Two months before Orson Welles (above) and the Mercury Theater on the Air scared the country with the War of the Worlds broadcast, they tackled Alexander Dumas’s Count of Monte Cristo in a production that created fright among a much smaller segment of the population: radio dramatists. As Welles notes in his opening remarks, boiling down the book to make it manageable in an hour-long program is a daunting proposition.

Nevertheless, the company does a great job with the material, spending half of the runtime dramatizing Edmond Dantes’s ensnarement by his jealous friends and his subsequent imprisonment. This is the first adaptation that makes you keenly feel main character’s sense of betrayal and helplessness. Its biggest strength is the booming voice of Orson Welles, especially during the climactic scene when he brings financial retribution on his enemies, seemingly through the power of his vocal cords alone.

To listen to the entire broadcast, click here, and then scroll down to The Count of Monte Cristo listing to select Real Audio or Checksums (whatever that is), though you will probably have better luck by following the Web site’s directions and downloading the file as a BitTorrent. (In that way, I ended up with all the Mercury Theater broadcasts, including the (in)famous War of the Worlds.)

Apparently, the novel also inspired a radio series, three episodes of which can be purchased for $5 by clicking here. Beyond the snippet available for free listening, I haven’t heard any of these.

Next time, Count of Monte Cristo week continues with a look at a 1934 film adaptation and its connections to Frankenstein.

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