Radio liked Private eyes. Beginning with America's love affair with pulps such as True Detective magazine in the twenties and combining with our love of mystery, especially in the forties and continuing into the fifties, radio's love affair with private eyes brought us many good series. Crime drama has always translated well into our imaginations and radio took advantage of that.

ne of the earliest was sponsored by the National Surety Company and featured one of its operators, a Detective Harkness. Based on the company's case files and solved by the fictitious Harkness, stories were presented as first person narratives. This show appeared on NBC in 1930 and moved quickly from the opening announcement to the story as told by Harkness:

"I'm not going to waste any time or words getting into tonight's story. One day, not so long ago, I entered my office in the National Surety Company's building as the phone was ringing."

Harkness wasted no time getting to the story immediately; a story told in his own words. The first person narrative reached its zenith with a series such as Sam Spade and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar . Use of this technique for telling a story worked well in radio drama and especially in the detective genre. It allowed the listener to relate immediately to the main character and pulled the audience directly into the story. The success of much of the detective fiction born out of the pulps is attributed to the type of character created by pulp authors. The private detective tended to operate outside of the law in order to bring criminals to justice. They lived and worked among the seamier side of life, and there was definitely a class society where the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. In much of the fiction we constantly read the detectives own thoughts. Radio's use of the first-person narrative allowed us to hear those thoughts . Whether we listened to Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe, their opinions were always forthcoming, usually through their narration of the story.

   Most radio detective series also used the sidekick character as a foil to the detective and as a means to ensure dialogue. The radio sidekick was usually not as able as the detective in deductive power. Using a sidekick also helped the listener focus on the abilities of the main character. Among the various detective shows, Lamont Cranston [The Shadow] had Margo Lane, Sherlock Holmes [The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ] had Watson, and Joe Friday [Dragnet ] his Ben Alexander.

   Most of the detective programs on radio featuring a key character as a private eye were of the hardboiled type. Historically, the hardboiled detective began showing up in writing in the stories of Emil Gaboriau at the turn of the century. But also the American hardboiled detective was born from the pages of the dime novels, or pulps, which were the entertainment for many juveniles and others prior to radio. Early stories featuring Nick Carter had such an edge. But it wasn't until the 1920's that the hardboiled detective took on a more solid form. This genre sprung from the writings of James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler. All published stories in the pulps of the day.

   Dashiell Hammett's character, Sam Spade, came to radio in The Adventures of Sam Spade starring Howard Duff. Publishing in magazines such as Black Mask, Hammett's written character was the classic hardboiled detective: ruthless, making no moral claims, but not without scruples, yet without sentiment for criminals. Sam Spade could not be bribed even though he appeared to be low enough to accept a bribe. However, he was not opposed to the occasional bonus which might not be totally on the up-and-up. Yet he was without pity for crime. In The Maltese Falcon, where appearance and reality are not always the same, he turns Brigid O'Shaughnessy, whom he could love, over to the police because she was responsible for the death of Spade's detective partner. Miss O'Shaughnessy was first introduced as Miss Wonderly. Again goodness is not always what it seems - it can be deadly and a detective needs to "hardboil" himself against corruption.

   The Sam Spade of radio could be brutal as well as a loveable character as reflected in the eyes of his secretary, Effie. Duff plays the character with some tongue-in-cheek while still maintaining an aspect of the grittiness from the novels. Compare Duff's Spade, to that played by Humphrey Bogart, which is probably closer to the Hammett creation and is usually considered the definitive Sam Spade. Bogart appeared on radio in Academy Award Theatre's version of The Maltese Falcon .

   Raymond Chandler was another one of the triumvirate of hardboiled fictioneers whose character appeared in radio. Chandler created a detective, Philip Marlowe, who, as with Spade, was tough but usually fair. Marlowe seemed more loyal than Spade, more easily trusted. Radio's Marlowe was first portrayed by Van Heflin with a tough but fair attitude. Gerald Mohr created a wonderful Marlowe who sounded tougher and grittier than Heflin's portrayal . Van Heflin's Marlowe appeared over NBC, but later, CBS produced The Adventures of Philip Marlowe. Directed by the great Norman MacDonnell, the punch-in-the-face opening set the mood immediately.

   Beyond the harboiled detective, radio produced detective characters with more intellectual deductive powers and less brute force. One of the earliest was the Honolulu detective, Charlie Chan. In The Adventures of Charlie Chan , the detective as portrayed by Ed Begley and others was much more cerebral in solving crime, relying less on brute force. About this same time, came one of the most famous detective's of all time, Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was known chiefly for his deduction; the dramas featured very little action. Basil Rathbone was the best known radio Holmes, but probably not the most definitive. Back on the American side, was the character created by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee. Ellery Queen was a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, using his deductive powers to help his police-detective father solve crimes. Finding clues that no one else noticed and mentally arranging the pieces, Queen was able to solve the crimes. (Download an Ellery Queen script). This series also used a unique device to involve the audience by stopping the action to solicit possible solutions to the crime.

   Probably the epitomy of detection through deduction was a rather curious and corpulent private eye created by the mystery writer Rex Stout. Nero Wolfe is described in the Oxford Companion to American Literature as a "gourmet and connoisseur who solves crimes without leaving his desk." Wolfe in fact was an obese lover of beer and orchids. His sidekick, Archie, did all the legwork, but it was Wolfe who solved the crimes; sometimes even without Archie providing the clues. Portrayed in radio in The Adventures of Nero Wolfe by the actor Sydney Greenstreet, who is best known as one of the criminals who wants to get his hands on the Maltese falcon, Greenstreet had a gritty, smoker's voice that described an overweight man.

   The most often remembered radio detective among Old Time Radio fans is easily, Johnny Dollar. Dollar was of the hardboiled school, but as portrayed, varied over the life of the radio series. Strictly a creation for radio, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar was based on the concept of the insurance investigator with an expense account. The series always totaled the costs at the end of each play. Beginning with Charles Russell as the first detective "with the action-packed expense account" the series got off to a shaky start. By the end of the first season, Russell was out, replaced by the popular film actor Edmund O'Brien . O'Brien's portrayal was tougher, less sophisticated. When O'Brien left, John Lund stepped in, but he soon left and probably the best Dollar portrayed came into the role. That actor was Bob Bailey , fresh from his role as George Valentine in Let George Do It (another detective, by the way). Bailey created a sensitive, but equally tough detective in Johnny Dollar. This period was the best for the series, though when Bailey left after the series moved to New York, eventually Mandel Kramer, another excellent Dollar starred.

   Had radio drama survived, it is without question that the detective genre would be one of the more popular themes. But most likely the characters would be tough but with a greater sense of humor. The depression 30's were perfect for the more cyncial detectives, but as prosperity gained so too did the detective character become less concerned with the sense of class struggle. The tradition is carried on with varying quality in the likes of Otherworld Media's Goldfish, a Raymond Chandler mystery. Or in the Tom Lopez tradition of Ruby, the Galactic Gumshoe, or even Jack Flanders, though the ZBS productions are less about crime than about mysticism and magic. Others, such as the Radio Repertory Theatre have chosen to create humorous detectives as heard in Garson Krebs, Private Detective.

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