OTRR Top Secret Singles

(4.2 stars; 2 reviews)

TOP SECRET Ryan Ellett It was announced in May 1950 that Ilona Massey had been signed for the NBC summer series Top Secret . Massey was a Hungarian-born actress who had appeared on Broadway in the 1943 Ziegfeld Follies and in a handful of Hollywood features including Rosalie (1937), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) and Holiday in Mexico (1947). Top Secret was slated to replace The Adventures of Christopher London in the Monday night 10:30 (EST) time slot. Both series featured tales of international intrigue, a genre quickly gaining favor in the post-War landscape. Top Secret was one of several summer replacement series on NBC that year, a number of which featured female leads. Others in this summer replacement class included Kitty Pepper (with Arlene Francis), The Penny Singleton Show , The Cass Daley Show , Sara’s Private Caper (with Sara Berner), and Tugboat Annie (with Betty Garde). Harry Junkin was tapped to direct Top Secret and Alan Sloane wrote the scripts. The series was the result of survey data done by NBC indicating listeners were getting tired of the private eye stories that were so prevalent during the 1940s and wanted something different with a bit more realism. Their research department reported back “a strong preference for naturalistic, hard-boiled action without fancy frills.” Wanted and Confidentially Yours also emerged from this corporate research. Top Secret aired from June 12 to October 26, 1950. It aired on various days and in different timeslots during that run. This is the Single Episodes Page. The Maintained Set includes extras not found here. It is located here . This Single Episodes page is provided in case you want to sample the shows. Note that in many cases, file names have been modified from the original OTRR names to conform to archive.org naming requirements.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.