The Road to Italy · Vienna Files

This radio drama uses AI-generated writing, voices, music, sound effects and artwork. All spoken performances in this edition use ElevenLabs V4.

A note under a Vienna dressmaker's door says her brother Anton, who went away three weeks ago for fear of the Russians, is safe in Italy. It has no envelope and no stamp, it is signed with his name, and its hand slopes and runs, though Anton printed every letter in square capitals. Who wrote it?

🎧 Full episode of Vienna Files: a post-war detective radio drama set in occupied Vienna, an audio mystery performed by a full cast.

Listen as a podcast, with full transcripts: https://mono-noir.transistor.fm/

Stories, transcripts and the schedule: https://matezz.com

🎭 Directed Edition — every role cast for this story and every line performed with full voice direction.

Vienna, the autumn of 1945. At lamp-lighting a dressmaker named Hedi climbs the mezzanine stair off the Herrengasse to see the detective August Brenner and the narrator, Fuchs, but will come no further than the mat. Her brother Anton, who traded in coffee, cigarettes and stockings, went away three weeks ago, afraid of what the Russians would do to a man like him. She will not go to the police, because a man who traded as he did would come home to a police file, so every night she searches the Resselpark bench by bench. Brenner has noticed that she has kept her left fist shut since she came in: there is paper in her glove. On the stair of her building in the Porzellangasse they meet Doctor Lindauer, who keeps his surgery there. In her workroom, among headless dummies and a half-finished wedding dress, she unfolds the paper. It lay under her door four days ago, with no envelope and no stamp: "I am safe in Italy. Don't worry for me, and don't go to the police." It is signed Anton. But Anton always printed, in great square capitals, because a nun once cracked his knuckles over joined writing at school, and this hand slopes and runs. Hedi leaves the note with Brenner and asks him to find who wrote it. At a bench in the Resselpark a trader called Yvette, who is not glad to see Hedi, says everybody traded with Anton. At a locked iron gate a caretaker, Frau Pospischil, says she has never laid eyes on him. Next morning Inspector Delago hears them out at his desk. Who is telling Hedi that her brother is safe?

From the series Vienna Files: a real event of the 1940s reimagined as a post-war noir radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast with an original score and sound design.

Loosely inspired by a real event of the 1940s. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including a dressmaker and her family, black-market traders and their families, the neighbours, tenants and caretakers of a Vienna house, doctors and other professionals, clerks and officials, the investigators and the police — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, district, street, park or public body is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the houses, the gate and the offices named in it are invented too. This is a work of fiction, not a factual account of any real person or institution. No real person is portrayed, and no real individual, company or organisation is accused of any act shown here.

Setting: Vienna — autumn 1945.

Writer v2.7 — the studio's newest writing process: the plot is planned and checked by an AI story editor, then each act is drafted with the whole story in view and edited before a word is voiced — and then cast and performed with our new casting and voice direction.

Chapters:
0:00 A Caller Who Stops at the Mat
1:34 Up a Stairwell That Had Lost Its Windows
3:10 Headless Dummies in Pinned Muslin
5:17 Anton's Room, Smelling of Coffee Beans
6:30 Whispers Among the Resselpark Benches
8:11 A Locked Iron Gate Beside a Lodge
10:02 Cold Cigarette Ends at the Commissariat
11:40 A Room No Wider Than a Tram
13:14 A Pipe Gone Cold Past Midnight
14:15 A Knock Upstairs, and No Answer
15:50 Carbolic Down the Embankment
17:48 Smoking Beneath a Sign Forbidding It
19:11 A Few Sticks Burning in One Room
21:11 Our Backs to the Black Water
22:16 Delago Climbing the Stair
24:11 One Bulb and One Table
25:59 Sweeping Glass Off the Pavements

#MonoNoirRadioDrama #NoirMystery #AudioDrama