Month: June 2017

EP2239: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Twisted Twin Matter

Bob Bailey

Johnny sets out to find the the missing twin son of a recently deceased World War I fighting ace who is entitled to a share of his father’s insurance.

Original Air Date: August 21, 1960

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EP2238: Boston Blackie: The Green Line Trucking Murder

Richard Kollmar

After re-assuring a woman her truck driver husband is fine, Blackie sets out to solve his murder when he turns up dead.

Original Air Date: July 16, 1946

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EP2237: Richard Diamond: The Misplaced Laundry Case

Dick Powell

Diamond gets the wrong person’s dry cleaning and is threatened at gun, beaten, and involved in a murder case because of it.

Original Air Date: September 6, 1950

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AWR0022: Screen Guild Theater: The Maltese Falcon (Summer of Bogart)

Amazing World of Radio

In this 1943 adaptation of the original hard-boiled detective story: Miles Archer, the partner of Sam Spade (played by Humphrey Bogart) is killed while shadowing someone for a client (Mary Astor.) When the man Archer was shadowing is killed, the police suspect Spade. Spade must find Archer’s killer and to do it he has to match wits against dangerous international criminals (Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet.)

Original Air Date: September 20, 1943
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EP2236: That Hammer Guy: Sophisticated Lady

Larry Haines

Hammer opens the door to a flop house apartment and is shot. Hammer sets out to find who shot him and why.

Original Air Date: April 7, 1953

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EP2235: Night Beat: Einar Pearce and Family

Frank Lovejoy

Randy becomes prisoner to the family of an escaped murderer in Minnesota.

Original Air Date: October 13, 1950

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Video Theater 111: Dragnet: The Big Lease

Joe Friday and Frank Smith search for a missing landlord.

Season 2, Episode 27 (May 14, 1953)

The Rathbone-Bruce Countdown, Part One

Note: I’m taking a few weeks off from new columns, so I’m revisiting a series I did back in 2011 on the Rathbone-Bruce Sherlock Holmes series which many newer listeners/readers haven’t read. 

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson. It doesn’t get much better than that. From the late 1930s through the mid-1940s, they were Holmes and Watson.

Their fourteen films are a remarkable mix of detective stories, crime stories, spy thrillers, suspense, and a few touches of comedy. The films gave us the definitive Holmes for an entire generation of viewers. They were exciting, thrilling, and well-played. I should say that because a film is listed low on my list (with the exception of the #14 film), it’s not because it was a bad film. They’re almost all good, and some of these rankings were tough calls.

14)  The Woman in Green (1945)

The weakest of the series. The Woman in Green was a film that struggled with its plot and villains. The character who ought to be the primary villain lacked the personality of Holmes’ female antagonists in The Spiderwoman and Dressed to Kill. So, the writers brought Professor Moriarty back despite having killed him six movies prior. The problem is the plot they created was too small for Moriarty. In previous movies, he’d tried to steal the crown jewels and then been working for the Nazis. In this film, Moriarty’s plot amounts to is a fairly gruesome blackmail scheme. Hardly stuff for the Napoleon of Crime.

13)  The Pearl of Death (1944)

Holmes, while trying to illustrate the ineffectiveness of relying on an electronic burglar alarm to protect a valuable pearl, disconnects the alarm, allowing a thief to steal the pearl. From there, the story follows the premise of the Doyle story, “The Six Napoleons.” However, it adds in a gruesome monster of a killer and makes for a suspenseful chapter in the series.

12) Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)

Not as exciting as the title might indicate, with a few rough spots. However, Holmes’ investigation into a series of murders at a convalescent home has a fantastic final confrontation requiring a lot of guts from our hero to pull it off.

11) Dressed to Kill (1946)

This is a film that gets trashed by some fans for everything from the title to similarities in plot to Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon. The plot centers around three music boxes that were made in prison and purchased at an auction house and the criminals desperate to recover them.  However, I love the use of music in this plot. Also, this film features Watson’s goofiest moments as he’s tricked with a puerile ruse into revealing the location of a music box, but Watson also gives Holmes the final clue that helps him solve the case.

To be Continued Next week….

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EP2234: Dragnet: The Big Roll

Jack Webb

Friday looks for a local businessman who disappeared with hundreds of dollars on him.

Original Air Date: June 26, 1952

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EP2233: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Paradise Lost Matter

Bob Bailey

Johnny investigates a series of suspicious deaths at a nursing home.

Original Air Date: August 14, 1960

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EP2232: Boston Blackie: The Skating Rink Murders

Richard Kollmar

A woman is found murdered in a skating rink with a $50,000 ring on her finger.

Original Air Date: July 9, 1946

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EP2231: Richard Diamond: The Big Foot Grafton Case

Dick Powell

Diamond is hired to find a missing second baseman on a women’s baseball team.

Original Air Date: August 30, 1950

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AWR0021: Shakespeare Cycle: Henry IV (Summer of Bogart)

Amazing World of Radio

In this adaptation of both parts of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, in his old age, King Henry has to stave off a revolt led by Hotspur (Humphrey Bogart) and worry about his reckless son.
Original Air Date: August 23, 1937

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EP2230: That Hammer Guy: There’s Something About a Dame

Larry Haines

Hammer pledges to complete the job he was paid to do: protecting someone newly arrived from France. Then Hammer finds out that someone is a French poodle.

Original Air Date: March 31, 1953

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EP2229: Night Beat: The Kenny Day Amnesia Case

Frank Lovejoy

Randy has to help an ex-cop with amnesia fill in what’s happened in the three years since he left the force and why he claims to have killed his wife.

Original Air Date: October 6, 1950

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