Month: April 2021

EP3439: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Merrill Kent Matter

Edmond O'Brien

Johnny goes to a small town after an anonymous tip comes in indicating that the death of an insured who was thrown from a horse might not have been an accident.

Original Air Date: November 17, 1951

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EP3438: Mystery is My Hobby: Bullets Make Holes

A man kills his business partner but claims he mistook him for a prowler.

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EP3437: Man Called X: Professor Czorny Has Disappeared

Herbert Marshall

A famed scientist has disappeared and a music box sent in the mail sends Ken Thurston beyond the Iron Curtain to Czechoslovakia.

Original Air Date: November 3, 1950

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EP3436: The Fat Man: Murder Makes a Silent Partner (AU)

A young man comes into the Fat Man’s office with a gun and demands that Brad not take the case of a man looking for his missing daughter, so Brad takes the case.

Original Air Date: April 14, 1955

This episode brought to you by Wooga and their podcast June’s Journey: The Lost Diaries

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EP3435: Casey, Crime Photographer: Photo of the Dead

Stats Cotsworth

Casey is determined to bring a phony spiritualist to justice who swindled an old friend out of his life savings and drove him to his death.

Original Air Date: July 24, 1947

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Video Theater 202; The Case of the Bad Bargain

A treasury man poses as an opium dealer in order to catch a ring of opium smugglers.

Season 5, Episode 12

Original Air Date: December 23, 1954

DVD Review: Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple – Movie Collection

The four 1960s Miss Marple films starred Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple. For purist fans of Agatha Christie’s spinster detective, these films don’t offer much. Only one of the four was based on a Miss Marple book while two others were based on Poirot stories and one of the four was an original story. Some have compared these films to Peter Ustinov’s Poirot films in the 1970s and 80s, but to me that misses the mark. Ustinov’s Poirot films were at least nearly recognizable as the same character and stories despite the changes.

The only way to enjoy these four films is on their own merits and by that measure they do work. Miss Marple finds herself in one murder mystery after another. It begins with Murder She Said, when she sees a murder through a window while riding a train and is disbelieved by the local Detective Inspector (Bud Tingwell) and she’s assisted in solving it by her friend, the local librarian Stringer (played by Rutherford’s real-life husband Stringer Davis.) The formula of her getting involved in murder and having the Inspector treat her like she’s a meddling amateur and her being vindicated in the end is the way all three films go that see her investigate murders at stables, at a rooming house, and at sea. And she also generally gets an unexpected marriage proposal.

The series gets a little goofier, though mostly in a good way, as it goes along with a lot of tongue and cheek humor. I might compare it in some days to a somewhat more restrained version of the approach to the 1966 Batman TV series with a bit more of a British pantomime take to its comedy, as there are very broad characters who are well-played.

The writing is decent, although the last film Murder Ahoy (the only original story) was a bit weaker than the rest of the series. However, the weaknesses in the script are made up for by the performance of Lionel Jeffries gives as the ship’s captain as he helps sell the dodgier aspects of this story.

The music is light, with a cheery upbeat tune that wouldn’t fit most productions based on Agatha Christie’s writing, but fits this one like a glove.

This is one of the coziest mystery movie series you’ll find. If you like that sort of film and can tolerate its deviation from its source material, this is a delightful romp that’s worth viewing.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

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EP3434: The Silent Men: The Bogus G.I.

A Department of Defense Agent enlists the help of a mother of a soldier killed in action to capture the gang that conned her out of her life savings.

Original Air Date: December 16, 1951

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EP3433: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Birdy Baskerville Matter

Edmond O'Brien

Johnny investigates a policy holder who has received death threats and the policy holder is shot and killed moments after Johnny leaves him.

Original Air Date: November 10, 1951

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EP3432: Mystery is My Hobby: Ghost Didn’t Walk

Barton Drake and Noah Danton are called in by a small-town constable to investigate a murder of an old man involving a ghost.

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EP3431: The Man Called X: A Journey to Xenophon

Herbert Marshall

The Man Called X travels aboard a cattle boat to the Greek Island of Xenophon in hope of recovering stolen radioactive isotopes.

Original Air Date: October 27, 1950

This episode brought to you by Wooga and their podcast June’s Journey: The Lost Diaries

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EP3430: The Fat Man: Murder Shows a Phantom Face (AU)

The eldest daughter of a deceased wealthy man calls Brad in because she believes a member of the household murdered her father.

Original Air Date: April 7, 1955

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EP3429: Casey, Crime Photographer: Casey and the Self-Made Hero

Stats Cotsworth

Casey tries to help a young man who created a hoax to make himself look like a hero to impress a girl.

Original Air Date: July 17, 1947

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Audio Drama Review: The Patrick Scott Smokin’ Mysteries

To enjoy the Patrick Scott Smokin’ Mysteries, set the right expectations. These are not typical half-hour or hour-long mysteries. Rather, they’re about 4-6 minutes in length and meant to be enjoyed in short bursts, preferably with family. They are more about puzzles, brain teasers, and trivia than whodunits. Think more Encyclopedia Brown than Hercule Poirot.

In one episode, a series of clues were used as two police officers were engaged in trying to find where a suspect was heading and the police officer would intercept with the key being the listener’s ability to guess which street they were heading to. Of course, real police officers have a knowledge of a city’s street set up, so there’s no mystery in real life. The set up reminds me of detective-themed riddle books.

However, once you understand the set up, these are enjoyable diversions. Each episode follows Lieutenant Patrick Scott, Jr. (Scott Brick), his father, retired Captain Patrick Scott, Sr. (Patrick Fraley), or another family member or police officer as they try to solve a puzzle generally involving a crime. The set up will generally be a single scene (or two) where clues are gathered and then the listener is given about a minute of “mystery-solving music” to think about it and/or discuss the case with others who are listening before the solution is revealed.

The mysteries are decent brain teasers. There’s some humor that’s amusing, if not laugh out loud hilarious. The stories  are all fairly clean at a G or PG rating level. The mystery-solving music is pleasant, usually a bit of soft jazz, though they do mix it up a bit, particularly in three episodes that feature an Irish informant who makes the police solve his riddle in order to get clues.

Scott and Fraley are both old pros at the voice acting game and have recorded hundreds of audiobooks. Fraley (who also wrote the production) did a lot of voices for animation, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. From my childhood, he was the voice of Wildcat on Talespin and many characters on the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon including Krang the Conquerer and Baxter Stockman. Fraley was a regular fixture as an animation character actor as so many of his credits are for “additional voices.” All that to say, both are top people in the voice acting profession and delivered the performances you’d expect. Brick’s Patrick Scott, Jr. sounds exactly like the ex-Private Eye he’s supposed to be and the narration is flawless. Meanwhile, Fraley’s Senior is endearingly irascible and fun to listen to.

Beyond the leads, this is very much an ensemble production with actors having to switch from one role to another frequently and without making your characters sound all the same and everyone did a good job of that. There was only one character that seemed off, but given the sheer number of mini-mysteries in this set, that’s a good average.

The last twenty minutes or so of the disk feature a Q&A session with Frank Muller, a pioneer in the audiobook world who’d recorded books for many authors including Stephen King. Muller had just recently passed away and this was offered as a tribute to him. To me, it was an interesting insight into how good audiobook narrators ply their trade. If that doesn’t excite you, then you may not get much out of that portion.

Overall, this is an interesting release. It’s well-acted with good sound, although minimalistic, and is good for short diversions. It’s best to listen to one or two mysteries at a time when travelling with kids and looking for something to do in the car. With that approach, the more than two and a half hours of puzzle mysteries will last a good while.

Rating: 4 out of 5

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EP3428: The Silent Men: Pirates, 20th Century Brand


A CIA special agent sets out to find Japanese gold stolen by airpirates.

Original Air Date; December 9, 1951
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