Month: November 2011

EP0548: Let George Do It: Sweet are the Uses of Publicity

Bob Bailey

A publicist creates buzz around a non-existent Czechoslovakian millionaire and hires George to protect the secret. However, things go wrong and the supposedly non-existent millionaire is found dead.

Original Air Date: August 7, 1950

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EP0547: Candy Matson: Devil in the Deep Freeze

Natalie Masters

An owner of a restaurant hires Candy after finding a dead man in a devil costume.

Original Air Date: September 30, 1949

Quote: “I feel as devaluated as the British Pound.”

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EP0546: Barrie Craig: Beware the Walking Dog

William Gargan

Barrie is hired by a woman to walk her dog because she believes someone is trying to shoot the dog.

Original Air Date: May 3, 1953

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Radio Drama Review: Perry Mason and the Case of the Curious Bride

 

In The Case of the Curious Bride, awoman comes to Perry Mason for legal advice on behalf of “a friend” and aska a series questions.  The questions revolve around the ins and outs of what happens when a husband is declared legally dead and the legality of a subsequent marriage if the presumed dead spouse returns.

Mason clearly sees that: 1) these are questions that can’t be answered with generalities and 2) that the woman calling on him is asking for herself. When Perry calls the woman on, she leaves the office. Perry feels almost instantaneous regret for pushing too hard and seeks to find out who the woman is and what her problem is.

After some investigating, Perry finds the truth: the woman was married, her husband presumed dead, but in reality, he’s alive and blackmailing her after her second marriage to a weakling son of a wealthy man. Perry gets her to promise to think things over and not do anything until talking to him in the morning.

However, Perry wakes up the next day to find her first husband has been murdered and its only a matter of time before the police put their finger on her. Perry has to clear his client and represent her interests against non only prosecutors but a resentful father-in-law.

In this installment in the Perry Mason series, Mason is less crime-solver than troubleshooter. His goal is not to catch the killer, but to get his client off, whatever it takes. In The Case of the Curious Bride, Mason is reminiscent of what Jim Rockford would be like had he ever been admitted to the bar than the 1950s respectable Perry Mason that had evolved from later books. Mason cons his way through his initial investigation and then tricks the prosecuting attorney into shooting himself in the foot. In addition, Mason makes a rare foray into family law to achieve justice for his client.

Colonial Radio Theater has really gotten into the rhythym of these early Mason stories and they once again have a great period feel to them, even working in a good vintage radio pun when Perry Mason is telling Paul Drake about someone who was following his client.

Mason: Then there’s this matter of the shadow.
Drake: Lamont Cranston?

Jerry Robbins turns an another dynamic performance as the fast-talking Perry Mason. 

Overall, with great sound quality and dogged dedication to the original story, Perry Mason and the Curious Bride makes a great buy for fans of classic mysteries.

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 Note: The Author of this piece received a review digital copy of this drama.

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1990s Mystery Fans Rejoice: Columbo Has one More Thing and Father Dowling Comes to DVD

I checked the website TVShowsonDVD and came across two interesting items.

First of all, all the Columbo movies will be on DVD in the United States next year with the release of the final DVD movie set.  The final 7 columbo movies span from 1994-2003, though Falk slowed down greatly towards the end with the first three films coming from 1994 and ’95 and Falk averaging a film every other year for the last eight years. Some highlights of the set include the second appearance of William Shatner as a Columbo guest villain in Butterfly in Shades of Grey and Patrick McGoohan plays a killer mortifician in Ashes to Ashes. This is, of course, overdue for eager U.S. Columbo fans. 

It’s worth noting that the entire series will be available on January 10, 2012 or nearly 2 1/2 years after the series was avialable in Great Britain.  Not certain the reason for this. It’s always seemed curious that DVD season for American TV shows come out in other countries before they do in the U.S. just as official releases Bonanza came to Germany long before they made it to the U.S.

Meanwhile another program that had been released already overseas (in this case, in Australia) will find its way to television in February 2012. The first season of the Father Dowling Mysteries is set for DVD release. The release will include the 1987 pilot movie as well as the seven episodes that made up season one.

The show starred Tom Bosley as Father Frank Dowling, a kindly crime-solving priest with Tracy Nelson as Sister Stephanie ‘Steve’ Oskowski. Tom Bosley was best known for his role  as Howard Cunningham on Happy Days. Prior to starring in Father Dowling, Bosley had played Sheriff Amos Tupper on Murder She Wrote. In 1986, he took on the role of a Priest who played a minor role in Perry Mason and the Case of the Notrious Nun. The next year, he made the Father Dowling pilot movie.

Hopefully, the next two seasons of the series will be released without much further delay.

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EP0545: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Starlet Matter

John Lund

Johnny goes to Los Angeles because an agent believes his starlet client is going to be murdered and she is. And she’s just the first one to die.

Original Air Date: January 16, 1953

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EP0544: Sherlock Holmes: The Case of Professor Moriarty and the Diamond Jubilee

Six years after their famous battle, Professor Moriarty returns to menace Sherlock Holmes as Queen Victoria is celebrating her diamond jubilee.

Original Air Date: December 7, 1947

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EP0543: Let George Do It: Cause for Thanksgiving

Bob Bailey

The police find a boy apparently struck silent by a traumatic event and Lt. Riley asks George’s help in finding out who the boy is.

Original Air Date: November 20, 1950

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EP0542: Candy Matson: The Fort Ord Case

Natalie Masters

Candy agrees to be a queen of a Marine dance at Fort Ord but stumbles into a series of bodies, each with a musical calling card attached.

Original Air Date: September 23, 1949

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EP0541: Barrie Craig: Behold a Corpse

William Gargan

A woman’s long-lost husband reappears, but she claims not to be sure its him. Craig thinks the case is phony from the get-go.

Original Air Date: March 1, 1953

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The Stuff Dreams are Made Of….

This past week, I had occasion to listen to the Lux Radio Theater version of The Maltese Falcon.  Humphrey Bogart and the rest of the original cast were not available, but the great Edward G. Robinson was chosen to fill Bogart’s substantial gumshoes.

At the end of the hour performance, I was struck by how the Lux performance even with an “A” lead came off as a pale imitation when compared to the Bogart classic.  I then listened to the  half hour Academy Award Theater radio presentation with Bogart in the lead and Sidney Greenstreet and Mary Astor

I had the same feeling when I heard radio’s attempt to create a made-for-radio sequel to the Maltese Falcon with Howard Duff as Spade. Duff had successfully created his own version of Spade, and played the famous hard boiled eye more often than anyone else. And the Khandi Tooth Caper is a fine radio play in its own right, but it couldn’t come close to living up to the wonder of the movie.

The radio  adaptations are helpful to showing the true wonder of the movie and what makes it a great clasisc.  The biggest key is the dialogue with lines such as Kasper Gutman’s, “I’m a man who likes talking to a man that likes to talk.” However, not just any actor can deliver these sort of lines.

I’d insist the magic of the movie comes back to the cast. While Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, and even Elisha Cook, Jr. (who played Wilmer) turned in solid performances, they aren’t irreplacable. In fact, neither the Lux or the Academy Award Theater version featured Lorre and the Lux version didn’t feature Astor, and neither featured Cook. The only rule is if you don’t have Peter Lorre playing Joel Cairo don’t have an actor doing a bad Peter Lorre impression (as was the case with the Khandi Tooth Caper.)

The key to the greatness of the movie is found in Bogart and Greenstreet as Spade and Gutman. As Spade, Bogart delivers a spell-binding performance. Bogart’s is tough, cynical, sarcastic and may seem mildly sociopathic at times as he tries to play both sides to square the murder of his partner.

And  Greenstreet’s performance was a classic that would be imitated countless times on radio, in television, and screen. He served up a definitive template of the sophisticated, polite, and yet ruthless villain and earned an Oscar nomination.

Those two performances make the film a definitive screen classic that thankfully, no one in the modern era has tried to remake.

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Book Review: Gambit

A prominent citizen is accused of murdering one of his daughter’s suitors by poisoning his drink while he’s engaged in a blindfolded chess match with 12 different chess players. Wolfe is hired by the daughter of the accused who believes that her father’s lawyer is up to no good due to being in love with her mother. The lawyer opposes hiring Wolfe which means Wolfe must free his client’s father without his cooperation.

 

The language of Chess figures prominently in the story. Indeed, the title of the story comes from the realization by Wolfe that given that no one other than the accused had a motive to kill the victim leads Wolfe to conclude that the murder was a gambit meant to get the accused out of the way. Wolfe instead of searching for someone with a motive to kill the victim, he has to find someone with a motive to get the accused executed or sent up for life.

Once again, Stout creates a wonderful cast of supporting characters and suspects.  The scene where one suspect offers to hire Wolfe to suborn perjury to get the accused off is comedy gold, particularly as the man expects Wolfe to be on the hook for the crime and to protect him entirely.

Overall, Gambit was surprising in that except for the actual culprit, the suspects turned out to be mostly decent and honest people, a refreshing break with the stereotypical sociopath-filled murder suspect family.

Archie is good as always, and Wolfe is at his eccentric best. The novel opens with Wolfe burning an offensive book in the fireplace: the newest edition of the dictionary which Wolfe views as a threat to the English language. Wolfe asks his prospective client, “Do you use imply and infer interchangeably?… According to this book, you can.”   Wolfe has to struggle to be polite when pressure from her family to drop the case leads his client to take up temporary residence in the Brownstone for several days.

The payoff of the novel is just as good. This one is unique as Archie solves the mystery before Wolfe after obtaining a key clue. Though, both Wolfe (and myself for that matter) figured it out once this clue was revealed. So, for once Archie isn’t the dark when the payoff comes.

The only negative thing I can say about the book is that Stout did seem to be overusing the tape recorder to catch his criminals. It played a role in The Final Deduction as well as a Nero Wolfe novella. Still, overuse of the tape recorder is a small issue in a book that has so much to offer.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

You can find all the Nero Wolfe books in Kindle, Audiobook, and book form on our Nero Wolfe page.

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EP0540: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Thelma Ibsen Matter

John Lund

A poor newspaper delivery man names a young girl who did him a good turn as beneficiary on his life insurance policy. However, Johnny finds that the girl has changed and finding her is a big challenge.

Original Air Date: January 9, 1953

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EP0539: Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Cradle that Rocked Itself

Sherlock Holmes returns to the Cornish country and investigates a frightening story of a rocking cradle that’s frightening a pregnant woman and endangering her life.

Original Air Date: November 30, 1947

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EP0538: Let George Do It: The Voice of the Giant

Bob Bailey

George is called in by the husband of a woman who blames her marriage for the death of her father because he died while she was getting married.

Original Air Date: July 31, 1950

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