Month: May 2012

EP0679: Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger

Holmes investigates a case of treachery and death at the circus.

Original Air Date: June 20, 1948

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EP0678: Let George Do It: No Escape from the Jungle

Bob Bailey

George is hired by an unassuming looking man to find a travel expert. George finds him and his client then informs him that he intends to kill the expert.

Original Air Date: March 26, 1951

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EP0677: Crime on the Waterfront: Heiress Cruise

Mike Wallace

Lou Kagle is asked to look after an heiress on a cruise ship who has received threats of being kidnapped.

Audition Date: March 1, 1949

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Kate Smith Sings God Bless America for First Time

The first performance ever from November 10, 1938. In honor of America’s Veterans on Memorial Day.

EP0676: Barrie Craig: Moving Target

William Gargan

Barrie is hired by a man who has become suspicious because catastrophe seems to follow him wherever he goes in scouting hotels in obscure locations around the world.

Original Air Date: February 16, 1955

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Radio Review: The Jumbo Fire Chief Program

Jimmy Durante with Jumbo in the 1962 film
In 1935, NBC brought Broadway and Jimmy Durante to radio listeners across America with its Jumbo Fire Chief Program.

The radio program was based on Billy Rose’s Jumbo which told the trial of the John Considine Wonder Show, a circus having to dodge attempts by a U.S. Marshal to sell off the show to pay off back taxes, which the circus owed due to its overzealous promoter, Claudius “Brainy” Bowers (Durante) who overstated the show’s profits, thus bringing the government down on their back.

The original broadway show was a spectacular. It was was written by Rodgers and Hart and featured classic songs such as, “The Circus is on Parade,” “My Romance,” and “Over and Over Again.” The Digital Deli describes the grand setting:

The music was provided by no less than Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra, carried its own glee club–Charles Henderson’s thirty-two Razorbacks, featured acrobats, a full complement of clowns, a 35-foot tall puppet, animal acts and in the final scene of each performance featured Jimmy Durante allowing the 8,000 lb. Jumbo to place its foot over Durante’s head. Indeed, the only venue then available in New York to house such a production was The Hippodrome, a 5,000 seat theatre with a 60 foot high ceiling.

The program ran for 233 performances and the high cost depression-era show ended up losing $2.4 million in 2012 Dollars (per Digital Deli). The Broadway Show ran from November 1935 to April 1936, while the radio version ran from October 1935 to January 1936.

The radio show features most of the songs from the Broadway show and a few more in the 12 episodes run. The music was wonderful to listen to. The highlight of the show was a “young” Jimmy Durante. Young is in quotation marks because Durate was 42 going on 43 when the radio show began. However, Durante would keep working until he was 80.

Durante had the malapropisms and all the Durante style of humor working. The package was much more vaudevillian than later Durante performances. The performance was part of Durante’s rise to prominent. He was eight years away from becoming an entertainment elder statesman which he would do when at age 50 he was teamed up with 28 year old Gary Moore on their joint radio program for Camel Cigarettes and then for Rexall.

This particular series though was one case where the whole was not greater than the sum of their parts. Durante’s vintage acting, the Rodgers and Hart music went nowhere. The program illustrated the peril with trying to adapt a two act Broadway play to a twelve part radio series. Each episode would go the same way: There would be an opportunity to save the circus but Brainy Bauer’s efforts would ultimately backfire, but at the end of the episode the Circus would get a stay of execution until next week. In the middle of that, the two young love interests Mickey Considine (Gloria Grafton) and Matt Mulligan, Jr. (Donald Novis) would work in a love scene and a song. Perhaps, Billy Rose wanted to avoid revealing the ending, but it left a kind of thin plot.

It’s worth noting that a reworked version of Jumbo did make it to the screen in 1962 with Jimmy Durante playing the owner of the circus and in most other ways acting the same part he played on the radio and Broadway.

As for the radio series, if you can get past the then plot, then the music, Jimmy Durante, and just the age of the recording  make this a well worthwhile series.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0 stars

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Book Review: Hand in the Glove

Hand in the Glove features Dol Bonner, a young woman who has started her detective agency with the financial help of wealthy heiress Sylvia Raffray, who is on the cusp of taking over her family fortune. Her Guardian, P.L. Storrs, objects to Sylvia’s involvement in the detective business as it’s created some bad publicity. He persuades Sylvia to agree to quit the agency and her professional association with Dol which will essentially put Dol into a far less plush and favorable position. 

However, Dol gets her first solo job when P.L. hires her to rid his family of a cult leader who is draining his wife financially. She heads to P.L.’s home in Connecticut with this goal, but everything changes when she finds P.L. strangled and hung up by a wire. Dol sets out to solve the murder of her friend’s ward and prove herself as a detective.

Nero Wolfe doesn’t appear in this story, but Inspector Cramer does make a cameo.

Bonner actually shares one key feature with Nero Wolfe: a contempt for the opposite sex, though her’s is not so severe as to prevent her from having men work for her or from being a caring sister. She also has a verbal feature in common with Wolfe: how she tells subordinates to take notes. When I read her saying to a male detective, “Your notebook…” I got deja vu. I wonder if this was intentional or if Stout couldn’t think any other way a detective might tell someone to take notes.

In other ways, they are mirror images. Wolfe an experienced late middle aged man and Bonner a young pretty woman feeling her way in the art of detection. While Wolfe remains reticent about his past and we only get tiny glimpses throughout the Corpus, Bonner tells straight up her backstory and why she thinks so little of men: she was jilted by one.

Bonner’s efforts to solve the case are met with sarcasm, annoyance, and amusement. A police officer smirks when he sees Bonner getting her detection kit out of the car and Sylvia tells her to put it away.  Even Bonner’s not so sure of herself.   She  puts forth a strong front of absolute confidence, but she’s riddled with self-doubt. Is she really a detective or is she “just playing.” Thus Bonner mission is to prove herself to herself.

The story is weakened by a forgettable cast of 1930s stereotypes, the occult huckster,  the heavy-drinking newsman, the dutiful butler, and the aloof bohemian poet daughter. Only the psychologist who is in need of a psychologist provides any spark and not enough of that.  Sylvia Raffray fills the part of  spoiled rich kid and is completely useless to Dol. While everyone seems to like her, it’s a mystery to me why they do.

Even with a stronger cast of supporting characters, it’s doubtful Bonner would have ever made it in a series. Her disrespect for men was unlike to make her popular with men or women. Plus, her uncertainty in the face of challenge is unlikely to connect with modern women in the age of girl power. Hand in the Glove is a serviceable 1930s mystery. What sets it apart from other 1930s mystery that are gathering dust in libraries across America is that it was written by one of America’s most talented mystery writers and featured a character who  would go on to appear as a supporting character in one of the the greatest detective series ever.

I should also note that a TV adaptation of Hand in the Glove was produced by NBC in 1992 called Lady Against the Odds that featured Crystal Bernard (Wings) as Dol Bonner and is available on Netflix. The TV movie made a number of departures. The time period was changed to World War II (which is far more exciting to most viewers than 1937),  rather than having the case confined to the estate as the book does, Dol travel back and forth questioning witnesses. It also changed the character of Dol Bonner and removed the man-hating elements. While there was a bit of melodrama and some things that didn’t ring true to the period, after reading the book, I think they probably did the best they could with it.

Rating: 2.75 out of 5.0.

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EP0675: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Nancy Shaw Matter

John Lund

Johnny is hired to investigate the missing jewels of a famous actress, and finds himself more interested in the actress than the case.

Original Air Date: August 11, 1953

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EP0674: Sherlock Holmes: The Bleeding Chandelier

A woman calls Holmes to help her overcome a superstitious legend to marry her first love.

Original Air Date: June 13, 1948

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EP0673: Let George Do It: Murder for Two

Bob Bailey
George is called in to protect a woman from her ex-husband. George arrives to find the wife dead. The ex-husband is suspected but he has an air tight alibi.

 Original Air Date: March 19, 1951

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EP0672: Crime on the Waterfront: Murder of Mrs. Lattimore

Mike Wallace

Lou Kagle looks into the murder of the wife of a returning diplomat who used to be a mob lawyer.

Recording Date: February 24, 1949

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EP0671: Barrie Craig: Nobody Lives There Anymore

William Gargan

Barrie undertakes to help a woman who claims her husband disappeared from a hotel room where the clerk says neither of them registered.

Original Air Date: February 9, 1955

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DVD Set Review: The Columbo Mystery Movie Collection: 1991-93

If quantity was more important than quality that the first two seasons of Columbo’s revival in the 1989 and 1990 movie sets would be a high point. The truth is that Peter Falk remained brilliant as Columbo making the programs worth watching. However, an old spark was missing.

Perhaps, the biggest difference between these early films and the 1970s Columbo were the guest villains. The 1970s series had featured some of Hollywood’s most distinguished actors as foils for Columbo: Gene Barry, Robert Culp, Jack Cassidy, Donald Pleasence, Roddy McDowall, Leonardy Nimoy, William Shatner, Janet Leigh, and Patrick McGoohan.

By contrast the first twelve Revival movies over ABC had a cast of Hollywood unknowns. The exceptions to this were McGoohan who starred in Agenda for Murder (1990)  and walked away with an Emmy nomination and Golden Globes winner Anthony Andrews who led off with Columbo Goes to the Guillotine. When researching the actors, many of them looked good on paper with many nominations for awards. A surprising number of Soap Opera actors made their way to be Columbo guest villains.  When cast with the Columbo in his iconic rain coat they showed they weren’t quite ready for “prime time.”

The next six movies took a difference pace. Over 1991-93, a total of six Columbo movies were released and in 2011, these six were released on DVD. However, these had far superior guest murderers which produced some better movies, particularly the first three.

The set has absolutely no extras, but Columbo fans will glad take the presence of our favorite police Lieutenant with no bells and whistles:

Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health (1991): George Hamilton became the second actor to play a Columbo killer in both the 70s and 1990s. He plays Wade Anders, a man who hosts an America’s Most Wanted Style TV show. The man who he beat out for the job (Peter Haskell) threatens to reveal Anders participation in a porno decades previously: information sure to undermine his credibility. The non-smoking Anders poisons the chain-smoking Anderson’s cigarettes, and plans to make the death look like an accident. Then Columbo comes on the case. He and Columbo have some memorable scenes including a hilarious non-speaking scene in a parking lot.  Overall, a very well-done professional Columbo film. Grade: A-

Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star (1991): Dabney Coleman, in an Emmy-nominated performance, plays a high-powered defense attorney who murders his live in girlfriend. Coleman’s lawyer is slick and charismatic,  making this game of cat and mouse between him and Columbo particularly enjoyable. Grade: A-

Death Hits the Jackpot (1991): A man going through a divorce wins the lottery but doesn’t want to split the proceeds with his soon-to-be ex-wife. So he turns to his Uncle Leon Lamar (Rip Torn) for help. The Uncle (who is financially in trouble) comes up with a clever idea: let him cash in the ticket and then he’ll pay off the nephew later quietly once the attention has died down. Instead, he murders his nephew and attempts to keep the money for himself with the help of the nephew’s ex-wife.  Torn is perhaps the most sinister and cold-blooded Columbo murderer since Lee Grant in “Ransom for a Dead Man.”  I cheered for Columbo like never before in this one. Grade: A

No Time to Die (1992): No Time to Die” was based on an Ed McBain novel and really tossed the Columbo formula out the window in favor of a more straight police procedural. The result was an “okay” somewhat average TV mystery movie. For fans of the series, there’s a lack of Columbo being Columbo and he does unColumbo-like things like carrying a gun.

Of course, other TV shows such as The Rockford Files and Simon and Simon adapted novel plots for TV episodes. The difference was that they adapted that fit the tenure of the series. Columbo comes from a much more soft boiled tradition like Poirot. Throwing him into a procedural was entirely bizarre. The whole case centers around the kidnapping of a policeman’s new bride on his wedding night by a psychopathic sexual pervert. It’s not Columbo stuff. Falk did the best he could with it, but from me it just gets a: C+

A Bird in the Hand (1992): A problem gambler (Greg Evigan)  decides to murder his sports team owner father.  He wires his dad’s car with a bomb, but his father dies in an apparent hit-and-run accident, and his bomb instead kills the family gardener. This episode is an interesting experiment as we follow one person who plans the killing, but another person executes in an entirely different way. It doesn’t work out quite as well on the screen mainly because the writers did not give the talented Tyne Daley enough work with in her role as the not-so grief stricken widow. Grade: B

It’s All In the Game (1993): A wealthy socialite (Faye Dunaway) plots the murder of her boyfriend with the help of another woman he’s dating. Columbo is very courteous to her at the crime scene, but he’s also suspicious that the theory of a robbery motive for the murder may be wrong. Her plan to stop Columbo? Seduce him.  In the process, she actually starts to fall in love with him, telling her daughter that Columbo is “fun to be with.” While Columbo does like her, there are numerous signs that in the “romance” he’s only playing along until he gets what he needs: signs that she misses. Her confidence that her feminine wiles can get a veteran homicide cop to change a report border between attractive and over the top.

The episode also was made memorable by the fact that while we saw the murder, we were left with many mysteries as to the why and who the young woman with Dunaway’s character was. Overall, this was a very solid latter episode. Grade: A-

Overall set rating: B+

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Book Review: Please Pass the Guilt

Reading Please Pass the Guilt right after The Silent Speaker provided quite an interesting contrast. Both cases involve Archie and Wolfe drumming up business, but the times have changed in 25 years.

In the first place, technoligically things are quite different. In, The Silent Speaker, recording cylinders were a cumbersome  yet important part of the case that Wolfe and Archie didn’t really understand. By the time of Please Pass the Guilt, Wolfe and Archie are recording nearly every conversation to occur in the office. (Them and Richard Nixon both.)

Perhaps, more striking is the cultural change. Archie has to compete with a television when trying to pitch the widow of a murder victim on hiring Wolfe. Wolfe for his part remains the same iconoclastic figures as always. When asked if he watches television, Wolfe responds curtly, “I turn on the television rarely, only to confirm my opinion of it.”

Stout was clear that Nero and Archie had not changed in their basic temperment and behavior in the past thirty-eight years of the series while the world around them has transformed and that tension manifests itself. Stout even brushes with the more modern times and approaches (but back away from) edgier profanity when a women’s libber obsessed with the supposed sexism of language asked. “What is one of men’s favorite four-letter colloquial words that begins with f?” Archie demurred, claiming not to know what she was getting at. Acceptance of the use of that language may have been growing in the late 1960s and early 1970s but not in Rex Stout novels.

In a key moment, Archie expressed exasperation when unable to convince a female suspect go on a date as is his usual practice. Archie declared, “I’m done. Washed up. I’ve lost my touch, I’m a has-been. You knew me when.”

Fritz provides a rare moment of sagacity. “Then she is washed up, not you. You are looking at the wrong side. Just turn it over, that’s all you ever have to do, just turn it over” Perhaps, this served as a metaphor for the book and for Nero Wolfe and Archie’s place in a rapidly changing world. If 1970s American readers reached the point where they could no longer appreciate these characters, then readers were washed up, not them.

As one reviewer pointed out on Amazon, this is as much a period piece as the Wolfe stories from the 1940s. For most of Wolfe’s long-time fans, it’s just not a period they like as well. The case begins when Doc Volmer asks Wolfe to do a favor for a friend of his. A young man has shown up at a local psychological clinic and states he has blood on his hands, but he won’t even give his right name. He suggests Wolfe apply his skills to the problem to help unearth the truth. When the young man shows up, the most Wolfe is able to do is to connive to find out his real name. Wolfe discovers he’s one of the figures in the murder of an executive who went into another executive’s room and opened a drawer he kept whiskey in.

With the bank balance low and Wolfe having worked even less than usual the first five months of 1969, Archie goes on his own initiative to the widow of the executive to lobby her to hire Wolfe. She does so and answers a key question: What was her husband doing in another executive’s private office? Simple, he was spiking his whiskey with LSD so his would blow his interview with the board to become the next president of the company. Welcome to the 1960s, man.

From there, Wolfe embarks on an investigation to find the truth. Along the way, he runs into a steady stream of lies: from employees of the firm, complete strangers who respond to an ad for information, and even from his client. Wolfe has never treated a client with such contempt as he does in Please Pass the Guilt. However, the contempt was well-earned. What’s perhaps most astounding is that a truth embedded in one of the lies Wolfe’s told leads him to the true solution of the case.

So, while it’s not vintage 1940s Wolfe, Please Pass the Guilt shows the timeless power of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

Rating: Very Satisfactory

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EP0670: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Voodoo Matter

 John Lund

Johnny flies to Haiti to solve the problem of an insured who is suffering huge crop losses. Johnny arrives to find the man suspicious that voodoo is behind it all.

Original Air Date: August 4, 1953

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