Webb of suspicion

In Appointment with Danger (1951), diminutive movie tough guy Alan Ladd plays Al Goddard, a postal detective who’s investigating the murder of a colleague named Gruber—and in the course of his examination finds that the only witness to the crime is a saintly nun in the form of Sister Augustine, played by Phyllis Calvert.  Sister Augustine singles out a suspect from a mug book, but his “friends” manage to croak him before Goddard can get to him—necessitating that the postal cop pretend to be “on the take” and infiltrate the gang undercover to find out what their game is…namely a big payroll heist on a postal truck.

I know, it sounds pretty routine—and truth be told, it pretty much is.  But the soon-to-be-pushing-up-daisies hood is played by Harry Morgan (billed as Henry here, he later changed it so as not to be confused with the acerbic radio-TV comedian) and his buddy, who beats him to death with a pair of bronzed baby shoes, is none other than Jack Webb.  Watching the two of them before their celebrated stint on Dragnet in the 1960s is all the fun—in fact, this movie, directed by Lewis Allen (The Uninvited, Suddenly), has the stink of Dragnet all over it.  The screenplay was co-scripted by longtime Webb crony Richard L. Breen, and two of Dragnet’s “road company” players appear in it—Stacy Harris as the “inside” man at the post office and Herb Vigran as the cop in the scene when Sister Augustine peruses the mug books.

Before creating what would become his radio and television legacy, Jack Webb appeared in a number of feature films and to be honest, he wasn’t too bad an actor.  From small, unbilled roles in films like Hollow Triumph (a.k.a. The Scar) (1948) and Sword in the Desert (1949) he went on to do first-rate work as one of Marlon Brando’s fellow paraplegics in Elia Kazan’s The Men (1950) and as William Holden’s jovial buddy in Sunset Blvd. (1950).  Dragnet, unfortunately, completely changed his personality—transforming him into the stick-up-his-ass, crime-fighting automaton that we’ve all come to know and love.  (That’s why I was disappointed to learn that Webb turned down John Landis when he was offered the role of Dean Wormer in National Lampoon’s Animal House—he would have been sensational.)  In Danger, he plays vicious low-rent thug Joe Regas, whose job skills offer little outside of beating people up…but it’s interesting to note that he doesn’t trust Ladd’s character through the course of the movie, and he turns out to be right.  (The scene where he and Ladd play handball is worth the price of admission.)

Danger features character great Paul Stewart as the gang’s leader; an Orson Welles crony, Stewart had many memorable moments in silver-screen villainy—he’s the guy who menaces annoying little Bobby Driscoll in The Window (1949), and the sebaceous Carl Evello in Kiss Me Deadly (1955).  (Even when he was playing a half-way decent guy, like in Champion [1949], there was still something a bit seedy about him.)  TDOY fave Jan “Smoochie” Sterling plays Stewart’s main squeeze, and if you look fast, Kathleen Freeman has a bit part as a nun—long before she was rapping the knuckles of Jake and Elwood Blues with a ruler in The Blues Brothers (1980).

Danger was filmed in 1949, but wasn’t released until 1951—which allowed Morgan to appear on a couple of Webb’s Dragnet programs long before he filled in for Ben Alexander as Joe Friday’s new partner in the 1967-70 TV version of the seminal cop show.  (You can definitely hear Morgan’s distinctive tones on one September 17, 1949 broadcast, where he doubles up as both a hotel manager and bank teller.)   Someone at Paramount must have liked the teaming of the two men, because they ended up on the wrong side of the law again in Dark City (1950), a seldom-shown noir that served as Charlton Heston’s introduction to the big screen.  Still, they remain the best thing in Appointment with Danger—a well-worth-your-time film noir that I purchased from the good people at Five Minutes to Live.

“When you live outside the law you have to eliminate dishonesty…” – Julian (Robert Keith), The Lineup (1958/Columbia)

One of my earliest posts here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear was an essay on The Lineup, a CBS radio series that premiered on July 6, 1950 as an imitator of the then-popular police procedural Dragnet and lasted on the air until February 20, 1953.  Scripted by future film director Blake Edwards (who also created Richard Diamond, Private Detective for actor-crooner Dick Powell), the series starred OTR stalwart Bill Johnstone as Lt. Ben Guthrie and Wally Maher as Sgt. Matt Grebb (previously played by Joseph Kearns).  Lineup differed from Dragnet only in that its dramatized cases were mostly fictional, compared to Jack Webb’s “liberation” of actual police files from the L.A.P.D.

The Lineup was one of a handful of CBS radio series that made the successful transition to television, premiering October 1, 1954 with Warner Anderson taking over for Johnstone as Guthrie and Tom Tully pinch-hitting for Maher as Grebb (who had since been promoted to Inspector).  A third character, Inspector Fred Asher (Marshall Reed), was also added to “the lineup,” and the series had a home at 10:00pm on CBS’ Friday night schedule for five seasons before being expanded to an hour in the fall of 1959 on Wednesdays.  Tully and Reed got their pink slips, and a new cast joined Anderson: William Leslie as Insp. Dan Delaney, Tod Barton as Insp. Charlie Summers (that name sounds familiar), Skip Ward as Officer Pete Larkin and Rachel Ames as Policewoman Sandy McAllister.  Whether it was the brand-new cast or brand-new time slot—or simply that the series had worn out its welcome—the changes did little to keep the program on the air, and The Lineup left CBS-TV on January 20, 1960.  It was syndicated soon afterward; its name changed to San Francisco Beat.

During its stint on CBS, someone got the idea to produce a theatrical version of the series, a B-picture that has acquired a sizeable cult following due to its crisp, no-nonsense direction by the legendary Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dirty Harry) and suspenseful Naked City-type script by Sterling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night).  Indeed, The Lineup starts off with a bang: the audience is taken to a pier where boat passengers are disembarking when a porter swipes a grip from art dealer Philip Dressler (Raymond Bailey, sans his Milton Drysdale toupee), throws it into the back of a waiting cab, and the cab heads off for points unknown.  The cabbie fails to see a large truck backing out in his path and he rams into it, causing the truck’s driver to exit his vehicle to start the usual “Why don’t you look where you’re going” brouhaha.  The cabbie drives around the truck, and plows right into a beat cop who’s motioning for him to stop—and as the cop’s body hits the ground he manages to get off a shot that hits the cab driver and causes him to ram into the back car of a stationary train.

Lt. Guthrie (Anderson) and Insp. Al Quine (Emile Meyer—apparently Tom Tully wasn’t available to reprise his TV role as Grebb) are curious as to why the fuss over a simple suitcase has resulted in two deaths—and soon learn that a statue inside Dressler’s case is the hiding place for a nice little stash of heroin.  A narcotics smuggling ring is operating in Frisco, whereupon innocent tourists have smack planted on them and then are relieved of their cargo once they’ve left the boat.  That confiscation job falls to a pair of hoods played by Robert Keith and Eli Wallach; Wallach is the gunman described by his mentor (Keith) as “a wonderful, pure pathological study…a psychopath with no inhibitions.”  (Maybe so, but Keith comes across as a pretty creepy customer, too—particularly his habit of writing down the last words of dying individuals in a little notebook.)  Keith and Wallach (and wheelman Richard Jaeckel) have to obtain three parcels of heroin from three separate passengers and have it ready at a checkpoint before 2:00pm.

I had seen The Lineup one time before, and to give you an idea of how long it’s been it was on a television station that interrupted the movie with commercials.  I’ve come to appreciate it a little more with a second viewing, though I’m still not certain why it’s held in such high regard by cultists—there are an awful lot of slow spots in the film (primarily the scenes in which the cops appear…when your villains are more interesting than the law you’re bound to have trouble) and many of its memorable moments and ideas have been cribbed from earlier noir movies (T-Men, Kiss of Death, The Lady from Shanghai, etc.).  It does have a wild climactic chase that kicks in around the seventy-six minute mark, and the performances (particularly Wallach and Keith) are first-rate; my biggest delight while watching the film was recognizing right off the actor who plays Wallach’s contact as Bob Bailey, a.k.a. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (his voice was a dead giveaway).  (Jack “Rocky Jordan” Moyles has a bit part in this one, too, as a steam room attendant.)  My copy of The Lineup came courtesy of Five Minutes to Live, which is a nice site to locate hard-to-find noirs. 

“…ace cameraman who covers the crime news of the great city…”

Old-time radio historian John Dunning describes the popular radio series Casey, Crime Photographer as having “more history than substance. It was a B-grade radio detective show, on a par perhaps with The Falcon, better than Mr. Keen, but lacking the polish and style of Sam Spade.”

Now, I have nothing but the utmost admiration for Mr. Dunning—his On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio is considered by many to be The Hobby’s “Bible”—but I think his assessment of this series is a tad harsh. Any detective program will pale in comparison to The Adventures of Sam Spade, a show that I consider the gold standard of private-eye dramas, and to classify Casey as better than Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons is damning it with faint praise. The only possible way to be entertained by Mr. Keen nowadays is to enjoy it as the camp classic it has since become, particularly the character of sidekick Mike Clancy (“Saints preserve us, Mr. Keen!”), who just might possibly be the most mentally challenged character in the history of OTR. (I mean, this is a guy who makes Clem Kadiddlehopper look like Robert Oppenheimer.)

The origins of Jack “Flashgun” Casey can be traced to the 1930s detective pulp Black Mask; the hard-boiled photojournalist was introduced in the March 1934 issue by former newspaperman/ad exec George Harmon Coxe. Coxe discussed the inspiration for Casey in a 1978 interview:

I had read and enjoyed the fiction exploits of reporters from time to time, but I also knew that it was the photographer accompanying such newsmen who frequently had to stick their neck out to get an acceptable picture…This is turn meant that while the reporter with his pad and pencil could describe a warehouse or dockside fire from a safe distance, the guy with the camera had to edge far closer to get a negative that would merit reproduction. So why not give the cameraman his due? If the reporter could be a glamorous figure in fiction, why not the guy up front who took—and still does take (consider the televised war sequences)—the pictures?

So radio audiences received a formal introduction to Coxe’s creation over CBS Radio beginning July 7, 1943. The series was originally titled Flashgun Casey, but during its run it was also referred to as Casey, Press Photographer; Crime Photographer and Casey, Crime Photographer. (Apparently Casey was ducking a few creditors.) Casey snapped photos for the fictitious Morning Express, and often found himself cast in the role of amateur sleuth by getting involved in the stories he covered. Many of the plots had him stumbling across a clue in a photo he had taken (something the police had overlooked), and with the help of fellow reporter—and romantic interest—Annie Williams, they would inevitably bring the culprit(s) to justice.

What set Casey, Crime Photographer apart from its radio crime drama competition was its laid-back atmosphere, chiefly personified in its backdrop of Casey and Annie’s favorite watering hole, The Blue Note Café. There, in between assignments, they would engage in badinage with their philosophically sardonic bartender pal Ethelbert, often to the melodious accompaniment of the Blue Note’s background piano. Another factor in the show’s success was the first-rate scripting by Alonzo Deen Cole (The Witch’s Tale), who was responsible for adapting Coxe’s Casey character to radio. One reviewer at the time credited Cole’s scripts with “wit and naturalism missing from many radio thrillers.”

Matt Crowley was the first actor to tackle the role of Casey; then replaced by Jim Backus (!) and finally Staats Cotsworth, a radio veteran who also portrayed the title fourth-estate hero of NBC’s daytime serial Front Page Ferrell. The part of Annie was essayed by many different actresses: Jone Allison, Alice Reinheart, Lesley Woods, Betty Furness and Jan Miner were all heard at various times as the photographer’s main squeeze. Ethelbert was faithfully played by John Gibson throughout the entire run, and Captain Bill Logan—Casey and Annie’s contact on the police force—was portrayed by Jackson Beck, and later Bernard Lenrow. The Blue Note’s pianist was played by Herman Chittison for most of Casey’s run, but Juan Hernandez and Teddy Wilson (formerly with the Benny Goodman Trio) were also on hand to tickle the ivories from time to time.

“Self Made Hero” (7/17/47), the first of two programs that I listened to at work last night, tells the story of a young man (Jack Grimes) named Jack Clifside (one “f”), who suffers from a self-esteem problem—so much so that he reports a fake shooting incident in an attempt to impress his shallow girlfriend Myrna. The cops quickly ascertain that Jack is running a scam, and are about to run the little crumb in when Casey intercedes on his behalf. When Casey offers to have a talk with the vacuous Myrna on Jack’s behalf, the wacky complications ensue, as witnessed in this exchange:

CASEY: Gimme a cup of black coffee, Ethelbert…
ETHELBERT: Okay, Casey…you want one, Miss Williams?
ANNIE: No thanks, Ethelbert…
ETHELBERT: Casey, you look like you got troubles…
CASEY (in disgust): Eh…
ANNIE: I’ll say he has, Ethelbert—in a neat red-headed package…trimmed with short skirts, and a pair of bobby sox…a hero-worship complex, and a…very unbashful personality…
CASEY: It isn’t funny, Ann…
(Annie giggles)
ETHELBERT: You’re talkin’ about a woman, huh?
CASEY: No, not a woman, no—a goofy seventeen year old that oughta be spanked…wish I had the nerve to do it…
ANNIE: She’s developed a crush on Casey—phones him at the office several times a day, and waits for him on the street so she can (sighs) gaze at him, and…sigh…
ETHELBERT: Casey, how did you get yourself into anything like that? You ain’t no cradle snatcher…
CASEY: Ethelbert, all I did was to call on her one afternoon last week in order to…uh…um…well, to try and square something for somebody else…
ETHELBERT: She isn’t the girl that Clifside kid set off the firecrackers on account of…?
ANNIE (giggling): That’s who…
ETHELBERT: Huh?
ANNIE: But Clifside doesn’t know yet that Casey squared things so beautifully…
(SFX: phone ringing)
ETHELBERT: Will you get it, Walter…?
WALTER: Yeah, sure…
CASEY: I put off telling him that…she won’t listen to anything that I say in his favor, because…well…he’s miserable enough as it is…you know, he phones me a couple times a day, too, Ethelbert—to ask how I’m making out with her…I can’t stall him much longer! Oh, I must have been nuts to get myself mixed up in something like this…

(Note: Jim Cox, in his invaluable reference Radio Crime Fighters, mentions that an OTR trivia expert recalls that Walter—an employee in the Blue Note’s kitchen—was often referred to but never heard on-air. “Self Made Hero” puts that myth to bed, particularly since he has a line or two more after the above scene, in which he informs Casey that the phone is for him.)

Jack is upset when he learns about Casey and Myrna, and vows to throw himself off Lover’s Leap—Casey and Annie go after him, and the three of them eventually end up witnessing a hit engineered by a notorious racketeer. The program concludes with our boy Jack becoming a hero for real. “Photo of the Dead” (7/24/47) is another solid episode: a friend of Casey’s not only ends up dead but swindled out of a hefty sum by a bogus swami. Annie then poses as a potential client in order to smoke him out, and to get a nice exclusive for the paper in the bargain.

For most of the series' run, Casey, Crime Photographer was sustained by CBS—except for brief periods of sponsorship by Anchor Hocking (1946-48), Toni Home Permanent (1948-49), and Philip Morris (1949-50). The show’s association with Anchor Hocking is particularly noteworthy in that most of this series’ extant episodes (approximately 70 or so) were obtained from transcriptions saved by the glass company. The Anchor Hocking episodes often feature an opening billboard spotlighting the show’s characters:

CASEY: You know, Ethelbert—you and I have a good chance to be famous…
ETHELBERT: How’s that, Casey?
CASEY: Well, I figure if a man’s known by the company he keeps…
ETHELBERT: Yeah?
CASEY: …then he ought to be known by the company that keeps him…
ETHELBERT: That makes sense…
CASEY: And the company that keeps us is…
ANNOUNCER (Tony Marvin): Anchor Hocking! The most famous name in glass…

Casey, Crime Photographer left CBS Radio November 16, 1950—and enjoyed a brief live television run (with Miner and Gibson in their radio roles) from April 19, 1951 to June 5, 1952. (Casey was originally played by Richard Carlyle, but was replaced by a young Darren McGavin two months later.) The series then returned to radio January 13, 1954, and hung on for another year before finally getting the axe April 22, 1955—the same day that Mr. & Mrs. North and Mr. Keen also turned in their gumshoes. I have to confess, though; when I first listened to Casey, I didn’t care for it much but the more shows I previewed, the more I became a convert. Strong characterizations and good scripting have made this OTR detective series a genuine winner.

“…true crime stories from the records and newspapers of every land from every time…”

Initially intended as a summer replacement for Suspense, the anthology series Crime Classics was created, produced and directed by Elliott Lewis, one of the major talents of Radio’s Golden Age. He was not only the creative force behind Suspense from 1950-54, but also Broadway’s My Beat (1949-54) and On Stage (1953-54); he was also prominent in front of the mike, with such roles as the titular sleuth of The Casebook of Gregory Hood and sidekick Frankie Remley on The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. The genesis of Crime Classics sprang from Lewis’ deep, long-standing curiosity with the subject of murder; the actor-director possessed a voluminous library of true crime cases dating back to the 17th century. Under Lewis’ tutelage, Crime Classics would not only re-create the facts and circumstances of famous crimes, but would do so in the exact historical detail and period in which they had occurred.

Assisting Lewis in this task was the veteran writing team of Morton Fine and David Friedkin (The Lineup, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar) who also worked alongside the director-producer on Broadway’s My Beat and On Stage. Their scripts would be fact-based, realistic…and leavened with a slightly humorous edge. In the liner notes accompanying a First Generation Radio Archives Premiere Collection of Crime Classics, OTR historian Elizabeth McLeod succinctly summarizes what made the show so unique:

What distinguishes Crime Classics from other crime anthologies of the day is its mordant wit—while the cases were never played for out-and-out laughs, Lewis, Fine and Friedkin saw to it that just the right edge of tongue-in-cheek humor crept into the scripts and performances. In this way, the series could be taken as either a straight crime show or as an extremely subtle satire of that genre’s often overblown conventions. By refusing to ever take itself too seriously, Crime Classics earned its reputation as one of the bright spots of the radio era’s last years.

And that is truly what made this series (which ran on CBS from June 15, 1953 to June 30, 1954) an absolute marvel—it succeeded in being a top quality program despite the lack of a sponsor and, as a consequence, negligible ratings. The level of professionalism involved in the show is incredible; not only did it have the participation of the finest talent from Hollywood’s Radio Row—Mary Jane Croft (who would later become Mrs. Elliott Lewis), Bill Johnstone, Jeanette Nolan, etc.—but it showcased music composed and directed by the renowned Bernard Herrmann, who often captured the precise mood with only one or two musical instruments. As First Generation Radio Archives’ Preservation Manager Harlan Zinck commented in a recent newsletter, “Give a listen to two or three shows in the series and you’ll soon discover that the people who created Crime Classics clearly weren’t just doing it for the paychecks. They were also doing it because they were good at it, cared about it, and found it challenging and exciting.”

So I took Harlan’s advice and grabbed a couple of the Crime Classics CDs on my way out the door to work last night, and I can’t say when I’ve been more enthralled and entertained by a radio series. A good representative of the show is “The Checkered Life and Sudden Death of Col. James Fiske, Jr.”, originally broadcast June 29, 1953. The program is introduced by actor Lou Merrill as the series’ host, Thomas Hyland—“connoisseur of crime, student of violence and teller of murders”:

HYLAND: Good evening—this is Crime Classics. I am Thomas Hyland. I’m going to tell you another true crime story. Listen…
(SFX: body falling down a flight of stairs, music starts)
HYLAND: The man who just fell down the stairs of Colonel James Fiske, Jr. Although the Colonel is a man given to the consumption of dozens of blue point oysters—and bottles of heady wine at a sitting—his friends were given to pointing him out as a man inordinately steady on his feet. So why did he tumble down the stairs? And in New York’s Grand Central Hotel, no less—where stair-tumbling was frowned upon…the Colonel didn’t slip…he wasn’t pushed…he was shot. The sudden presence of two bullets in him had upset his equilibrium.
(SFX: footsteps, running)
HYLAND: The man who’s running away is the man who just shot the Colonel. His name—Edward S. Stokes, until recently the Colonel’s very dear friend. There he goes…(SFX: more running, door slamming shut) And tonight—my report to you on the Checkered Life…and Sudden Death of...Colonel James Fiske, Jr.

I suppose it’s probably too late in the game for me, but I would give anything to be known as a “connoisseur of crime” (it’s such a classy title, don’t you think?). Speaking of titles, Crime Classics had some of the cleverest—“John Hayes, His Head, and How They Were Parted”; “The Younger Brothers: Why Some of Them Grew No Older”; and “Good Evening, My Name is Jack the Ripper” are just a few of my favorites. “Fiske” outlines the tragic tale of a pair of friends who both fall in love with a widow (deliciously played by Mary Jane Croft), and includes a top-notch cast featuring Harry Bartell, Bill Johnstone, Paula Winslowe, Charles Calvert, Martha Wentworth and Steve Roberts.

The other three shows I previewed were equally superb—“The Shrapnelled Body of Charles Drew, Sr.” (7/6/53) is the story of a young man who quickly dispatches his father to the Great Beyond after being screwed in the old man’s newest will, and “The Dread Events Surrounding Mr. Thrower’s Hammer” (8/3/53) takes us to 1793 England, where the murder of a father and daughter goes unsolved for eleven long years. Then there’s “The Terrible Deed of John White Webster and His Crime That Shocked the Nation” (7/13/53), in which the title character murders the man to which he owes a $400 debt. Actor-announcer Larry Thor plays a policeman in this entry whose name is “Daniel Cliver”—and though I suppose it could be based on fact, it sounds more to me like someone decided to sneak in an joke (Thor played detective “Danny Clover” on Lewis-Fine-Friedkin’s Broadway’s My Beat).

At one time, Crime Classics ran back-to-back with another Lewis series, On Stage, in which he appeared mike-side with his then-wife Cathy.  He conducted a bold experiment one evening in December 9, 1953: first presenting “The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln” on Classics, and then showcasing the play that Lincoln attended that fateful night at Ford’s Theater—“Our American Cousin,” on Stage. Years later, Lewis remarked that it was a huge mistake; “Cousin” was so deadly dull it’s a wonder the President didn’t die from boredom before John Wilkes Booth shot him. The morning after the broadcast, Lewis found a note on his desk from CBS chief William Paley: “Interesting idea. Don’t do it again.”

Though Crime Classics ran but one season, it has nevertheless attained quite a cult following among modern-day OTR fans—and these buffs are indeed fortunate that with the exception of one or two broadcasts, the entire run had been preserved to entertain audiences today. In fact, you could be listening to the show right this very minute—First Generation Radio Archives still has their Crime Classics Premiere Collection on sale, but only until March 31st. Ten CDs with twenty remastered and restored episodes—that’s…well, in keeping with the criminal nature of this program, a steal.

“…the official broadcast from the files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation…”

You read that right—ABC’s This is Your FBI received the personal stamp of approval from none other than J. Edgar Hoover himself; the director was even once quoted as calling it “the finest dramatic program on the air” (he did use the show exclusively as a public relations tool). It was one of two weekly broadcasts showcasing the daring exploits of the G-Men, the other being CBS’ The FBI in Peace and War (1944-58), adapted from the book of the same name by author Frederick L. Collins. Peace and War may have been the better received of the two—it certain had a more memorable theme song in Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges—but This is Your FBI, from the broadcasts I listened to last night (and several before that), was arguably the better program.

The show was created by producer-director Jerry Devine, a former comedy writer for Kate Smith and Tommy Riggs, who had turned his scripting talents to radio thrillers like Mr. District Attorney. This is Your FBI received the full cooperation of J. Edgar; Hoover gave Devine carte blanche to closed cases in the Bureau’s files for inspiration in writing the show’s weekly dramatizations. They were prefaced, of course, with the Dragnet-like disclaimer “All names used are fictitious and any similarity thereof to the names of persons or places, living or dead, is accidental.” (This led Jim Cox, author of Radio Crime Fighters, to observe: “Some listeners must have pondered that for a while—‘So did these events happen or not?’”)

Debuting over ABC Radio on April 6, 1945, This is Your FBI broadcast from New York in its early run (1945-47), showcasing the talents of New York radio veterans like Mandel Kramer, Karl Swenson, Santos Ortega, Elspeth Eric, Joan Banks, and Frank Lovejoy (who narrated many of the shows). In 1948, though, the program relocated to Hollywood, and with the move established a regular weekly character in Special Agent Jim Taylor, a representative of all of the Bureau’s special agents, played by actor Stacy Harris.

Before being bitten by the acting bug, Harris embarked on a journey of real-life adventure that was far more interesting than any of his roles on stage, screen, radio or TV. Born in Quebec in 1918, he served a short stint as an Army pilot before a plane crash steered him into a new career as a merchant seaman at the beginning of World War II. Stacy also worked as an ambulance driver for the Free French in Africa, and then was transferred to the Foreign Legion, where he was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He also worked as a political cartoonist for the The New Orleans Times-Picayune and sportswriter for The San Francisco Chronicle, defining what some would term a “modern-day Renaissance man.” This is Your FBI wasn’t his only radio gig, however—he was a presence on such shows as Pepper Young’s Family, The Strange Romance of Evelyn Winters, and Tales of the Texas Rangers; he also provided the voice of Batman on radio’s The Adventures of Superman.

In “Ghost Town” (8/31/51), the first of two This is Your FBI programs I previewed last night while at work, a man and woman are scouting locations for a film in the titled hamlet when they realize they aren’t alone—and are soon taken hostage by a pair of bank robbers on the lam. It’s a well-written show from staff scribe Jerry D. Lewis, with a fine cast that includes Newton Arnold, Parley Baer, Bea Benaderet, Wally Maher, Edmund McDonald, and John Sheehan. I was tickled by the fact that Benaderet appears on this program along with Larry Keating—the show’s announcer from 1948-53 for This is Your FBI’s longtime sponsor Equitable Life Assurance Company—since both Keating and Benaderet would later work side-by-side as next-door neighbors Harry and Blanche Morton on the TV version of The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show.

Episode two is “The Curious Fisherman” (9/7/51), which tells the sad tale of a boat owner hired to take a group of vacationers fishing, little realizing that he’s about to become a victim of modern-day piracy. Sheldon Leonard, Paul Richards, John T. Smith, Naomi Stevens, Tom Tully, and Anne Whitfield are in the cast, and though it’s a notch below “Ghost Town” it’s still an enjoyable listen.

Nearly 300 of This is Your FBI’s 409 broadcasts are extant today, and I think that may be one of the reasons why I rank the program higher than The FBI in Peace and War (whose available episodes stand at about three dozen); it's a little more accessible to the modern-day listener. Everything about the show is first-rate, from its cast, crew, scripting, and music, and the only quibble I have is that the program’s narration has a tendency to moralize a little too much (courtesy of William Woodson). I’m also a big Stacy Harris fan; I get a kick out of listening to him since my experience with Harris comes primarily from the work he did with his very good friend Jack Webb. Stacy always seemed to play (on the radio version of Dragnet) an endless succession of low-lifes pissing and moaning about not being able to catch a break (a good example is “The Big Escape”, a show broadcast 1/5/50 that stars Harris as an old Army pal of Webb’s Friday who’s a loser with a capital “L”). Harris also appeared on Webb’s radio series Pete Kelly’s Blues and both television versions of Dragnet (1952-59 and 1967-70). Webb even named his daughter “Stacy” after his close friend.

“…I know many things, for I walk by night…”

The Whistler, one of radio’s classic mystery anthologies, continues even today to entertain legions of fans—and when you think about it, it’s an impressive feat for a show that spent most of its thirteen-year run (May 16, 1942-July 31, 1955) heard by only one-half of the United States. A staple of CBS’ West Coast network (it was often trumpeted in the show’s opening as “rated tops in popularity for a longer period of time that any other West Coast program”) and sponsored regionally by Signal Oil, it appeared only on the East Coast in two separate runs: as a 1946 summer replacement for Campbell Soups’ The Jack Carson Show and from March 26, 1947-September 29, 1948 for Household Finance.

The series had one of radio’s best-known crime drama formats, similar to The Shadow (in its early 1930s incarnation) and The Mysterious Traveler. Each week, a mysterious individual known as “The Whistler” would narrate a tale in which an everyday, average Joe would end up committing murder—as Radio Crime Fighters’ Jim Cox puts it, “suddenly caught in a destructive web of [his] own misdeeds.” Technically, The Whistler wasn’t really a mystery series—the identity and guilt of the killer was never in doubt, but the focus of the show’s stories was to demonstrate just how the evildoer had tripped himself up: and they always did, overlooking that one teensy detail that would be revealed as “the strange ending to tonight’s story.”

In the program’s early seasons, the Whistler played a more significant role in the dramas that just casual observer—he took a more active part, playing “Conscience” to the killer and goading him to his eventual doom. At the conclusion of the show, he would let loose with a Shadow-like laugh, informing listeners in a few brief lines what had sealed the murderer’s fate. Among the actors to play the omnipresent man of mystery were Joseph Kearns and Gale Gordon in the show’s early seasons; later, the part was played by Everett Clarke (in a 1947 Chicago series) and Bill Johnstone (the 1947-48 full network version). But throughout the show’s run, the Whistler was mostly essayed by Bill Forman, a popular announcer from programs like The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show and Father Knows Best. Forman would be the only actor to receive credit for the role, and even that didn’t happen until November 1951; the actor commented after this hard-fought victory: “I’m proud to be ‘The Whistler’ and I wanted people to know it.” (Marvin Miller, a one-time Whistler announcer, also played the title part briefly when Forman was in the service.)

I’ve been a huge fan of The Whistler for many years now; partly because it’s a superb program that entertains in spite of not having the big-time guest star wattage of anthologies like Suspense. The series employed the cream of the crop of actors from Hollywood’s Radio Row: Elliott & Cathy Lewis, Betty Lou Gerson, Wally Maher, Hans Conried, Gerald Mohr, and Lurene Tuttle, to name only a few. These performers appeared so often on the show that they were dubbed “Whistler’s children.”

The Whistler also featured one of Golden Age Radio’s classic openings: a haunting 13-note theme created by Wilbur Hatch (who also composed the show’s eerie mood music). Hatch estimated that only one person in twenty could whistle this exact melody, and for the show’s thirteen-year duration one person pretty much did—a young woman named Dorothy Roberts. In fact, during the war years, Roberts had to get permission from Lockheed (where she worked) to leave her factory job in order to make it to the program and “whistle” every week.

I listened to a pair of Whistler programs last night while at work, the first being what John Dunning calls a “classic example” of the series: “Brief Pause For Murder” (as heard September 11, 1949). KTUX announcer Roger Wickson (Frank Nelson, and he’s great in a dramatic change-of-pace role) is in head-over-heels loathe with his wife Tisha (Mary Lansing), and he plots to dispatch her to the happy hunting ground by means of a most ingenious plan; he enlists the help of station engineer Vern Cummings (William Conrad) to prerecord his 10 p.m. station break (making certain the chief of police has tuned in) and while that plays, he will be a-strangling his wife. (I’m sure you can see where this is headed, but I’m not going to spoil it for you.) This script was co-written by Bill Forman, by the way.

Conrad also appears on the second show, “Blue Alibi” (5/14/50), as a racketeer who arranges for his buddies to land lucrative construction contracts for city projects by paying kickback money to city treasurer John Sheridan (Willard Waterman). The problems begin when Sheridan’s wife Edith (Lansing) finds out about her spouse’s dirty deals and threatens to go to the District Attorney with the info. There’s an amusing moment during one of this program’s commercials—an announcement of a $10,000 Signal Oil contest reveals that among the prizes are five aluminum makeup cases provided by—I swear I’m not making this up—a luggage company called “Halliburton.” (Let’s see—a plot involving “lucrative construction contracts” and Halliburton gets mentioned—Nostradamus, call your office…)

The impact of The Whistler—despite its limited West Coast status—was so tremendous that Columbia Pictures released a successful series of B-pictures (ten in all) beginning with The Whistler in 1944. (The films were shown on the Encore Mystery channel from time to time, and they were pretty entertaining, despite their B-status.) Jack Benny also used the show for inspiration in several of his broadcasts playing a character called “The Fiddler”; most notably a program from October 20, 1946 in which real-life Whistler Bill Forman makes an appearance. Of the 691 shows originally broadcast, nearly 500 programs are extant today, entertaining a new generation of OTR fans. I heartily recommend The Whistler to both novice and experienced listeners, “because even when you know who’s guilty, you always receive a startling surprise at the final curtain.”

(NOTE: Thrilling Days of Yesteryear will also be taking a short hiatus for the next two days, so that I may spend some quality time with my sister Kat, who will be celebrating her 37th natal anniversary Wednesday. We will sign on again Thursday. Take care!)

”He hunts the biggest of all game! Public enemies who try to destroy our America!”

While you insert your own John Ashcroft joke here, Thrilling Days of Yesteryear will take a moment to recognize one of radio’s most popular juvenile detective shows—The Green Hornet. Debuting January 31, 1936, this entertaining crime drama originated from WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan—the birthplace of another famous crime fighter, The Lone Ranger, only three years earlier.

George W. Trendle, the station's owner, was positively giddy with the success of The Lone Ranger, and by 1935 began looking for a derivative of the famous western—not a spin-off, necessarily, but a similar series that would feature a modern-day hero. The show’s writer, Fran Striker, and director, James Jewell, kicked around a few ideas with Trendle, and a decision was made that the new show would focus on an individual forced to confront the forces of corruption in politics and society. Legend has it that Trendle wanted to link the new program to some sort of a bee—which originated from a night he once spent in a hotel room in which a bee had been trapped, buzzing constantly.

Originally, the show was to be called The Hornet, but WXYZ was worried about possible legal entanglements since that title had once been used for a previous series. The show's creators decided to link their insect with a color, discussing various hues like blue and pink, before deciding on the color green. (I have been told that a “green hornet” is considered the angriest of its kind, but since I make it a point to avoid angry hornets whenever possible, I cannot verify this—ultimately, you’ll have to make the call.)

In developing the show, the fertile minds of WXYZ liberally borrowed many of the devices associated with The Lone Ranger. The Hornet’s mode of transportation, for example, was a sleek, black automobile nicknamed “Black Beauty.” (The Ranger, as you are well aware, rode a steed dubbed “Silver.”) Also, the Hornet operated outside the law (though he himself was not lawless) in the same fashion as the Ranger, and was often mistaken for a criminal by both citizens and the police. Finally, the Hornet had a faithful sidekick in Kato—a Filipino valet who was chief-cook-and-bottle-washer to his boss, while at the same time dabbling in chemistry (many of the Hornet’s weapons, like his gas gun and smokescreens, were dreamed up by the K-Man) and the secrets of Oriental combat. One of the popular myths about Kato that refuses to die even to this day is that he was Japanese when the series first premiered, but the show’s producers changed his nationality after the events of December 7, 1941. It makes a good yarn, but it’s simply not true—he was described as being Filipino (of Japanese descent) at least two years earlier. Kato was said to possess a “keen intelligence,” and I’ll bet he was a hit at the Mensa meetings, since he was also the only one who knew the Green Hornet’s real identity: newspaper publisher Britt Reid.

Which brings us to the final Lone Ranger parallel: Britt Reid was the son of Dan Reid who, as faithful listeners know, was the nephew of the famed masked man. (A controversy rages on to this day over whether this was planned from the get-go or if it just conveniently happened as the series progressed—I’m not going to open up this can of worms, however.) In the early days of The Green Hornet, Britt was a callow playboy (which served as a nice cover for his Hornet-related activities) and his wealthy father (that silver mine sure came in handy), concerned about the direction his son’s life was taking, installed him as the publisher of the family’s newspaper, The Daily Sentinel. Dan Reid only made occasional appearances on the program, but when he did he was usually played by John Todd—who just so happened to play Tonto on the The Lone Ranger, further cementing the bond between the two shows.

The job as newspaper publisher came with a bodyguard—a former Irish cop named Michael Axford, who was a garrulously nice guy but seemed to have a force field of stupidity surrounding him. (The character was a contribution from a previous Trendle production, Warner Lester, Manhunter, which had just been given the heave-ho by WXYZ.) Later in the series, rank favoritism reared its ugly head as Axford was installed as a reporter for the newspaper. Mike would become apoplectic at the mention of “the Har-nut,” and vowed to the end of his days to catch “that no-good spaul-deen” but…well…Coyote…Road Runner…you do the math.

Rounding out the cast of characters on The Green Hornet was Reid’s secretary Lenore Case (“Casey” to Axford, “Miss Case” to Britt), who seemed to have a little more moxie on the ball than her co-workers; she often suspected a strong connection between her boss and the Hornet and by the end of the series’ run had pretty much figured it out, though she kept it to herself. Also present at the paper was the Sentinel’s top reporter, Ed Lowery, who often got the scoop on those stories later investigated by the Green Hornet. (I’m often concerned when I listen to those episodes in which Lowery isn’t around; if that paper had to depend solely on Axford it would fold like a card table.)

Like its sister show, The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet’s memorable opening music was taken directly from classical music: namely, Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Flight of the Bumblebee.” The show’s announcer would then intone: He hunts the biggest of all game! Public enemies that even the G-men can’t catch! As you may have guessed, this got FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s undies in a bunch, and so the producers modified the last part to Public enemies who try to destroy our America! The talented sound effects crew at WXYZ was also able to find a way to reproduce the bee’s buzzing that had so obsessed Trendle by using a theremin, an instrument that later became de rigeur for any self-respecting science fiction film of the 1950s (as well as being featured in the classic Beach Boys hit, “Good Vibrations”).

I listened to a pair of episodes from 1946 last night, in which the part of Reid/The Hornet is played by actor Robert Hall, who appeared on the series from 1944-51. The show’s original Hornet was Al Hodge, who started from its debut in 1936 until he went into the service in 1943. (Hodge was so identified with the character that Universal had him come in and dub some of the lines for the Hornet in the 1940 13-chapter serial based on the radio show. He later achieved television immortality as Captain Video.) In the first show, “The Wrapped Book” (October 5), Reid is trapped into delivering a bribe to a corrupt senator who plans to vote against a bill that would regulate the publishing and newspaper industry (and though I hate to look at this through 21st century eyes, the fact that Reid is in favor of this bill stretches credibility somewhat). The second show, “The Prodigal Brother” (10/27/46), concerns an ex-con who is being blackmailed by a racketeer into participating in a grocery truck heist; the ex-con’s sister (who thinks he’s dead) has recently married a popular state senator, so that’s bound to complicate things some. Though some might perceive the show as hokey, I’m a fan of The Green Hornet because it was one of the first programs I listened to when I got involved in the old-time radio hobby. Unfortunately, the sound on these two shows wasn’t much to write home about, but my understanding is that Terry Salomonson (who will forget more about The Green Hornet than I’ll ever know) is on the case regarding the poor audio of most Hornet programs in circulation.

The Green Hornet remains popular today with OTR fans, and deservedly so—it’s amazing when you consider that this show, The Lone Ranger, and Challenge of the Yukon originated from a local station and was fed to a nationwide audience (but then again, WXYZ was not your average radio station). It takes us back to a simpler time, back when things were looked at in black and white—and when the bad guys and evildoers would be brought to justice “by the sting of the Green Hornet!”

”The only national program that brings you authentic police case histories..."

Long before Dragnet began changing names to protect the innocent, radio’s top cop program was Gangbusters, which debuted over NBC Radio on July 20, 1935, enjoying a twenty-year run on all four major networks. The influence of Gangbusters continues to be felt even today on popular weekly television programs like America’s Most Wanted.

Phillips H. Lord was a successful radio director-producer who was on the hunt for a comeback show. His bread-and-butter, a program called Seth Parker (Parker was a small-town country preacher), had worn out its welcome with audiences as a result of a publicity stunt gone horribly awry; Lord had acquired a schooner and named it after the preacher, which ended up shipwrecked in the South Pacific. Since he had done extremely well with Seth Parker and salvation, Lord decided to try the other side of the coin and do a series on sin—specifically, a hard-hitting crime program focusing on gangsters and the fearless lawmen who bring them to justice, christening the new series G-Men.

G-Men’s stories concentrated on the notorious bad men who were at that time making newspaper headlines: John Dillinger, “Machine Gun” Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, etc. Lord was able to persuade a reluctant J. Edgar Hoover to cooperate in the making of the program—at first. In time, the famed director of the FBI became dissatisfied and the organization slowly withdrew its participation, causing the show to be cancelled in October 1935. But the series returned in revised form to CBS January 15, 1936 under its new title, Gangbusters—which was now devoted weekly to lesser-known (but just as interesting, if not more so) crime cases.

Two particular aspects of Gangbusters were responsible for the show being so well-remembered today; first, the program’s classic opening, which ushered in the weekly proceedings with a combination of police whistle and sirens, shuffling feet, screeching tires, gunshots and the rat-a-tat of machine guns. This loud and brash cacophony introduced the slang phrase “coming on like gangbusters” to the American lexicon. The show is also remembered for its famous “Gangbusters clues,” a gimmick that appeared at the end of each program in which a national alert for actual criminals would be broadcast, giving listeners detailed descriptions of wanted evildoers. It has been estimated that these “clues” helped nab 110 individuals in the show’s first three years—286 criminals by 1943. This advocacy of encouraging the public to act as informers and bounty hunters continues today on programs like Unsolved Mysteries and America’s Most Wanted.

The show generally kicked off with an interview segment, as Lord (the show’s first host) would chat with a local lawman or federal agent who figured heavily in that week’s episode. These individuals were often interviewed “by proxy,” which is a polite euphemism for “an actor playing the role of that lawman or agent.” Later on in the series’ run, Lord turned over the interviewing duties to Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf (father of the famed Gulf War Hero), who had achieved national fame as the investigator of Bruno Richard Hauptmann in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case. Schwarzkopf left Gangbusters in 1945 and was replaced by retired New York police commissioner Lewis J. Valentine (who had served as a behind-the-scenes authority since the show’s debut). Valentine’s stint as interviewer was short-lived; he departed in 1946 after being asked by Gen. Douglas MacArthur to oversee the reorganization of the various police departments in postwar Japan.

In listening to Gangbusters last night, I couldn’t help but notice that what makes the series so entertaining in this modern era is that each show plays like an old Monogram B-picture crime drama. In the first of two episodes that I previewed, “The Case of the Appointment With Death,” Lesley Woods and Chuck Webster star in a story about a moll who helps a mug that’s best pals with her hoodlum boyfriend (who’s in the slammer) obtain a gun, which he uses to kill a police officer. Announcer Don Gardiner interviews Assistant U.S. District Attorney Fredrick H. Block about the case, and though I mean no offense, Block sounds like a man in serious need of a mojo transplant. (I can’t imagine how he ever managed to win a case.) Of course, the D.A. comes off like a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts compared to the second show’s interviewee—former heavyweight champion Jim Braddock, who in amusing punch-drunk fashion relates “The Case of the Jersey Butcher Bandits,” about a trio who have been pulling off a series of successful robberies involving butchers who keep large sums of money at home. This episode features the talents of Roger DeKoven, Charles Irving, and though he’s not billed, the unmistakable tones of Ted de Corsia. Gangbusters often drew from a rich pool of New York acting talent, including Alice Reinhart, Santos Ortega, Don McLaughlin, Raymond Edward Johnson, and Joan Banks. Several actors, unknown at the time, used the program as a stepping stone to bigger and better things, among them were Frank Lovejoy, Art Carney, and Richard Widmark.

The two programs I heard last night unfortunately didn’t have any dates; one of the reasons for that is that many of the existing episodes of Gangbusters are from its 1970s run, when the show was brought back along with the likes of The Shadow and The Lone Ranger. Gangbusters did not do as well as its cousins, however—many folks thought the program too “pro-police.” But I think the show is perfect non-think entertainment; a nod to a time when the good guys wore white hats and the bad guys fedoras and loud ties. This shouldn’t be considered the last word on Gangbusters, however. The prolific OTR writer Martin Grams, Jr. is currently at work on a book that will cover the entire history of the program, and is set to be published in time to make its debut at the REPS (Radio Enthusiasts of Puget Sound) convention in Seattle, Washington this June of 2004.

”Texas! More than 260,000 square miles! And 50 men who make up the most famous and oldest law enforcement body in North America!”

Oh sure, the Lone Ranger might have been the most famous Texas Ranger (or should I say ex-Ranger) in Radio’s Golden Age, but on July 8, 1950 there was a new Ranger in town: Jace Pearson, modern-day personification of Texas Rangers everywhere. Tales of the Texas Rangers—which I listened to last night—was an underrated crime drama with a Western flavor that had an unfortunately brief run over NBC from 1950-52.

The idea for the series originated from Stacy Keach, Sr. (father of Stacy, Jr. and James), who had expressed an interest in what could very well be called the North American equivalent of the French Foreign Legion. Keach had proposed the idea as a motion picture, but by the time he got the okay from the Rangers organization the concept became a radio show. In researching the series with writer Joel Murcott, the two men were introduced to Captain M.T. “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas, a 30-year old veteran who served as technical advisor to the program and whose colorful background and stories provided much of the grist ultimately used for the material in the show’s scripts.

In listening to Tales of the Texas Rangers, one can’t help but notice that there is more than a passing similarity between it and NBC’s other popular police procedural, Dragnet. For example, Hal Gibney, one of the announcers on Dragnet, did double duty on this show as well. The opening credits would inform the audience that the stories broadcast were “based on fact…only names, dates, and places are fictitious for obvious reasons,” which is a roundabout way of saying “We’re trying to protect the innocent, dammit.” At the conclusion of each episode, the announcer would let listeners know that the evildoer from each episode was currently cooling his/her heels in Huntsville, a.k.a. the state penitentiary in the Lone Star State.

Tales of the Texas Rangers might very well be a knockoff of Dragnet, but I still think it’s pretty entertaining. It stars actor Joel McCrea in the lead role of Ranger Jace Pearson—McCrea is one of my particular film star favorites, an actor who I’m convinced never got the accolades that he deserved despite fine performances in films like Foreign Correspondent (1940), Sullivan’s Travels (1942), and my favorite of them all, Ride the High Country (1962). (In the shows I listened to, the announcer mentions that McCrea can currently be seen in Stars in My Crown, another fine film on McCrea’s resume.) The only other regular character on the show was Pearson’s superior, Captain Stinson, played by actor Tony Barrett (who also narrated the episodes).

The first show I previewed, “Play For Keeps,” was originally broadcast September 2, 1950 over NBC and the plot involves Bob Smithers—sheriff of Bradshaw County—and his attempts to shut down a gambling den run by the loathsome Lou Walton. The problem is, Walton keeps getting tipped off as to when Smithers is going to conduct his raids—and the person supplying the info is none other than Smithers’ constable, Jim Dunne. During a struggle at Walton’s, Dunne kills the sheriff and both he and Walton cover it up, but Frank Carlin, editor of The Bradshaw Times isn’t satisfied with Dunne’s “investigation” and so his articles attract the attention of the Texas Rangers, who put Jace Pearson on the case.

The second episode, “Dead or Alive,” is set against the background of a tragedy that occurred in 1947: a series of explosions from chemical plants and ore smelters rock Texas City and Galveston, leading a woman named Lillian Young to look for her missing brother among the unclaimed dead. Her husband Vance, a professional “knob knocker” (safecracker), talks her into identifying her deceased relative as him, since he’s currently a fugitive on the run from the law. She does so, allowing Vance to rob a safe in the hopes that Pearson and the Rangers will be convinced that dead men can’t crack safes. Of course, Jace cracks the case quicker than you can sing "The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You" (the Texas Ranger March and theme of the show).

I’m not certain why Tales of the Texas Rangers had such a short life on radio, but an educated guess would be because the show, during most of its run, was a sustaining series (although its first two months on the air were paid for by the good folks at Wheaties-General Mills). About three years after its last radio broadcast on September 14, 1952, a Saturday morning TV version premiered on CBS on September 3, 1955 and lasted until May 25, 1957—then the series ended up in reruns on ABC-TV from 1957-59. The television incarnation featured Willard Parker as Pearson and Harry Lauter as his partner, Clay Morgan.

A cold winter’s night

I listened to a pair of interesting shows this evening—interesting in that both programs are dated March 9, 1949 and were broadcast over NBC’s WMAQ in Chicago, one right after the other. According to First Generation Radio Archives, the two programs came from opposite sides of two 16-inch transcription disks. (Transcription disks are large records from where most of the old-time radio broadcasts that are still around today originate.)

First off the bat, at 9:30pm (8:30pm Central), is Mr. District Attorney, a long-running NBC crime drama (it debuted on April 3, 1939) about an unnamed D.A. (usually referred to by his associates as either “Boss” or “Chief”), a fearless crusader devoted to justice and truth. (The character was loosely modeled after real-life 1930s New York racket-buster Thomas E. Dewey.) During its nearly fifteen-year run on radio, Mr. District Attorney was one of the most popular—if not the most—crime dramas on the air. According to John Dunning, “It was a year-round operation. In the summers, when such comics as Jack Benny and Bob Hope were on vacation, Mr. DA often soared to the top of the ratings; it was seldom out of the top ten, even in midseason.” (Doesn’t sound like Mr. DA had much time for Mrs. DA, does it?)

Mr. District Attorney also had one of radio’s most memorable openings:

ANNOUNCER: Mister District Attorney! Champion of the people! Defender of truth! Guardian of our fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!

(Orchestra up full)

VOICE OF THE LAW (from echo chamber): …and it shall be my duty as district attorney not only to prosecute to the limit of the law all persons accused of crimes perpetuated within this county but to defend with equal vigor the rights and privileges of all its citizens…

Pretty strong meat there, no? The program was sponsored for many years by Bristol-Myers (1940-52); in fact, at the time of this broadcast, the Bristol-Myers people were footing the bill for a whole hour (9-10pm) on NBC’s Wednesday nights—the show preceding Mr. District Attorney being the popular comedy series Duffy’s Tavern. It’s also rare to find a network broadcast (complete with commercials) of Attorney; for a long-running series, it would seem that most of the episodes in circulation are from the 1952-53 syndicated version produced by Ziv Productions.

The episode I listened to was “The Case of Murder a la Carte,” a drama about a restaurant headwaiter named Nicky Sylvania who is operating a robbery racket with two accomplices, husband-and-wife Stanley and Hannah Price. Nicky is able to glean information from the customers he is serving as to whether they will be away from the house for an extended period of time; then he calls Hannah to tip her off as to their absence and she and her husband "liberate" the customers' furs, jewelry, etc.

Stanley is kind of an amiable dolt who’s obsessed more with building birdhouses than embarking on a life of crime; even Nicky is convinced that the three of them should lay low for a while. But Hannah is a real bad egg; a greedy, manipulative rhymes-with-witch who insists on committing more and more burglaries. She has a bit of a gambling jones, and has lost much of the robbery take betting on horses; Stanley is outraged by this (he sort of had his heart set on a trailer for the two of them, where he could build birdhouses to his heart's content) and in the ensuing struggle between him and Hannah she manages to strangle him in what she politically-incorrectly refers to as a “Jap choke.” She and Nicky then dump poor Stanley's corpse near the railroad yards. (I should also point out here that there is a very strong implication that Nicky and Hannah are starting to…well, know one another in the biblical sense. They don’t come right out and say it, of course—but the two of them share a cigarette, and it’s not too hard to figure out where that is going.)

In the meantime, our heroic D.A. (Jay Jostyn) and his associates, Len Harrington (Len Doyle) and Edith Miller (Vicki Vola) are investigating the robberies, and the crafty public servant has put 2-and-2 together, realizing that the common thread in the capers is that the victims all dined at the swanky Regency Club--and were waited on by the same headwaiter. Nicky attempts to warn Hannah that the heat is on, but the audience is pretty much onto her by now; she wants more, more, more. A robbery attempt at a residence owned by a couple named Phillips goes awry when Hannah is surprised by their butler; backed into a corner, she puts the same choke-hold on Jeeves and kills him, too. So Mr. D.A. sets a trap for the two villains by having Harrington and Miller pose as a couple of society swells and when Hannah breaks into their apartment, catches both her and Nicky red-handed (“Well, a clean sweep, eh, Harrington? Looks like this time they’ve ordered the full meal…” Oh, I'll bet he's a riot at the annual office Christmas party.).

Mr. District Attorney is, despite my occasional forays into snarkiness, a pretty entertaining crime drama that—for reasons I can’t quite fathom—apparently has to recap what took place in the half-hour, apparently for the slower people in the listening audience:

MILLER: Golly, that was one assignment I liked, Chief…I’ve never eaten such good food in my life…

HARRINGTON: Yeah! And oh boy, did you look swell in all those furs that you rented, Miss Miller!

MILLER: Why thank you, Harrington…but of course, I look good in just anything…

D.A.: Well, it was certainly good work, Miss Miller…you and Harrington sent Hannah right to the apartment where I was waiting, simply by displaying those furs…

HARRINGTON: And when we got there, we picked up Nicky right in front of the joint, Chief…

D.A.: Yes…actually, it was Hannah’s peculiar method of choking her victims that helped, Harrington…

HARRINGTON: Yeah…that’s the Japanese choke…brother, that one’s the works!

D.A.: Yes…it nearly always kills and without much effort as is sometimes needed…fortunately, it leaves a characteristic discoloration on the neck as well as abrasions on the lower jaw…

MILLER: You saw those in the morgue, Chief…

D.A.: Yes, I did, Miss Miller…on both Stanley and the butler…and that’s why I was ready for Hannah when she tried the Japanese choke on me…

HARRINGTON: Yeah…and you can thank the Army service for that, huh, Chief?

D.A.: Right.

HARRINGTON: …bring your arms down hard and you can break it…

D.A.: And break the case, I’m glad to say…

I’m guessing after this display of gratuitous back-patting the three of them head for a bar and then drink the night away, bemoaning their empty, unfulfilled lives—and in the case of Mr. D.A., bemoaning the fact that he has no real name.

Following Mr. District Attorney is The Big Story, another successful crime drama that premiered over NBC Radio April 2, 1947. (This program was so popular that in its first year it began to chisel away at Bing Crosby’s Philco Radio Time audience, since his program was on ABC opposite Story. Der Bingle ended up moving his show back a half-hour earlier as a result.) The show was created when independent radio show producer Bernard J. Prockter came across an account in Newsweek of how two reporters from the Chicago Sun-Times had cracked a 14-year-old murder case that resulted in the pardon of the man wrongly convicted of the crime. (This story would later be retold in a favorite James Stewart movie of mine—the 1948 docu-noir Call Northside 777, directed by Henry Hathaway.)

ANNOUNCER: The Big Story…here is America…its sound and fury…its joy and its sorrow…as faithfully reported by the men and women of the great American newspapers…

Pall Mall cigarettes picked up the tab for the program, awarding $500 to the reporter with “The Big Story.” The dramatizations on the show changed the names of the people involved, with the exception of the muckraker who covered it, of course. This episode features Ike McNelly of the Cleveland News, “a reporter who found that death can make a piece of fiction come to life.”

There is a report of a car explosion at a nearby dam—and it is determined that Dr. David Wagner, prominent chemist, is the victim. The only problem is—his body has not been found. It is assumed that his body may have been thrown into the river, but without a corpse, his insurance company refuses to pay off on his $50,000 policy, leaving his widow and kids in a bit of a financial pickle.

McNelly is interviewing the Widow Wagner when he gets a call from his newspaper and learns that a gentleman at a Philadelphia bank has cashed $5,000 worth of travelers’ checks, with the signature of…Dr. David Wagner. McNelly is convinced that the Doc is playing dead for some reason, but Murray, the insurance company investigator, pooh-poohs the idea. In talking with Wagner’s widow, he spies a portrait the doctor painted and, on a hunch, decides to talk to the young woman—one Jenny Logan—who posed for the painting.

Logan claims to know nothing of Wagner’s whereabouts, and in fact, clings to the conventional wisdom that Wagner is dead and that the reporter should drop the matter. But a open book on a table in Logan’s apartment makes McNelly suspicious—it’s Leo Tolstoy’s The Living Corpse, a novel about a man who fakes his own death to get away from his wife. In an investigative feat that rivals the discovery by Dallas police of Lee Harvey Oswald’s whereabouts shortly after the JFK assassination, McNelly locates Jenny at a train station, as she has bought a one-way ticket to New York.

JENNY: Well, what’s on your mind?

MCNELLY: That book, Jenny…The Living Corpse by Tolstoy…David Wagner gave it to you…

JENNY: No…

MCNELLY: He gave it to you…and now you’re leaving to meet him…

JENNY: You’re crazy…I haven’t seen him in months…

MCNELLY: You’re lying! Wagner’s in love with you…

JENNY: Why don’t you let me alone!

MCNELLY: How can I…this isn’t just between you and Wagner, he’s got a wife and kids, remember?

JENNY: What can I do about it…

MCNELLY: You can let him alone…and you can tell him to come back where he belongs…

JENNY: You don’t know what you’re asking…there’s some things you can’t stop…jump in front of a train and see if you’ll even slow it down…this is the same way…David…me…you and his wife…none of us can do anything about it…

MCNELLY: Then…you are in love with him…

JENNY: Sure…you know…this isn’t a thing I want to lie about…it’s something too good for that…

One minute you’re covering a weekly meeting of the Rotarians, and the next you’re in some bad romantic movie with equally risible dialogue. It’s a funny old world sometimes. Anyway, McNelly extracts a promise from the woman that she and Wagner will let him know where they are, and that the doctor will continue to provide for his family. But, the two-timing dame reneges on her pledge, and McNelly is put on the spot—he reluctantly informs Wagner’s widow that her husband is still alive and is shacking up with someone else; months later, the insurance company investigator is ticked at him because Wagner’s insurance premium is due to expire and there’ll be nothing for his wife and kids once it does.

Just when all seems lost, it is discovered that the chemist and his floozy have been jet-setting across Europe and are currently residing in Vienna as “Anna” and “Joseph.” The two of them exchange more bad-movie dialogue, expressing no regrets about their whirlwind affair—and then commit double suicide, leaving behind a note as to their real identities so that Wagner’s wife can cash in, insurance-wise. (If anyone can explain to me why this guy could afford to cavort around Vienna but couldn’t bother to send in a measly insurance premium payment, I’m dying to hear it.)

At the conclusion of each episode of The Big Story, the real-life reporter would often appear at the show’s tag to collect his cash incentive from the good folks at Pall Mall; here, the hard-working McNelly sends a telegram—I’m guessing he may have been a little embarrassed at how they dramatized his story. But the program enjoyed a healthy eight-year run over NBC, finally giving up the ghost on March 23, 1955; Pall Mall paying the bills until 1954, when Lucky Strike (actually the same company) took over as sponsor.

Listening to both of these shows, I got a feeling of what it might have been like to be gathered around the radio on a cold winter night in March of 1949--and that's not easy, especially when it's a balmy fall night in November 2003.