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Bob Bailey & Virginia Gregg in front of an old Microphone

Bob Bailey & Virginia Gregg

Welcome to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio! A podcast featuring the best vintage detective radio programs. Each week from Monday through Saturday, we feature six of Old Time Radio's great detective series from the beginning of the show to its very last episode. And as a bonus, twice a month we also post a public domain movie or TV mystery or detective show video.

Along the way, I'll provide you my commentary and offer you opportunities to interact.

Subscribe to the show by clicking your favorite podcatcher in the sidebar.

And don't forget to follow me on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

- Your host, Adam Graham

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Recent Posts

EP1566: Nick Carter: The Case of the Graveyard Gunman

Lon Clark
Nick is on the trail of missing jewels, but quickly the case involves an escaped con Nick captured, and a dead body in Nick’s office.

Original Air Date: January 11, 1948

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EP1565: Philip Marlowe: Kid on the Corner

Gerald Mohr

A teenage newsboy asks Marlowe to find his uncle and Marlowe stumbles into the middle of a case of murder and suicide.

Original Air Date: December 3, 1949

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Considering Patreon

Every year, we do two listener support campaigns for three weeks each.  I’ve been toying with the idea of introducing Patreon as a replacement.

Patreon allows listeners to give regular to support a podcast or Internet show in exchange for certain rewards. A couple examples of how Patreon works for other artists and podcasters can be found here and here.

Both sites combined individual rewards as well as overall promised improvements and changes to the site.

Potential individual rewards might be:

  • Early access to the raw or early access to the commentary.
  • The ability to record a bumper and have that used in rotation. (Hello, this is Dave Winslow and you’re listening to the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio.)
  • Recording an after-show ad for your business or service.
  • Getting a vote on specials or future show ideas.
  • Getting to request a single episode of any series (detective or not) be played as a special.
  • Ebooks or Audiobooks.
  • Signed Paperback Books.

Potential goal based rewards might include:

  • A larger server for the show. (we occasionally run into slowness as our audience grows and a better server could solve lag problems)
  • Improved Equipment/Software.
  • Moving ads to “After the Show.”
  • Replacement of Listener Support Campaign with Listener Support Specials.
  • Creating an additional old time radio podcast (subject to be voted on by select listeners.)
  • Licensing Copyrighted Series for a Limited Time Podcast (for example: Licensing a series of Harry Nile but with each episode available only for a limited time.)

These are just a few quick ideas. I think there’s a lot to commend the idea of doing a Patreon campaign. I’d love to hear if listeners would like the option of monthly giving to support the show and what type of “rewards” they’d feel would be appropriate.

 

EP1564: The Line Up: The Big Boy’s Brutish Back-Bending Case

William Johnstone
A witness sees a body being dumped, starting a police investigation.

Original Air Date: April 29, 1952

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EP1563: The Saint: Tuba or Not Tuba, That is the Question

Vincent Price

A friend who is a bad tuba player is hired in a night club, but when Simon arrives, he finds his friend missing.

Original Air Date: January 21, 1951

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Telefilm Review: The Labours of Hercules


A few years back
The first thing to understand about the ITV telefilm, The Labours of Hercules is that it really couldn’t be faithful to the book as a whole the way it was produced.

The Labours of Hercules wasn’t really an Agatha Christie novel (see my review here.). It was a short story collection with an overarching theme. Where Poirot, prior to retirement, sought out to cap his career by re-enacting the Labours of Hercules. In truth, this should have been adapted as another season of hour-long adventures, as that’s how previous Christie short stories were handled.

But instead we have a ninty minute telefilm that must be evaluated on its own merits. After failing to catch a jewel thief who also commits murders for the sheer pleasure of it, Poirot is not well. He’d promised a young woman she’d been safe, but instead she’d fallen victim to the jewel thief along with a man who had been attending the same party.

Poirot is depressed, but decides to do something positive by helping his hired driver find his true love, and goes to Switzerland to do so and finds himself in the same hotel as the thief and murderer who defeated him in London. Poirot seeks to catch the killer, but finds more than his usual share of red herrings as the hotel is full of people hiding things and mysteries. In the book, Poirot solves these mysteries across Great Britain and the Continent, but the production is pretty clever in putting as many of these cases from the as possible, literally “under one roof.”

The direction in the film is fantastic, and the Chateau setting is gorgeous and atmospheric. It’s a very well-told and engaging mystery that borrows from the book, but has its own tale to tell.

The one thing that bothers me about is the tonal shift from the book. As a book, The Labours of Hercules is a fun collection of tales about Poirot deciding to cap his amazing career by replicating the original Labors of Hercules. It’s eccentric and light reading. This telefilm  is much darker, and it’s about Poirot’s failure and his struggle for redemption and the fact that his life can often be quite lonely. In many ways, this film serves sets the tone for the final story, Curtain.

Overall, even though this isn’t the Labours of Hercules as I’d really like to have it made (and I doubt, given the increasingly dark tone of our entertainment, such a production will ever be made), it’s good for what it is: an atmospheric mystery that sets up the series finale and Poirot’s last case.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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