Month: February 2023

U.S. Marshal: MaryJo is Missing (Video Theater 243)

Marshal Morgan learns that an old friend has gone missing and her husband is acting suspiciously.

Original Air Date: May 30, 1959

Season 1, Episode 34

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Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Chesapeake Fraud Matter, Parts One and Two (EP4012)

Bob Bailey

Today’s Mystery: Johnny goes to Baltimore to investigate a credible report of a dead insured man whose policy was paid out, being seen alive in Denver.

Original Radio Broadcast Dates:October 17 and 18, 1955

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Sam Spade: The Overjord Caper (EP4011)

Today’s Mystery: Sam is hired by a wealthy woman to recover stolen uninsured jewels.

Original Radio Broadcast Date:June 5, 1949

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Hollywood Sound Stage: Call Northside 777 (EP4010s)

Dana Andrews

Today’s mystery:

A reporter responds to the ad of a mother who wants someone to clear her son of the murder of a police officer twelve years before.

Original Radio Broadcast Date: December 27, 1951

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Tales of the Texas Rangers: Address Unknown (EP4010)

Today’s Mystery:

A young mother sends her ten-year-old son to get water, but when he returns with a farmer, she’s gone.

Original Radio Broadcast Date: April 27, 1952

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Four Treasures for Fans of Golden Age Entertainment on YouTube

YouTube hosts a massive number of videos (800 million). On that massive site, there’s a lot that’s bad and a lot that’s good. Yet, if you’re a fan of the Golden Age of Entertainment, there are some things to specifically look out for, some treasures you might find among the flotsam and jetsam of YouTube. Here are four things worth checking out:

The Colgate Comedy Hour:

The Colgate Comedy Hour was a massive comedy program, hosted each week by different comedy legends including Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Eddie Cantor, and Jimmy Durante, among others, in programs featuring live comedy and music. The programs didn’t have their copyright renewed and became public domain and a lot of them landed on YouTube. Watching them is definitely a time capsule experience with some fun performances as well as a few hiccups. Many of the Martin and Lewis episodes have survived. There’s a YouTube playlist with twenty-eight of them. Given the short-lived nature of the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis partnership and its lasting cultural impact, these are worth a look.

The Abbott and Costello episodes have served to confuse some fans to the benefit of sellers of DVDs. Many DVDs with public-domain episodes from their Colgate Comedy Hour sketches were labeled as part of “The Abbott and Costello Show.” However, the Abbott and Costello show was a separate production with fifty-two half-hour episodes that are copyrighted and sold by others. So it’s the difference between a live TV show starring Abbott and Costello, and a taped show called The Abbott and Costello Show. I’d clarify further, but this will turn into a column equivalent of Who’s on First

Commercials and PSAs:

Golden Age stars often found their way into commercials and PSAs, particularly when targeted to an older audience. Consider Jim Jordan (aka Fibber McGee) cutting an ad for the AARP, or Jack Webb urging people to sign up for medicare, Edgar Bergen and his dummies Charlie McCarthy, and Mortimer Snerd promoting Parkay. Jimmy Durante poking fun at his tendency to mispronounce words in a Corn Flakes commercial, or Bing Crosby making an earnest plea for Ducks Unlimited.

Commercially Unviable Entertainment Gold 

YouTube takes down a lot of copyrighted material at the request of the rights holders. However, there’s a lot of television from The Golden Age that’s technically under copyright but is not commercially viable. So there’s no one filing takedown requests on what are effectively orphan works and these TV programs find a home on YouTUbe.

While many believe that classic stars faded from the public conscience after the end of the Golden Age of Radio, these programs show how many continued to have interesting careers filled with fascinating appearances and team-ups.

Durante got to see his impact on younger generations of comedians and musicians when he teamed up with a young Bobby Darin, who did an uncanny impersonation of Durante. Durante also got to a duet on “Old Man Time” in 1965, an appropriate choice for two entertainment legends that were near the end of amazing careers.

Edgar Bergen and his wooden pal Charlie McCarthy also had a long career that extended to close to the end of the 1970s. McCarthy ribbed Orson Welles at his AFI lifetime achievement award, crossed swords with Dean Martin and often made fun of Bergen for his lips moving.

There were also some special moments honoring the Golden Age of Radio while stars were still living. In a segment from a 1978 special honoring the 75th Anniversary of Kraft Foods, hosted by Bob Hope, brought the Great Gildersleeve (aka Harold Peary), as well as Bergen and McCarthy, to viewers’ screens to pay tribute to those good old days.

4) Reaction Videos

There’s nothing quite like discovering something wonderful for the first time. There’s a special moment where you see a movie and it blows you away on that first viewing. While your understanding of a piece of art might deepen, there’s no chance to really experience that excitement for the first time.

The closest thing to it is watching someone else experience it for the first time. That’s why I have enjoyed quite a few YouTube reaction videos reacting to classic works. Short-form reactors will most often watch skits from Abbott and Costello, particularly Who’s on First.

Others react to movies. There’s a joy in seeing someone discovering a brilliant work like Casablanca or Twelve Angry Men for the first time. However, my favorite film to see a reaction to is It’s a Wonderful Life. I was part of a generation that grew up on this film. When It’s a Wonderful Life was considered in the public domain, it was on all the time and I loved it as it kid. It aired not just at Christmas time, but programming-hungry networks showed it at any time of the year. In fact, I remember watching it in July. Doubtless this is true of many folks who grew up before 1993 (when Republic Pictures pulled a legal rabbit out if its hat to force It’s a Wonderful Life out of the public domain). Truth is I can’t even remember what it was like to have not seen this movie.

That’s why I love reactions to it: to see the bits of the film that surprise them, that move them, and how they see these characters that I’m so familiar with. It can also help me see it in a fresh since I watched it so many times when I was a child and they’re coming to the film the first time as an adult. Seeing someone whose often very different from me connect to a movie I love and seeing what they see has not only allowed me to vicariously share their experience but also often deepened and enhanced my appreciation of the film.

Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Molly K Matter, Parts Three, Four, and Five (EP4009)

Bob Bailey

Today’s Mystery:

Johnny begins the search for a cook that was presumed dead in the wreck of the Molly K, but who Johnny suspects is both alive and responsible for the explosion.

Original Radio Broadcast Dates: October 12, 13, and 14, 1955

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Philo Vance: The Chicken Murder Case (EP4008)

Today’s Mystery:

A racketeer’s thug, whose name is Chick, is murdered, and chicken blood is found on his body. This leads Markham to conclude that chicken blood flowed through the murdered hood’s gang.

Original Radio Broadcast Date: February 7, 1950

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Screen Guild Theater: Heavenly Days (AWR0211)

Amazing World of Radio

After hearing a voice, Fibber McGee goes to Washington to speak for the common man.

Original Radio Broadcast Date: February 10, 1947

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Dangerous Assignment: The Football Play (EP4007)


Today’s Mystery:

Steve goes to North Indo-China (modern-day Vietnam) to retrieve an American clerk who’d been framed as a spy and then captured by guerillas.

Original Radio Broadcast Date: November 25, 1950

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Yours Truly Johnny Dollar: The Molly K Matter, Parts One and Two (EP4006)

Bob Bailey

Today’s Mystery:

Johnny investigates the suspicious sinking of a cargo freighter.

Original Radio Broadcast Dates: October 10 and 11, 1955

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Sam Spade: The Battles of the Belvedere (EP4005)

Today’s Mystery:

Sam is called out to Belvedere Island to protect an artist who fears for his life.

Original Radio Broadcast Date: May 1, 1949

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Lux Radio Theater: Laura (EP4004s)

Laura Film Poster

As he investigates the murder of a young advertising executive (Gene Tierney), a police detective (Dana Andrews) begins to fall in love with the murdered woman.

Original Radio Broadcast Date: February 5, 1945

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Book Review: The Golden Box

In the Golden Box (1942) by Frances Crane, Jean Holly returns to her small town to care for an ailing relative.The town matriarch dies, and then it appears that a servant has hanged herself, although some think foul play is involved. As it so happens, a detective friend named Pat Abbott comes down to get to the bottom of what’s really going on.

The book is officially listed as the second in the Pat and Jean Abbott mysteries, although that’s a bit of a misnomer, as they’re not married in this book. However, it’s the earliest available book featuring the two I could find.

The book has one glaring problem – for most of its length, it’s very boring. The characters and locale are mostly just there, functional, and nondistinct.The dialogue is much the same, and it makes for a monotonous and tiresome read. Even the relationship between Jean and Pat isn’t all that interesting, and there’s no real hint of a romantic spark between the future married couple. I found myself thinking I’d rather read another Larry Kent book than this. Yes, the book I reviewed was a bad book, but at least it was bad in an interesting way. This book could have been livened up an exposition leprechaun popping up out of nowhere to cut a few dozen pages from this book.

The book does have a few good points. The mystery is slow getting started but is actually fairly good. Jean does have a few moments where her personality shines through, such as when she complains about how unattractive men who do the dishes are (hey, it was the 1940s), and Jean as narrator shares her thoughts on the mystery and helps to stimulate the reader’s interest as well.

Still, The Golden Box is a bit of a slog to get through. That said, I’m not entirely writing off the possibility of reading another novel in the series. This one feels a bit atypical. Jean being at home with her own extended family puts her clearly on the inside with all of the murder suspects and supporting characters, knowing them and integrating back into that world.It’s an awkward position for a secondary character/narrator in a mystery novel. I’d be curious how the characters would play in a less pedestrian setting, and after they’re married.

The Pat and Jean Abbott Mystery series went on for more than 20 novels and while none are classics, it’s hard to believe they were all this dull.

Rating: 2.25 out of 5

 

Tales of the Texas Rangers: Illusion (EP4004)

Today’s Mystery:

A homemaker claims someone is trying to kill her.

Original Radio Broadcast Date: April 20, 1952

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