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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.

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- Your host, Adam Graham

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EP0618: Let George Do It: And Hope to Die

Bob Bailey

George tries to help a temperamental aging actress who is being threatened while living in a house filled with loyal lackeys.

Original Air Date: December 4, 1950

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EP0617:Campbell’s Playhouse: The Murder of Roger Akroyd

Orson Welles

While trying to retire, Poirot investigates the murder of a rich man in the country.

Original Air Date: November 12, 1939

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EP0616:Barrie Craig: Death Buys a Bedroom

William Gargan

On board a train heading for a fishing vacation to the Adirondacks, Barrie runs into mystery and murder when a beautiful woman asks him to guard an envelope.

Original Air Date: July 27, 1954

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Audio Drama Review: Colonial Radio Theatre’s 2nd Father Brown Collection

Last year, I reviewed Colonial Radio Theatre’s first Father Brown collection adapting classic stories from G.K. Chesterton.  I was pleased recently to finally download and listen to their second collection. As with the first collection, production values remain high with quality acting, and well-done sound effects.

This is a tougher collection for the adapters in some ways as two of the four stories they adapted are challenging ones to dramatize, but overall they carried it off quite well.

The Flying  Stars: It’s crime time at Christmastime. Father Brown is one of several visitors to a wealthy English home, including a young socialist where a valuable jewels called, “The Flying Stars” make an admirable target for thieves. And thieves strike-during a pantomime event.  This one was a bit slow getting to the crime as it dragged through preparations for the pantomime.  However, the story as written by Chesterton was equally slow-paced. As slow it was, it was also necessary for the character development of Flambeau and Colonial does listeners a favor by actually showing Flambeau reform. They also did a nice job setting up a transition to the next story.

Point of a Pin: Noisy construction workers are waking Father Brown up every morning as they work on an apartment building, but a potential union strike or lock out threatens to stop construction. The owner of the construction company  lays off his workers and then is murdered. A threatening note points to union radicals as the likely culprit but Father Brown has other ideas.  This was a lot of fun for me, particularly because “Point of a Pin” is a lesser known and later Father Brown story that I hadn’t read yet and Colonial did a great job in bringing this baffling story to radio.

The Three Tools of Death: Along with “The Blue Cross” this may be one of the best Father Brown mysteries.  I actually based much of my Father Brown chapter in my book, All I Needed to Know I Learned from Columbo on this story. However, it’s not always gotten the respect it deserved. In the 1970s, the BBC ruined the story when they adapted Father Brown for television because the original story was so politically incorrect. Colonial didn’t try to airbrush the story. They let it speak for itself and produced a faithful and well-done adaptation of this mystery that centers around Britain’s leading optimist and teetotaler being found murdered. At first, there are no weapons found, and then all the sudden, there are too many. Father Brown says something’s wrong with the crime scene, that all these weapons are “not economical.”  Colonial does a great job telling the story. They even preserved the post-solution ending. It features Father Brown, after having unraveled one of the greatest mysteries in the history of detective fiction, going on about his rounds as a clergyman. That right there tells  you all you need to know about Father Brown.

The Invisible Man: A young man wants to marry a beautiful woman, but finds her being menaced by an invisible man. Threatening notes are left, but no one seems to be around. A threatening poster was put up, but no one was seen in the vicinity. Finally, a man is murdered under the watchful eyes of a man who swore that he saw no one go in.  What’s going on? This story like, “The Sign of the Broken Sword” is one of Chesterton’s most influential stories. It’s also, like “The Sign of the Sword” in that it’s incredibly hard to adapt based on the bizarre ending that Chesterton gave the original story. Colonial tries to work around this by having Father Brown narrate the story, which really doesn’t work all that well. Still, it’s a good story and other than Colonial’s attempt to deal with Chesterton’s quirky ending,  the adaptation is thoroughly enjoyable as well.

Overall Rating for the Set: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars.

Colonial turned out another great Father Brown set.

Sleuths of My Youth: Dr. Mark Sloan

Previous in this series: MathnetPerry Mason and Ben MatlockBatmanHardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift Sherlock Holmes, and Encyclopedia Brown.

This is the last installment in the series.

Diagnosis Murder came just as I was entering my teen years. The show was a long-time success for so many reasons throughout its eight seasons.

First and foremost was Dick Van Dyke, one of America’s most beloved actors, a TV legend whose Dick Van Dyke show was already an American classic. Van Dyke was charismatic and multi-talented, and he brought that to his role as Sloan.

Van Dyke was backed up by a strong supporting cast including Victoria Rowell as Dr. Amanda Bentley, the pathologist and Van Dky’es real life son Barry played his TV son Police Lieutenant Steve Sloan, and the younger demographic was served by sidekicks Dr. Jack Stewart (Charles Baio) and the Dr. Jesse Travis (Charlie Schlater). The likable and talented cast did a great job with each week’s program.

Van Dyke’s stature commanded great guest stars and the program offered all sorts of surprising crossover, including allowing Mike Connors to solve another case of Matlock and allowing Ben Matlock to appear on his third network. They also had several themed episodes were guest stars all had something in common. One such episode centered on an alleged alien abduction. Guest stars included Star Trek alum Majel Barrett,  Walter Koenig, Will Wheaton, and George Tekei as well as Lost in Space’s Billy Mummy.

As a mystery show, the program transition over time. It began as more of “Murder She Wrote” series with straight whodunits. Later seasons played around with different styles including Columbo-style inverted mysteries with Dr. Sloan as the relentless detective. Other episodes would be more soft boiled mysteries that Jessica Fletcher might easily undertake. Other episodes were action-packed adventures. The program mixed it up and managed to be great entertainment throughout its eight year run. It managed to show that a mostly PG detective story could be quite successful, even in the turbulent 1990s.

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EP0615:Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Blackmail Matter

John Lund

A man is murdered inside an insured’s health club.

Rehearsal of Program that Aired: May 5, 1953

 

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