This episode of Lights Out comes from our Listener Library based on a recommendation from our mysterious listener, Zachary! Thanks, Zachary! This particular story, entitled “Death Robbery,” is one of the few surviving episodes to feature a script written by the creator Wyllis Cooper, and even these extant recordings are all revivals of Cooper’s writing broadcast after he left the show. The tale features Boris Karloff as an ambitious scientist who believes he has perfected the means to bring the dead back to life. Who will be the first human subject of this unorthodox procedure? Does the experiment take absolutely everything into account? What could sponsors possibly object to in this script? Listen for yourself and find out! Then vote and let us know what you think!
I agree about the music. It was “anti Lights Out.”
One of Cooper’s 1935 LIGHTS OUT episodes, the NBC-Red network premiere entitled “A Room for the Night,” is now circulating; it’s in poor sound and hard to follow. There’s also a surviving half-episode from the 1947 Karloff season called “The Ring”; only the first half exists, alas. Here are some contemporary newspaper items concerning the two episodes that aired after “Death Robbery”: _________________________ [July 25, 1947 Cleveland (OH) Plain Dealer – Radio editor Robert S. Stephan reviews a lost Wyllis Cooper episode] LIGHTS OUT is the kind of dramatic series the American living room could easily do without. It deals… Read more »
This episodes was done very well, even if the surgery takes up most of the plot. Good story with a dark ending, too.