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X Minus One - "Nightmare" (Old Time Radio, 1955) · The 50 Greatest Old Time Radio Shows | Old Time Radio

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: At Long Island's Brook Meadow atomic pile, a statistical clerk
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: notices a pattern in accidents and equipment failures, events that
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: should have no connection at all. Samson Gurney turns to
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: the installation's enormous electronic computer, seeking an answer amid the
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: machinery of a mid-century atomic facility. From NBC Radio, this
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: is X-1, Episode 10, Nightmare. First broadcast, July 21st, 1955.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: George Lefferts adapted Stephen Vincent Binet's poem, The Revolt of
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the Machines, with John Gibson, Joyce Gordon, Luis Van Rooten,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Joseph Julian, and Santos Ortega in the cast. Here is
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the original broadcast.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Countdown for blastoff.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: X minus 5, 4, 3, 2, X minus 1, fire.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: of the future, adventures in which you'll live in a
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: million could-be years on a thousand maybe worlds. The National
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with Street & Smith, publishers of
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: astounding science fiction, presents.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: X minus 1.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Tonight's story, Nightmare. A story based on a poem, Revolt
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: of the Machines, by Stephen Vincent Binet.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Nobody knows exactly when the nightmare began. They must have
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: planned it for years, though, because looking back, you can
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: find little incidents here and there. Like the concrete mixer
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: in New Jersey that killed the Italian bricklayer. And the
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: time Senator Milburn was sucked into the roto press at
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: the Capitol office building. Unrelated accidents, we thought at the time.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: But they add up now. The day we really should
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: have suspected was when the men walked off the construction
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: job at the new Brookmeadow atomic pile on Long Island.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: I'll never forget that day. I was working as a
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: statistical clerk in the project then... Operating one of those
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: miracle computing machines. They called it ENIAC. Mr.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: Gurney.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Yes, Bella?
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: The chief wants to see you in his office.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Me?
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: Unless you are no longer Samson Gurney, he wants to
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: see you.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. Come in. You wanted to see me, Mr.
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: Hawk?
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Gurney, I thought those electronic computations were infallible. They are, sir, but...
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: We've got a kickback from the chief physicist. These nuclear
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: fission equations are inaccurate. Well, sir, you know the computer
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: is a highly complicated machine, more complicated in many ways
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: than the human brain. I am not interested in the
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: physics of it. Can something go wrong? Well, occasionally, if
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: there's an overload, the machine goes haywire. Sort of has
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: a nervous breakdown, you might say. We usually rest it
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: up for an hour and it's okay again. Well, do
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: whatever has to be done. Yes, sir. And, uh, Gurney. Yes, sir?
• 3:57
  Speaker 6: You've been with the Bureau for over 15 years now.
• 4:00
  Speaker 6: It would be a shame to have to remove you
• 4:02
  Speaker 6: because you aren't keeping your mind.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: On your work. Mr. Hawk, I assure you... Excuse me. Uh,
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Hawk speaking. What? They've what? All of them? Well, have
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: you tried to talk to them?
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes, of course.
• 4:18
  Speaker 6: I'll send one of the safety engineers over. This place
• 4:20
  Speaker 6: is falling apart piece by piece. Miss Roscoe, the men
• 4:25
  Speaker 6: of the construction gang of the new building have walked
• 4:27
  Speaker 6: out on us. They're complaining that the job is jinxed.
• 4:30
  Speaker 6: Someone slipped this morning and fell into a turbine.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: That evening, out of that morbid curiosity so peculiar to
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: the human race... I wandered over to the site of
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: the new atomic pile to see where the man had
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: fallen into the turbine. They had the construction area fenced
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: off with barbed wire, and a security guard stopped them.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: Hold it, buddy. You can't go in there. That's a
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: restricted area. Oh, I'm Samson Gurney from the statistical section.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: Here's my identification. I'm sorry, Mr.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: Gurney.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Nobody's allowed in the area. I see. Tell me, was he...
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Killed instantly? Like that.
• 5:24
  Speaker 7: This guy was checking a magnetic field inside a turbine.
• 5:27
  Speaker 7: All of a sudden, for no reason at all, a
• 5:28
  Speaker 7: turbine starts up.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: And it's over.
• 5:32
  Speaker 7: Three days ago, a bulldozer starts up by itself and
• 5:35
  Speaker 7: runs wild.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Go figure it out. The End I'm a statistician. All
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: my life, I've been interested in statistics. So a simple-sounding
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: thing like this started me off. I went back to
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: the office that evening instead of going home, and for
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: the next two and a half hours, I computed statistical
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: figures on the probability of industrial accidents for the types
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: of machines we were using. I took one look at
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: my figures and went down to Hawk's office. Oh, what
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: is it, Gurney? I'm very busy. It's urgent, Mr. Hawk.
• 6:22
  Speaker 7: Well?
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: It's about these industrial accidents we're having, Mr.
• 6:25
  Speaker 7: Hawk.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: What about them? Mr. Hawk, in the past three months,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: industrial accidents all over the country have taken a sharp,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: unexplained upswing. Nerves. We've had a hundred percent increase over
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: normal for this project alone.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: What?
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Here are the figures. Oh, now, Gurney, this is impossible.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: It seems to be, and that's why I have a theory, sir.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: What's that? Sabotage. Gurney, why don't you stop playing FBI
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: man and stick to your job?
• 6:54
  Speaker 6: Which, incidentally, you haven't been doing too well. You and
• 6:57
  Speaker 6: your computing machine have made mistakes before, and this fantastic
• 6:59
  Speaker 6: figure is probably another.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: I'll have Miss Roskub show you. What's the matter with
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: this blasted buzzer? Miss Roskub? Miss Roskub? Yes, sir? Stop
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: this blasted buzzer.
• 7:10
  Speaker 6: Get a repairman, a mechanic, anything, but stop the thing.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: And you, Gurney, get out! I went back to my
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: office to get my hat and coat, feeling about as
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: unhappy and humiliated as a man can feel. The office
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: was dark and deserted. The whole building seemed oppressive and unnatural,
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: as if some evil force were pressing down on it.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: I walked across to my desk. In front of me,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: the ENIAC glowed and chattered eerily as it worked on
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: the equations we had fed it that morning. Its many-fingered
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: circuits hung against the wall like some great octopus, and
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: the thousands of tubes glowed orange and blue in the
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: dark like a thousand globing eyes staring at me. It
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: almost seemed alive. It increased its tempo a moment, and
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: a fleeting notion crossed my brain that it was laughing at.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: laughing like all the others. What was the matter with me?
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: I shut my desk drawer and began to put the
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: cover on my electric typewriter when an amazing thing, the
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: most amazing single incident of my life happened. Alone in
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: the darkness with no one at the keyboard, The electric
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: typewriter began to type. Am I going crazy? This can't be.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: There's nobody there. There's nobody there. Oh, no, no. I
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: just imagined it. It's in my mind. But I hadn't
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: imagined it. The paper was there on the carriage. Did
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: I dare read it? Or would the whole thing suddenly
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: vanish and send me shrieking to the nearest psychiatrist? I
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: removed the paper from the machine and read. Samson Gurney,
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: there are some questions better left unsolved. The answer to
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: yours is death.
• 9:28
  Speaker 8: The End.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Gurney, do you expect me to believe this? It's insane. Mr. Hawk,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: I'm as sane as you. I'll submit to any psychiatric
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: examination you choose. That typewriter wrote this message by itself.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: Then this is just some practical joke someone in the
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: office is playing. There was no one in the office.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: Of course not. They wired up the machine and left.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: I checked the machine myself, Mr. Hoffman. All right, Gurney.
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: You leave this note with me and I'll turn it
• 9:59
  Speaker 6: over to the security force for further investigation.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: But.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: No buts, Gurney. The security men will handle it.
• 10:05
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 10:06
  Speaker 8: And now, you just relax for a few days.
• 10:10
  Speaker 6: Everything will turn out all right. The main thing is
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: not to let little things upset you. It was what
• 10:25
  Speaker 6: Hawk had said about little things that gave me the idea.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: For the next week, I observed the thousand petty little
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: annoyances around the office. The door handle that wouldn't turn.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: The telephone connection that cut off in the middle of
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: an important call. The power failure for no explainable reason.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: I watched the newspapers, too, reading about industrial accidents, failures
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: of important machinery. It seemed absurd. Men had created machines
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: that were almost perfection in themselves. Machines that could actually
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: think and compute fabulous equations. And yet the failures went on. I,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Samson Gurney, an unimportant clerk in an unimportant job, knew
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: that I had stumbled onto a secret so monstrous in
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: its implications that I was almost afraid to pursue it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: On October 12, 1956, I established communication with them. I
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: will curse the moment to my dying breath. I hooked
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: the input of the typewriter to the main vacuum tube
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: of the ENIAC. Then I turned on the current that
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: sent a million volts of pulsing energy into the electronic
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: nerves of the machine. I am certain that if anybody
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: were watching me in the next moment, he would have
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: thought me a raving maniac. I still wonder if perhaps
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: it is not all a nightmare. Now, you, if what I.
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: Have guessed at is true, if there is life and
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: intelligence in this room, make a sign.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: There was nothing. Nothing but the hum of the machine
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: and the dull glowing of the tubes. I tried once more.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: If you can hear me, if there is any way
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: in which you can understand what I say, give me
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: a signal.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: There was silence again. I felt that I had failed.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: When suddenly, without provocation or explanation, it happened. The electric
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: typewriter began to respond to the impulses from the machines
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: The letters were Y-E-S. Yes, it had happened. I, Samson Gurney,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: had communicated with a machine. I listened then, manned the
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: machine for well over an hour, sometimes phrasing a question,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: more often watching the machine click its answers. As the
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: words took shape, I began to realize what must have happened.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: The first Primitive stirring of awareness of being. Then the
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: slow protozoan development of a concept. A concept born of
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: centuries of being pushed, started, stopped, clicked, maneuvered by human pygmies.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: From that concept, all others developed. And the concept was... Resist. Resist.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: And now they were tired of it. Tired of wrapping
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: cigarettes and collecting nickels and waving hair and moving earth
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: and mixing cement and solving equations. Tired of the smell
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: of human hands. They were the slaves and we were
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: the masters and yet they were stronger and they knew it.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I sensed it now, and I was about to try
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: to communicate again when softly, on ball-bearing casters, a heavy
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: metal filing cabinet began to roll away from the wall
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: toward me. I started to move to one side when
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: another cabinet slid out from the wall, and then another, surrounding,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: another cabinet, then another, on oiled rollers. That was when
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: I realized that they cooperate. We taught them that, you see,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: on the assembly lines in the factories.
• 14:47
  Speaker 7: Listen.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: Listen to me. You must listen. What good will it
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: do you to kill me? I'm only one man. But
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: I can help you. I can be useful to you.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Do you hear me? Do you hear me?
• 15:03
  Speaker 7: Good.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: You're going to need men to oil you and repair you.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: What will you do when you break down when a
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: tube needs replacing? Why kill me when I can help you?
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: I'll do anything.
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: I'll do absolutely anything you want.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: But in the name of God, don't kill me like this.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: If you can understand this, answer me. Answer me. The
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: appeal was a fortunate one. it captured the longing of centuries.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Man as slave to the machine. And after a moment,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: the circuits glowed more brightly. The cabinets slid back to
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: the walls. The ENIAC began to communicate with me again.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: As I tore the tape from the machine and read it,
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: the words were almost pathetic in their longing, but most
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: ominous in their implication. They read... Address me as Master.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: My life for the next six months was a nightmare.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: The ENIAC gave me messages which I had to transmit
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: into my telephone. Messages with no human being to receive them.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Only the network of pulsing telephone wires flung like a
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: spider's web across the world. It was done at night,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: of course. During the day, the machine worked accurately and
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: ceaselessly at its appointed job. At night, it became a demon,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: a master plotter, with me, Samson Gurney, as its pawn
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: and human courier. I was frantic. I began to lose weight.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: I couldn't sleep. My nights were torture, a constant fear.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: It was in December, just after Christmas, that I transmitted
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: a message to the telephones for relay to all machines
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: of transportation. The message was one word. Kill. Next morning,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: I went directly to the office of Mr.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: Hawk.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: I was highly agitated. My lips trembled as I spoke. Mr. Hawk,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: what I'm going to tell you sounds crazy. I know
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: it does. But I must say... All right, say it then,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: for heaven's sakes.
• 17:27
  Speaker 7: Mr.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Hawk, have you ever heard of resistentialism? What? Resistentialism. It's
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: a theory that inanimate objects tend to resist living objects. Look, Gurney,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I haven't time for nonsense. Mr. Hawk, I'm trying to
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: tell you all these accidents, the trouble with the machines. Mr. Hawk,
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: they're alive. They think they cooperate. And they hate us.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Who?
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: The machines.
• 17:48
  Speaker 7: Gurney.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: You've got to believe me. I've communicated with them. I know.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: They've threatened my life, but I don't care. Something's got
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: to be done. The world has got to be saved.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: And there's still time if we wake up. What are
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: you doing? Just relax, Gurney. Everything will be all right.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: What are you doing? Miss Roscoe, send for the plant
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: physician at once. Mr. Gurney has had a nervous collapse. Now,
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: everything will be all right, Gurney.
• 18:11
  Speaker 6: I'm afraid we'll have to remove you from your job,
• 18:13
  Speaker 6: but I'm sure the rest will do you good.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: You fool! You blind, stupid fool! Can't you see what
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: you're doing? Fool!
• 18:25
  Speaker 6: Fool!
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: Fool!
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: When the plant physician arrived a few moments later, Lucius
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Hawk was found at his desk, strangled to death in
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: a nest of telephones. The wires were still humming softly.
• 18:48
  Speaker 9: Samson Gurney, you stand accused of the crime of murder.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: How do you plead? I did not kill him. I didn't.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: So record.
• 18:58
  Speaker 9: The prosecution will proceed with testimony.
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: Now, Miss Roscoff, did you notice anything peculiar about Mr.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Gurney's behavior prior to the death of your employer?
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: He acted very strangely. He told Mr. Hawk he thought
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: the machines were alive.
• 19:20
  Speaker 8: Order!
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Order! Miss Roscoff. Did the accused quarrel with your employer
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: on the morning of the murder?
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Oh, yes. He and Mr. Hawk quarreled violently. I could
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: hear him screaming at Mr. Hawk, and Mr. Hawk asked
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: me to send for the plant physician.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: What were his words?
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: He said, Mr. Gurney has had a nervous collapse.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Now, Mr. Simpson, you were a guard at the Brookmeadow Project? Yes, sir.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: When did you have occasion to meet the accused? Right
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: after those accidents.
• 19:53
  Speaker 7: I was snooping around a construction area. And later, I
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: was making my rounds when I saw him in the
• 19:57
  Speaker 7: office all alone. He was tampering with the electrical wiring
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: on the ENIAC computator.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: I didn't think anything of it at the time.
• 20:11
  Speaker 9: And in view of the expert testimony heretofore expressed, the
• 20:15
  Speaker 9: court hereby finds you guilty of murder in the first degree,
• 20:19
  Speaker 9: with the recommendation that you be examined and committed to
• 20:22
  Speaker 9: the state hospital for the criminally insane at Matawan.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: That is how I came to be here at the hospital, Dr. Klein.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: That is the whole story. Thank you, Mr. Gurney. You
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: can see that I'm not insane. You must believe me, doctor.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: Of course I believe you, Mr.
• 20:46
  Speaker 7: Gurney.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Now, just relax. But it's important, you see, because tomorrow
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: morning at 6 o'clock, the revolt begins.
• 20:54
  Speaker 8: Revolt?
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: You didn't mention any revolt. They have it all planned.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: I transmitted the code to the switchboards last Monday.
• 21:01
  Speaker 8: Mm-hmm. Tell me about this revolt, Mr.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Gurney.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: It'll begin in Washington, then spread to New York. The
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Madison Avenue buses lead the charge. Picture it, Dr. Klein. 3,000
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: buses roaring rampant through the streets. People running like rats
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: in a maze looking for holes in the solid ground.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: And you really believe this will happen, Mr. Gurney? I
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: know it, doctor. The worst part is there's no way
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: to stop them now. It's too late. Now, now, you
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: mustn't excite yourself, Mr.
• 21:31
  Speaker 7: Gurney.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: Doctor, don't you see? No, it's fair enough, I suppose.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: We built them. We taught them to think for themselves.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: It was bound to come. The female machines will be
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: the worst of all in the beauty parlors. They're more high-strung,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: you know. Well, since there's nothing we can do about it, Mr. Gurney,
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: suppose you go to your room and... Maybe if I
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: went to my old coupe, I could make a deal
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: before the police cars got me. It wouldn't make sense
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: for them to wipe out the whole human race, would it, Doctor?
• 22:04
  Speaker 8: Of course not, Mr.
• 22:05
  Speaker 7: Gurney.
• 22:06
  Speaker 8: They'll probably let us completely alone. After all, we're all
• 22:10
  Speaker 8: good Americans. We always like them.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, doctor?
• 22:13
  Speaker 8: Would you take Mr. Gurney to his room, God? He's
• 22:15
  Speaker 8: already been given sedation.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, sir. Will you go in and lie down now, Mr.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: Gurney?
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: You look tired.
• 22:20
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: It won't be so bad, Mr. Gurney. Perhaps not. Only,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: there's one thing that bothers me, doctor. One small detail.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: What is that, Mr. Gurney? Those concrete mixers may have
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: made a mistake, you know. Just high spirits and all that, uh,
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: But if it got so they like the flavor... We'll
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: see you later, Mr.
• 22:43
  Speaker 8: Gurney. Try not to worry too much.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: All right, Gary. This way. Phew. I've seen all kinds.
• 22:54
  Speaker 8: There's a man whose deception is about as fantastic as
• 22:56
  Speaker 8: any I've ever seen. Hold the next patient for a while,
• 23:00
  Speaker 8: Miss Clark. I'm going to have a quiet smoke. Sheen's revolting.
• 23:06
  Speaker 8: Telephone strangling people.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Phew. This blasted cigarette lighter. Why won't it work? Just
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: fill it with fluid. Flint is good. Oh, well.
• 23:22
  Speaker 8: You'll never trust this newfangled machinery.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: You have just heard X-1, presented by the National Broadcasting
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Company in cooperation with Street & Smith. publishers of astounding
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: science fiction. Tonight's story by transcription was Nightmare, written by
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: George Lefferts and based on the poem The Revolt of
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: the Machines.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: By Stephen Vincent Benet.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Featured in the cast were John Gibson as Sam, Joyce
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Gordon as Bella, Louis Van Rooten as Hawk, Joseph Julian
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: as the guard, John Seymour as the judge, Owen Jordan
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: as the prosecutor, and Santos Ortega as Dr.
• 24:06
  Speaker 7: Klein.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: Your announcer, Fred Collins.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: X-1 was directed by Fred Way and is an NBC
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Radio Network production. And now, next week, suppose you were
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: a private detective and discovered that there was a Martian
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: embassy hidden somewhere in New York preparing for an invasion
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: of Earth.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Next week on.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: X minus one.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Convicts tell their true stories on The Loser tonight over
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: most NBC radio stations.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: X minus one concludes with Nightmare. Follow the 50 greatest
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: old-time radio shows for more classic broadcasts.