What happens
Jack Benny plays a Hollywood actor who, frustrated at being denied serious dramatic roles, accepts Cecil B. DeMille's challenge to write an original screenplay within 24 hours. DeMille lends him the only key to an isolated house on Ball Pate Mountain. Upon arriving, Benny encounters Rita Krummet, who claims a hidden fortune is buried in the house, and a bearded hermit. Mary Livingston also turns up at the house. Lux Radio Theatre presents this 1938 adaptation of the George M. Cohan comedy mystery, adapted from the Earl Derr Biggers novel. Benny and Livingston star.
Hollywood studios, and an isolated, dark old house on Ball Pate Mountain, seventeen miles from the village of Ball Pate, during a windy night
Characters: Jack Benny, Mary Livingston, Cecil B. DeMille, Rita Krummet, Mrs. Waller, Jed, Morgan, Koki Bland
Listen for: The house on Ball Pate Mountain and the claims about the buried hundred thousand dollars, the mysterious visitors who arrive one after another, and Benny's frantic attempts to write his screenplay within the deadline
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.