Month: August 2015

EP1665: The Saint: Peter the Great

Tom Conway
The Saint is called in by a fifteen-year-old girl who needs his help with her father’s horse.

Original Air Date: June 24, 1951

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EP1664s: Lux Radio Theater: To the Ends of the Earth

Dick Powell

Narcotics Commissioner Michael Barrows (Dick Powell) witnesses a Japanese sea captain throwing 100 slaves overboard to cover up a narcotics ring. Barrows is determined to get justice and sets out on a globe trotting adventure to break the ring and capture the murderous captain.

Original Air Date: May 23, 1949

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Movie Review: Smart Blonde

In the 1930s, a lot of detective movie series were made, particularly as “B” features. The Torchy Blane series was notable for featuring a female lead.

The first film in the series is Smart Blonde which was released in 1937 and introduced Torchy (played by Glenda Farrell) and her hotheaded boyfriend Police Lieutenant Steve McBride (Barton Maclane). It centers around the owner of a night club and several sports establishments wanting to sell out and live an honest life with his fiancee.  He’s run his businesses honestly and called in a friend who’ll keep them honest to buy his businesses. However, when the would-be buyer is killed, Torchy sets out to solve the case.

The beginning of the film is one of the best character introductions you’ll see in a “B” movie. It used the era’s trope of newspaper headlines to reveal Torchy Blane wrote big stories, hard news stories, front page stories, and then immediately we have Torchy speeding up in the back a cab which drives up near a moving train which she then jumps on to. Really, with her saying very little, the film establishes Torchy as this intrepid, no-nonsense reporter.

She’s a fascinating character and Glenda Farrell plays her beautifully with a mix of charm and pure grit, determination, and energy. The film moves at a very fast clip.  Smart Blonde clocks in at fifty-nine minutes, so it’s got a short time to unravel its mystery, but it does with snappy dialogue and a plot that doesn’t slow down much at all.

The story isn’t a screwball comedy, as so many early detective features were, but it is played for comedy and perhaps at times a bit overplayed. Steve McBride is a comic relief cop in the mold of Captain Street form the Mister Wong movies and he has an even more comical cop as his chauffeur and sidekick.  Some of the comedy is weak and there are unintentionally funny aspects of the film such as the costuming department had policemen in one scene wearing an entirely style of uniform from policemen in another. And of course, there’s a little bit of underworld sentimentality mixed in.

Still, it’s a fascinating bit of B-movie making that’s a cut above most B-films, particularly in this era. It gives Farrell and Maclane the opportunity to play the leads and the result is a fun and pleasing hour of entertainment that should dispel the idea that a “B” movie automatically means a “bad” movie.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

EP1664: Dragnet: The Big Youngster

Jack Webb
Friday and Smith investigate a case of vandalism against a young lawyer.

Original Air Date: August 17, 1950

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EP1663: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Ghost to Ghost Matter

Bob Bailey

Johnny investigates a case of the ghost of a dead insured.

Original Air Date: May 18, 1958

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EP1662: Nick Carter: The Case of the Littlest Gangster

Lon Clark

Nick tries to keep a twelve-year-old boy in a gang out of trouble but the boy becomes involved the murder of a retired police officer.

Original Air Date: May 30, 1948

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EP1661: Philip Marlowe: The Anniversary Gift

William Conrad

Marlowe is sent by widower in search of his late wife’s watch and finds it’s tied up in a murder case and his client may be as well.

Original Air Date: April 11, 1950

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EP1660: Ellery Queen: The Armchair Detective

Lawrence DobkinWhen an armchair detective is murdered on Ellery’s radio show, he has to find out who did it.

Original Air Date: March 18, 1948

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EP1659: The Saint: The Girl in the Lower Berth

Tom Conway

The Saint agrees to meet a woman’s husband on the train and ends up investigating the husband’s murder.

Original Air Date: June 3, 1951

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EP1658s: The Mercury Theatre: The Immortal Sherlock Holmes

Orson Welles
Sherlock Holmes  seeks to reclaim letters being used as blackmail and foil the plans of Professor Moriarty.

Original Air Date: September 25, 1938

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EP1658: Dragnet: The Big Actor

Jack Webb
Friday and Romero investigate the theft of Narcotics from a Catholic hospital.

Original Air Date: August 10, 1950

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Audio Drama Review: Sherlock Holmes: The Final Problem / The Empty House


The second series of Big Finish’s Sherlock Holmes range kicks off with the adaptation of the two Sherlock Holmes stories. “The Final Problem,” where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attempts to kill Holmes off,  and “The Empty House,” where Holmes returns.

As writer/star Nicholas Briggs admits, these are not traditional adaptations.  In the previous adaptation, a bonus talking book of “The Speckled Band” was released with a word-for-word reading of that story. This is similar but this production dispenses with “He said.” Otherwise this is a  straightforward, almost word-for-word adaptation of Doyle’s stories with most of it told through Watson’s narration or Holmes narrating to Watson what has happened previously. As such, the strength of these adaptations rest on the strength of the underlying story.

However, Big Finish does add some nice touches. There’s an emotional core in these stories that Richard Earl, as Watson, does a superb job of capturing. Briggs turns in a solid performance as Holmes, playing the character perfectly as written, even when he’s being smug in “The Empty House.”  And one of the most interesting and subtle things they do in “The Final Problem”is tell the narration as Watson writing this down, and we hear the pen crossing the paper and the sound of pen will change and become more pronounced at certain emotional points. It’s a simple bit of sound design, but it’s  clever and adds something interesting to the production.

These are solid, dramatic readings with a good soundscape added in. However, given the wealth of material and the countless adaptations of these stories, the appeal of this release is limited and this would be the last time Big Finish used the format for Sherlock Holmes.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5.00

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EP1657: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Rolling Stone Matter

Bob Bailey
Johnny investigates a missing, underinsured jewel.

Original Air Date: May 11, 1958

When travelling, remember JohnnyDollarair.com

 

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EP1656: Nick Carter: The Case of the Tatooed Cobra

Lon Clark

A young, wealthy heir is found murdered, but another man claiming to be the heir shows up.

Original Air Date: May 23, 1948

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EP1655: Philip Marlowe: The Man on the Roof

Gerald Mohr

Marlowe is hired by a woman to save her son from a dangerous set-up.

Original Air Date: April 4, 1950

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