This week, I begin looking at the noirish radio dramas based on the stories of Cornell Woolrich. First off is The White Rose Murders from the radio series Suspense. It is based on a story by Woolrich called The Death Rose and is one of the best examples of a taut noir radio drama.
Music under is first: Blind Spot by 3rd Man followed by Soothe Me by Shea Breaux Wells.
A year and a half ago, I featured a radio version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story, “The Lost Special” which aired over Escape in 1949. At that time, the Suspense version starring Orson Welles was considered lost. Recently, the audio for that 1943 Suspense version has surfaced thanks to Randy Riddle.
And so, I am taking another look at this version of the story, which is much closer to the original short story. I have mixed feelings about the adaptation as you will hear.
Background music is Grover’s Tune by Excellent Adventure
From the fecund mind of mystery/thriller writer, Edgar Wallace, best known as the first screenwriter of the film King Kong. His better known mystery series include the J.G. Reeder and Green Archer series. Wallace’s stories were so well accepted over 160 films were made from them. This week I’ll look at Wallace and the radio play “Criminal At Large” from the Molle’ Mystery Theatre from April 1944. The radio play was based upon a stage play and film called The Frightened Lady.
Music under is Deep Purple played by Art Tatum.
Eric Ambler is mostly known as a writer of spy related novels. Mask of Dimitrios (published in the U.S. as A Coffin for Dimitrios) is about a writer of detective stories who bargains for more than he can handle as he researches the mysterious Dimitrios. He is pulled farther and farther into a web of deceit. The book was made into a film and the film into a radio play as presented on the Screen Guild Theatre in 1945.
A look at the story and Ambler.
Music under is Blind Spot by 3rd Man from the Podshow Music Network.
From the pen of Dorothy L. Sayers, a different kind of detective story involving her detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. “The Cave of Ali Baba” was heard over Suspense in 1942 based on her original short story “The Adventurous Exploits of the Cave of Ali Baba” published in 1928.
One of Agatha Christie’s most successful stories with her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot was in itself controversial and a number of books have been written about the detective story. Her fellow writers at the time felt she had crossed the line in their “rules of the game” when creating a tidy cozy mystery. I’ll look briefly at the controversy and you’ll hear Orson Welles disappointing creation of her Belgian detective in the Mercury Theater’s production of this well-known detective story.
I’m back for a brief visit to one of the “lost in time” detective writers - Leslie T. White, an early 20th century forensics detective for the Los Angeles District Attorney. White turned to detective story writing influencing among others - Raymond Chandler. One of his stories was adapted for the Molle Mystery Theater in 1946 and is presented here.
Merry Christmas! This will unfortunately have to be my last podcast for some time. Not sure how long I will be away, but stay subscribed. I am returning to the master of detective writers and a creator of one of radio’s favorite detectives - Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes. This episode is from the mind of Denis Greene and Anthony Boucher and is not part of the Holmes canon. A nice little Christmas story!
Another Carlton Morse adventure starring the A-1 Detective team of Jack and Doc. This episode has elements of the true detective genre some of which is straight out of the style of Hammett and Chandler.
The further adventures of Jack, Doc and Jeri Booker continue in “The Pirate Loot of the Island of Skulls.” Two more episodes this week plus snippets of interviews with Carlton E. Morse and Russell Thorson. The storyline unfortunately is not complete in audio format, so I’ll try to give some summaries between various episodes to give wholeness to the complete story.
This week I am beginning a series of podcasts featuring the A-1 Detective team of Jack Packard and Doc Long - Carleton Morse’s intrepid detectives from I Love A Mystery. The series is not a complete one as there are very few complete runs of this adventure thriller series: A twelve part series called “The Pirate Loot of the Island of Skulls” from 1942. I’ll be looking at Morse, the series and this serial adventure over the next few weeks.
The final entry into my look at women radio detectives. This week is an example of the many husband and wife detective teams that appeared on radio. Others included Adventures of the Thin Man, Mr. & Mrs North, It’s a Crime, Mr. Collins and Front Page Farrell. This week’s series used characters from the pen of Frances Crane in which Jean Abbott is a much stronger detective than she was portrayed on radio. Claudia Morgan (right) and Les Damon starred as Jean and Pat Abbott.
Continuing with the second part look at women radio detectives, I look at another radio detective series in which a woman was the lead private investigator. Miss Pinkerton, Incorporated starred Joan Blondell and Dick Powell (right), husband and wife in real life at the time as Mary Vance, head of the Vance Detective Agency and Police investigator Murray. The only surviving episode was the premier. This was a lighter show but clicked as both Blondell and Powell were naturals in front of a radio microphone.
I begin a new series of podcasts focusing on radio’s “Lady Detectives.” First up is Candy Matson, probably the best of the lady detectives on radio. There are extensive sound bytes from my interview with Jack French (right) who authored Private Eyelashes, a book which looks at radio’s female detectives. Candy Matson was a production for the West Coast coming out of San Francisco beginning in 1949.
Music under is Johnny Mercer singing “Candy.”
Part two of a look at the police procedurals of radio drama. While Dragnet was the “daddy” of procedurals, 21st Precinct was probably an example of almost pure procedure. Dragnet had characters listeners could care about. 21st Precinct was much dryer in tone even forsaking opening and closing music and musical bridges to maintain a sense of a documentary style approach. The opening voice was always the desk sergeant mostly portrayed by veteran radio and television actor, Harold Stone (right).
Beginning a new theme - police procedurals. The detective genre’s most recent sub-genre is the police procedural. Radio followed suit with the introduction of Dragnet in 1949 created by Jack Webb (right) and its influence both on radio detectives as well as the printed word continues to be felt. I’ll provide examples of what makes a story a police procedural. Next week I’ll continue the theme.
A look at my final entry into radio detectives born out of the pulp magazines. The Shadow was in some ways not a detective as much as a crime fighter (there is a difference), but some of the episodes did bear some aspects where Lamont Cranston did do some detective work to help come to the resolution. This episode is one of those.
Continuing a look at radio detectives who had their beginnings in the pulps, this week a look at Jack “Flash” Casey created by George Harmon Coxe and born from the pages of Black Mask Magazine. Jack Casey came to radio first as “Flashgun” Casey, then Casey, Crime Photographer.
This week begins a short series on radio detectives who come from the pulps. This includes pulps such as the early publications like the one on the right and Black Mask Magazine. I’ll start with one of the earliest pulp detectives who appeared on radio, Nick Carter. A look at the history of these pulps, some of the early detectives, and an early Nick Carter, Master Detective episode from 1943.
From John Dickson Carr to Ellery Queen, we now move to the last of our look at the scientific detectives on radio - the master himself, Sherlock Holmes, as written by Anthony Boucher (right) and Denis Green. I’ll do a little comparing to the Edith Meiser version of Holmes too.
Jim Widner is a webmaster, writer, radio historian.
