Month: September 2019

Video Theater 165: Dragnet: The Big War

EP2943: Philip Marlowe: The Name to Remember (Listener’s Choice Standard Division T-3rd Place)

Marlowe is hired by the owner of a war surplus store to find out who’s following him.

Original Air Date: April 9, 1949

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Audio Drama Review: Sid Guy, Private Eye

This 2010 release features two feature-length audio dramas from Siren Audio Studios featuring the adventures of Sid Guy, Private Eye. Sid Guy is a private investigator in an unnamed American city.

The story is the definition of obscure with its no-name cast and little-known company. However, the story is pretty enjoyable. If you liked Murder by Death, The Cheap Detective, or Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, then this production was created with you in mind.

Sid Guy is a typical private eye, though with many quirks including a secretary who warns (without effect) when a woman asking for his help is  a femme fatale. Sid always discusses his cases with a bird and reaches the same conclusion every time: You are a pretty bird!

I enjoyed the first story more than the second. The first one worked as a good send-up of the directive genre. While it wasn’t directly parodying or playing off of The Maltese Falcon, it did have several nice nods to that and other stories. The second was fun, but it did have a few running gags that didn’t quite, some repeated gags from the first story, a little too much fourth wall breaking, and an ending that was a little too absurd for my tastes.

The acting and production values were on-par with the modern major North American radio/audio drama production companies I’ve heard such as Jim French Productions, Colonial Radio Theatre, and Decoder Ring Theatre except on sound design where Colonial is clearly better.

While it’s not a must-listen classic, it is the type of production that merits a cult following among those who love zany detective comedies.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

EP2942: Dragnet: The Big Switch

Jack Webb

Friday and Smith investigate the murder of a man whose watch and ring were stolen

Original Air Date: November 23, 1954

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EP2941: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: Witness, Witness, Who’s Got the Witness

Charles Russell

Johnny is hired by a bail bondsman to find two missing witnesses who were released on bond.

Original Air Date: October 22, 1949

When making your travel plans, remember http://johnnydollarair.com

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EP2940: Boston Blackie: The Five-Note Murder Clue

Richard Kollmar

A composer in a songwriting team is murdered while Blackie’s nearby.

Original Air Date: February 2, 1949

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EP2939: Rocky Jordan: Song in the Night

Jack Moyles

A man in a foreign legionnaire outfit is shot near Rocky’s home in the middle of the night, setting off a string of killings.

Original Air Date: May 28, 1950

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EP2938: Let George Do It: What’s Become of Terry Cable?

A bar owner hires George to find a customer who disappeared and hawked his watch.

Original Air Date: July 16, 1951

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EP2937: Barrie Craig: Zero Hour (Host’s Choice/Wild Card)

Barrie is hired by a man to go to Vermont to investigate a suspicious ski accident that left his estranged wife in a wheel chair.

Original Air Date: February 2, 1954

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Book Review: Night Watch

Note: A version of this review originally appeared in 2009:

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 indispensable 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 the book 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 pastiche 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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EP2936: Dragnet: The Big Dog

Jack Webb

An elderly man sits on a porch brandishing a shotgun and promising to kill the man who poisoned his fourteen year-old dog.

Original Air Date: November 16, 1954
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EP2935: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: Dr. Otto Schmedlich

Charles Russell

Johnny is sent to Los Angeles to find evidence of illegal activity so the company can cancel the policy of a doctor they suspect is a quack.

Original Air Date: October 15, 1949

When making your travel plans, remember http://johnnydollarair.com

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EP2934: Boston Blackie: The John Frawley Imposter Murder

Richard Kollmar

A man comes to Blackie asking for help claiming to be a man who was declared dead while in Africa.

Original Air Date: January 26, 1949

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Mail a donation to: Adam Graham, PO Box 15913, Boise, Idaho 83715
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EP2933: Rocky Jordan: The Beggar of Ferrar

Jack Moyles
A beggar is blamed for the murder of a wealthy businessman.

Original Air Date: May 21, 1950

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Support the show on a one-time basis at http://support.greatdetectives.net.

Mail a donation to: Adam Graham, PO Box 15913, Boise, Idaho 83715

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EP2932: Let George Do It: Lefty’s Angel

A big-time gangster is killed and George searches for the “angel” who enabled his criminal empire.

Original Air Date: July 9, 1951

Support the show monthly at patreon.greatdetectives.net

Support the show on a one-time basis at http://support.greatdetectives.net.

Mail a donation to: Adam Graham, PO Box 15913, Boise, Idaho 83715
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