Return of ‘Adventures of Doc Savage’ worth the wait

Twenty-five years ago Sept. 30, Doc Savage returned to the airwaves for 13 weeks for the first time since the 1930s — and then he was gone again.

I remember hearing several of The Adventures of Doc Savage episodes as they aired on National Public Radio, but not all. I never got a chance to listen to the complete serials — “Fear Cay” and “The Thousand-Headed Man” — until they turned up as bootleg copies online a number of years ago.

The bootlegs sounded as if they were recorded onto a cassette recorder as the programs were originally broadcast over the radio. As you can imagine, the sound quality was not great.

Now, thanks to Radio Archives, The Adventures of Doc Savage have returned, sounding better than they did during the 1985 broadcasts. Radio Archives has remastered the recordings. Compared to the only existing examples of the shows, the new versions sound crisp, clean, in full stereo and, well, terrific.

Take a listen to see for yourself. Here’s short clip introducing the characters:

If you’ve not heard The Adventures of Doc Savage, you’re in for a treat. The two adventures — “Fear Cay” and “The Thousand-Headed Man,” based on stories from the Doc Savage novels — are well written by Roger Rittner and Will Murray (respectively), and well acted by Variety Arts Radio Theatre.

I won’t go into a complete review of the two serials since many of you have already heard them. Suffice it to say, they stay faithful to the pulp hero, but are clearly written for radio production. Director Rittner, in the accompanying making-of documentary, says he wanted to recapture the excitement of the movie serials, but on radio. He succeeds in both serials. They keep the action moving.

In addition to the 13 episodes, the eight CD set includes the making-of documentary (a 44-minute “The Sound of Bronze: Making ‘The Adventures of Doc Savage’ “) and two episodes from other mysteries of the golden age of radio, The Adventures of Philip Marlowe (1949) and The New Adventures of Michael Shayne (1948).

The making-of documentary features interviews with most everyone involved in the production — Rittner, Murray (whose interview is the only one where the audio quality suffers, but not so much to affect your ability to listen), the voice cast and the special audio effects guy (what a great way to create the sound for the Superfirers).

If you’re more curious about how the radio series came into being, Radio Archives’ website has a nice history — or, as the site says, “liner notes” written by Murray.

The set retails for $24.98, and is easily worth it for any pulp, and particularly Doc Savage, fan.

Postscript: The package is nicely put together, but the CDs apparently are slightly thicker than most CDs (probably because of the labeling process). The first disc in the set got stuck in my car’s slot-loading CD player when I tried to eject it. After a bit of work it’s free. So a word of caution: You may not be able to eject these CDs from a slot-loading player (car or computer).