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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YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR THE FALCON DANGEROUS ASSIGNMENT DRAGNET MR. CHAMELEON ELLERY QUEEN… and more!
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Recent Posts
Golden Age Article
Pat Novak Doesn’t Swear
by Yours Truly Johnny Blogger • 0 Comments
One of the great things about Old Time Radio is the lack of swearing on the shows. Many parents are thankful for this, and a lot of us would rather not hear it for whatever reason. However, I think the lack of swearing actually forced the writers to write better scripts.
When researching Pat Novak, I’ve found that’s he’s been twice published in modern books from Moonstone Books, which imagine him as an old man still kicking about, getting into trouble. As interested as I might be in these books, I’m almost willing to bet that the writers did something to Novak that would ruin the story. While I’ve not read the books (and maybe I could wrong), I’m willing to bet that in the updated version Pat Novak swears.
Of course, defenders of realism would say, Of course, Pat Novak swears. He swears like a tough waterfront boat operator, because he’s a tough guy waterfront boat operator.
Realism has a point, but if you’re wanting realism, the private detective genre is where to come. Most private eyes live a far more boring live than Novak and other detectives. What makes Pat Novak fun is the dialogue and what makes the dialogue fun is that Pat Novak doesn’t swear.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Novak’s a goody good. He’s got a big time bad attitude and is a smart mouth. In a modern detective show, much of the dialogue used to insult Hellman would be cast aside for the ever-convenient curse words.
But without the ever-reliable “four letter dictionary” available in the 1940s, Novak has to be creative in taking on Inspector Hellman:
Pat Novak: I’m walking out of your jail, Hellmann. You got a broken down .38 that won’t fit anything but your thumbs. You can’t hold me on that.
Inspector Hellman: I found you over the body. I can hold you on suspicion of murder.
Pat Novak: But it will hurt tomorrow morning, Hellmann. The paper’s will be down here for a follow-up, and you’ll have to tell them what it looks like out in left field.
Inspector Hellman: I’ll handle them.
Pat Novak: You can’t afford to have them start laughing at you. People will get the idea it’s your face.
Inspector Hellman: You can save carfare if you stay right here, because I’ll have you back by noon tomorrow.
Pat Novak: You’re not that good, Hellmann. You couldn’t hold a moth with a searchlight.
Pat Novak is the Poet Laurete of putdowns. The master of the stinging smart aleck remark. The show’s got a rythym, a certain poetry to it. No, it’s not realistic, but it’s better than realistic.
A swearing Pat Novak wouldn’t have to be near as creative, near as smart, or near as good as the trash talking waterfront rat who couldn’t talk trashy. A swearing Pat Novak isn’t Pat Novak at all.
1949-54 Johnny Dollar, CBS, Early Johnny Dollar, Podcast, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar
EP0020: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Robert W. Perry Case
by Yours Truly Johnny Blogger • 1 Comment
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Johnny Dollar is assigned as a body guard to a highly insured businessman, who dies as soon as Johnny arrives. Now he must find the killer and find out if the insurance company that’s retained him has to pay off.
Original Air Date: March 4, 1949
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ABC, Podcast, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Old Time Radio
EP0019: Sherlock Holmes: Murder by Proxy
by Yours Truly Johnny Blogger • 0 Comments
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Let George Do It, Mutual, Podcast
EP0018: Let George Do It: The Robber
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ABC, Pat Novak for Hire, Podcast
EP0017: Pat Novak for Hire: Fleet Lady
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Box 13, Podcast, Syndicated
EP0016: Box 13: Actor’s Alibi
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Book Review, Golden Age Article
Review: Nightwatch
by Yours Truly Johnny Blogger • 0 Comments
What would happen if the immortal detectives, Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown met with a brutal murder to solve?
This is the fascinating question posed by Rev. Stephen Kendrick’s 2001 Book, Night Watch. The plot of the story is that Sherlock’s Holmes’ brother, Mycroft, the British’s government’s most indispensible man as Sherlock Holmes described him, calls his younger brother in to investigate a murder. The rector of an Anglican Church is found dead in his church, with his body mutilated. The prime suspects: leaders of the world’s major religions who’d gathered in Britain for some inter-religious dialog. Father Brown is serving as an interpreter for a visiting Italian Cardinal.
The murder and its solution are fantastic. However, the story is dragged down because of some errors in Kendrick’s writing mechanics and also because Kendrick’s story was frequently derailed from the story to Kendrick’s religious agenda. In part, the book was written to back up Kendrick’s assertions in Holy Clues: The Gospel According to Sherlock Holmes which seems to suggest that in Holmes later days in became someone who could best be described as “spiritual and not religious.” Unfortunately, the author seemed to work too hard on this angle, which distracted from the main point that readers who weren’t enthusiasts of Universalism picked up the for: a murder mystery.
Kendrick’s treatment of Holmes, Watson, and Brown was good, but in places uneven. I found some of the conversations between Holmes and Watson not entirely believable and out of place in a mystery novel. Kendrick’s Holmes was a cut below Doyle’s in solving the case, and Kendrick tried a cheap out by simply saying that Doctor Watson’s accounts had been exaggerated or unrealistic. To be fair, Kendrick is hardly the first author of a Holmes pastich to use that out. What Arthur Conan Doyle created in Holmes was a bit of a mental Superman, and like Superman it’s very hard to come up with a worthy opponent for him. So, it’s far easier to move the character closer to reality.
His portrayal of Brown, while not having the flair of G.K. Chesterton, and leaving the character a little flat was still essentially the same orthodox Catholic priest that readers have come to know and love. Given that Kendrick, as a Unitarian Universalist, comes from a completely different theological perspective than Chesterton, he deserves to be commended for not trying to tamper with the character, as some interpretations have tried to change Brown into their vision of what a Christian should be rather than the character Chesterton created.
Of course, in a two-detective story, one detective usually draws the short straw, and Brown clearly has the back seat to Holmes. However, in Chesterton’s books, Brown off hung around in the background until coming forward to the solution to the crime.
Kendrick’s deserves credit for the audacity of it all. He’s the first author I know of to try and bring these giants of detecting onto the same stage. And he produces an interesting, albeit not completely satisfying tome. Here’s hoping that others will follow Kendrick, and this isn’t the last Holmes-Father Brown crossover we see.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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