Radioland Murders (2006, DVD)

The film involves a look at an attempt to launch a new radio network during the 1930s. The central characters are a husband, who guides a gaggle of script writers, and his alienated wife, a secretary at the station where the launch takes place. A retired general (apparently based on General Sarnoff) hosts a group of potential sponsors who wish to observe the launch of the network. As the programs are about to start, people start dying mysteriously. A mysterious voice apparently is behind these deaths, and is heard shortly before the victims die, each utterance sprinkled with Delphic clues.

With the deaths, the survivors scramble to keep the shows going, and the husband tries to repair thje rift in his marriage, keep the programs going, and solve the murders, all while becoming the chief suspect of a plainclothes detective.

Anyone who thinks they'll get an insight into the ways Old-Time Radio used to work will be mistaken. In the studios, audiences were prompted to react is certain ways by signs or other signals; this was missing. Actors rarely appeared before a microphone in costume, etc. Also, different live programs weren't executed simultaneously.

At the very beginning of the film, audio clips from actual old-time programs were played (though "The Lone Ranger" was changed to "The Lone Stranger," probably to keep from raising the ire of TLR, inc.) but that's the closest that anyone came to real OLd-Time Radio in the film.

The film wasn't terrible, but neither did it really capture the spirit of what it was supposed to represent.