral. The finance investigates and learns that her parent had been a famous ventriloquist and his dummy was named Mr. Dullagham.
E33The Crushed Rose
Apr 9, 1951
E34The Witness
Apr 16, 1951
E35THE FONCECILLE CURSE
Apr 23, 1951
The heir of the old aristocratic Fonceville family takes his bride to the ancestral castle, where a hereditary madness takes over his dreams, one that tries to induce the murder of his new wife.
E36Grey Reminder
Apr 30, 1951
Charlotte is distressed by the letters addressed tor her new husband that mysteriously appear at their door. Kenneth refuses to discuss their contents, but they clearly disturb him. Fearing he's seeing another woman, Charlotte demands to know who's writing them. She's shocked to find they're from his domineering first wife who seems intent on controlling him even in death.
E37The Lost Will of Dr. Rant
May 7, 1951
A Boston librarian is drawn into a ghostly web of deceit as he helps a beautiful heiress recover her stolen fortune by finding a missing will written in a rare version of the Talmud.
E38Dead Man's Coat
May 14, 1951
By opening the grave of a recently deceased man and putting on his coat, a person will supposedly be granted invisibility. A bitter man with scores to settle decides to put the superstition to the test. He forces his reluctant butler to join him in his scheme of grave-robbing and murder.
E39Cat's Cradle
May 21, 1951
Former hometown football star George Logan pays an unexpected late night visit on Phyllis and Bob at their country home. Down on his luck, he's obsessed with having never fit in, and holds a grudge against the world. His one talent is weaving a string into a cat's cradle and, he claims, using it to cast spells and murder people who get in his way. A skeptical Bob call it nonsense so an irate George is determined to prove him wrong.
E40The Pattern
May 28, 1951
Al March is tortured by his failure to have stopped the bombing of an Army barracks in 1945 Germany. Awaiting surgery, he tells his sister that the two men and a woman he killed the night before were the same ones who had planted the explosives. Even though they had died in the blast, they had been chasing him for the past six years because he lived and they didn't.
E41THE MARTIAN EYES
Jun 4, 1951
E42Pit of the Dead
Jun 11, 1951
E43Dead Freight
Jun 18, 1951
E44The Passage Beyond
Jun 25, 1951
The ghost of Lady Anne continues to walk down the stairs, knife in hand, and into the secret passage where she murdered her domineering husband. She vividly demonstrates her disapproval of Rodney's attempt to conduct an affair with a visiting friend of his wife.
E45THE ADAM BEGOT
Jul 2, 1951
The car carrying cultured Geoffrey, brutish Claude and eligible Kay swerves off a cliff and into a mysterious valley. Surprised by the weird vegetation and climate, they come to believe they've traveled back in time 50,000 years. An encounter with an unfriendly caveman results in all three being held captive in the wild man's cave.
E46The Meddlers
Jul 9, 1951
Cecil Crofton shows up at the backwoods, hillbilly shack of Purdy with a wild proposition on how the two can split a million dollars. Crofton as figured out that a ton gold that once belonged to the Confederacy is buried locally, in the cellar of a house that had burned down and was rebuilt. Purdy figures rightly that it's the old Larro place, but the abandoned house is cursed by the ghosts of Larro ancestors from the Civil War.
E47THE DEVIL IN GLENCAIRE
Jul 16, 1951
Steenie, the best piper in all of Scotland, is about to be evicted if he doesn't pay his owed rent. After selling his pipes to raise the money, a mysterious stranger appears, ready with a deal: it involves Steenie's money, bagpipes--and his immortal soul.
E48Zero Hour
Jul 23, 1951
E49The Fingers
Jul 30, 1951
E50The Faceless Man
Aug 6, 1951
Francis Carvel visits a plastic surgeon to erase a lifetime of ugliness from his face. Now handsome, he returns to the French inn where, a year earlier, an lovely woman had spurned his affection. Complicating Carvel's plans is a new traveling companion, a disfigured man in bandages who knows everything about him.
E51The Man With the Watch
Aug 13, 1951
A New York City detective is investigating the disappearance of over 200 people. Before vanishing into thin air, each person has reported a dream involving a fat man with a bizarre watch who convinces them to join him on his planet of Aleria.
E52Follow Me
Aug 20, 1951
E1Mrs. Manifold
Aug 27, 1951
In 1890s London, Mrs. Manifold runs a boarding house for sailors on the waterfront. New hire John hears from a customer that her wine-guzzling husband, Ambrose, long ago disappeared and that some say she killed him. The old lady gets jumpy when a strange man reeking of wine signs the register "Ambrose Manifold.
E2Blackwood Hall
Sep 3, 1951
E3Prophet of Darkness
Sep 10, 1951
E4To See Ourselves
Sep 17, 1951
E5Rappaccini's Daughter
Sep 24, 1951
E6Will-O-the-wisp
Oct 1, 1951
E7Dark Image
Oct 8, 1951
On their honeymoon, a new husband brings his bride to the ranch he grew up on. The wife is soon traumatized by the antique bedroom mirror once owned by the husband's deceased former love. The dead girlfriend appears in the reflection, wanting to trade places with the newly-married woman.
E8I SPY
Oct 15, 1951
A survey taker makes a startling discovery when she visits the home of two very paranoid, eccentric, elderly collectors of odds and ends.
E9The Deal
Oct 22, 1951
A man makes a deal with a mysterious businessman in order to get rid of his high spending wife.
E10The Veil
Oct 29, 1951
Ambitious defense attorney David Stevenson has high political aspirations and believes his romance with a nobody like Sylvia Willis will only hold him back. Calling in a favor from a murderer he once saved from conviction, he has his bride-to-be shot. Sylvia, however, is not so easily silenced. She demands justice and forces the great attorney to defend himself before a jury of the dead.
E11The Chamber of Gloom
Nov 5, 1951
E12The Beast in the Garden
Nov 12, 1951
E13Friday the Nineteenth
Nov 19, 1951
E14BEYOND THE DOOR (AKA) FAR OFF ISLAND
Nov 26, 1951
E15The Silent Supper
Dec 3, 1951
Dede attends the silent supper, a ritual the single Bayou women conduct to foresee their future husbands. Old voodoo woman Miss Watkins had told Dede that she'd meet her husband at the supper that night. Miss Watkins has the misfortune of meeting up with troublemaker Jean Duval, who stabs her and steals her silver. Then, uninvited, he crashes the silent supper.
E16The Angry Birds
Dec 10, 1951
Bird lover Waldo Bryan leaves behind his big city art career to live in the country. His wife, Adele, has turned hateful, angry that he made her give up the city life. To get even, she lets Waldo's beloved parakeet out of it's cage to be killed by her cat. The birds outside seem to know of Adele's evil deed and turn on her, turning her into the caged one.
E17Perchance to Dream
Dec 17, 1951
Jeff Morgan reads a story in a pulp fiction magazine exactly like one he'd written and filed away years earlier. His meeting with the author, Frank Joyce, is eerie; he already knows everything about the man without having met him before. Convinced Frank is his doppelganger, Jeff panics when he dreams Frank steps onto an elevator that malfunctions and plunges fifteen stories. Frank just scoffs at his frantic warning.
E18This Way to Heaven
Dec 24, 1951
E19Of Time and Third Avenue
Dec 30, 1951
E20THE SCHOOL FOR THE UNSPEAKBLE
Jan 7, 1952
E21Blood Relation
Jan 14, 1952
E22The Intruder
Jan 21, 1952
E23The Third Door
Jan 28, 1952
E24The Chain
Feb 4, 1952
E25Cries the String
Feb 11, 1952
E26The Eyes from San Francisco
Feb 18, 1952
E27The Perfect Servant
Feb 25, 1952
E28Private - Keep Out
Mar 3, 1952
E29The Upstairs Floor
Mar 10, 1952
A husband rents the same upstairs apartment where he and his late wife once lived. Despite his claims of being married, the elderly landlady feels that something is not quite right. After weeks, she's yet to meet the woman. In fact, she's never heard so much as a sound coming from upstairs floor.
E30The Borgia Lamp
Mar 17, 1952
E31Another Country
Mar 24, 1952
A mysterious stranger enters a home uninvited, drawn from the street by the haunting music of Beethoven's "Geister (Ghost) Trio" that three musicians are performing. The pianist is immediately smitten with the woman of obvious wealth and status, soon proposing they marry. She says it is impossible, as the man would be forced to choose between her or his music.
E32The Pit
Apr 7, 1952
E33THE MEN ON THE MOUNTAIN
Apr 14, 1952
E34A Lucky Piece
Apr 21, 1952
E35For Rent
Apr 28, 1952
E36A Journey Into the Shadows
May 5, 1952
E37The Green Thumb
May 12, 1952
E38Little Girl
May 19, 1952
E39The Death's Head
May 26, 1952
E40Night Walk
Jun 2, 1952
E41Blind Man's Bluff
Jun 9, 1952
E42Nightmare
Jun 16, 1952
E43The Coins of Death
Jun 23, 1952
E44The Lonely Albatross
Jun 30, 1952
E45THE GUEST IN ROOM THIRTEEN
Jul 7, 1952
E46The Bog Oak Necklace
Jul 14, 1952
E47Death Trap
Jul 28, 1952
E48Man in the Dark
Aug 4, 1952
E49The Killer's Moon
Aug 11, 1952
E50Twist of Fate
Aug 18, 1952
E51DEATH IS A SMALL MONK
Aug 25, 1952
E52The Verdict
Sep 1, 1952
E53The Red Rose
Sep 8, 1952
E54The Darker Night
Sep 15, 1952
E55Flight Thirteen
Sep 22, 1952
E56The Hollow Man
Sep 29, 1952
E57WHEN WIDOWS WEEP
Jan 15, 1972
Storyline
Lights Out was an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum. Versions of Lights Out aired on different networks, at various times, from January 1934 to the summer of 1947 and the series eventually made the transition to television. In 1946, NBC Television brought Lights Out to TV in a series of four specials, broadcast live and produced by Fred Coe, who also contributed three of the scripts. NBC asked Cooper to write the script for the premiere, "First Person Singular", which is told entirely from the point of view of an unseen murderer who kills his obnoxious wife and winds up being executed. Variety gave this first episode a rave review ("undoubtedly one of the best dramatic shows yet seen on a television screen"), but Lights Out did not become a regular NBC-TV series until 1949.
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