Guy de Maupassant was born in France in 1850.  He was a student of French novelist Gustave Flaubert. De Maupassant left studying law to join in the army during The Franco-Prussian War.  He wrote a lot of short stories and has been widely regarded as one of the true masters of the form.  Some of his tales would fall into the category of horror or weird fiction.  He suffered from syphilis starting in his 20’s.  The years of dealing with it may have contributed to his attempting suicide by cutting his throat late in life.  After the attempt he was committed to an asylum, where he remained for 18 months until he died in 1893.  During that time he wrote a number of his supernatural tales.

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Vintage Horror Radio returns after an extended absence with today's show.  Josh requested an episode of Lux Radio Theater based on The Phantom Of The Opera.  This show first aired September 13, 1943 and it's based on the movie released that same year.  Both the movie and this radio show star Nelson Eddie and Susanna Foster.  The original story was written by Gaston Leroux and published in 1910.

Last year at this time I did an article about the old tradition of telling scary stories at Christmas time ( www.vintagehorror.com/node/25 ) This year I thought I’d feature a few others by various authors.  I hope you all have a great and festive Christmas this year.

As a child there were a few series of books that really jump-started my interest in reading.  One was the series Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators.  In them a group of three young adults had their own investigation group and solved many spooky crimes that took place near there home in Rocky Beach, California.  Another series were the Choose Your Own Adventure and Which Way books.  You were the hero of the story in the books, and you were able to make decisions that altered the outcome of the tale. 

I got an email from Scott asking about the title of an old horror movie.  Can you help track down the title of this one?  From the email:

Maybe someone out there can help with the name of an old horror
film. From what I can remember, it was about a Nazi war criminal that was
trying to resurrect Der Fuher by doing experiments with humans. One vivid
torture scene involved putting a rat cage over the head of a well-endowed
woman. Anyone out ther know it? Please post on the Blog site if needed.
Thanks. 

Sound familiar to anybody?

The winner of the contest to win a copy of my chap book “The Collective of Blaque Reach” is Laurel Gittere!  Thanks to all who entered.  I will be contacting all of you to personally thank you for taking the time to enter.   Although I only have one copy of the chap book to send out, I will try to do something special for each of you.

Thanks again,

Matt Cowan

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Vintage Horror Radio returns today with another radio version of an Edgar Allen Poe story.  First published in Burton's Gentlemen's Magazine in September of 1839, The Fall Of The House Of Usher would also be included in Tales Of The Grotesque and Arabesque, a collection of short stories, published the following year.  We'll hear the radio adaptation from Escape, which first aired October 22, 1947.