We continue our look at actors who played villains in the 1966 Batman TV series. This time, we turn to Art Carney who played the Robin Hood-inspired criminal the Archer in the Season 2 opener, “Shook a Crook Arrow” and “Walk the Straight and Narrow.”
We take a look at an episode of the 1950s NBC Sitcom The Magnificient Montague, a sitcom about an out-of-work Shakespearean actor forced to secretly take a job as the lead in a radio soap opera.
In this episode, plans for the celebration of the Magnificient Montague’s (Montey Wooley) silver jubilee in the theater are complicated by the arrival of his father, the Great Montague (Carney). Things get even worse when Montague’s Father learns of Montague working anonymously on a soap opera and threatens to expose him if he doesn’t quit.
Original Radio Braodcast: January 5, 1951
Starring: Montey Wooley as the Magnificient Montague, Art Carney as the Great Montague, Anne Seymour as Lily, Pert Skelton as Agnes, John Gibson, John Griggs
After the podcast, I talk about the Season 2, Two-Parter “Shook a Crook Arrow” and “Walk the Straight and Narrow.” from 1966.
The District Attorney is poisoned with a cocktail before a banquet honoring a crusading reporter.
Original Radio Broadcast Date: April 23, 1945
Today’s program was provided by Radio Archives. Email detectives@radioarchives.com to get a free audiobook, a free ebook, and free old time radio collection.
Originating in New York
Starring: Ned Wever as Bulldog Drummond; Luis Van Rooten as Denny; Larry Haines
We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, we take a look at Cesar Romero’s guest appearance in the first episode of the 1986 mystery series Blacke’s Magic.
Blacke’s Magic was NBC series in which Hal Linden (Barney Miller) and Harry Morgan (Dragnet and Mash) play son and father. Linden is Alexander Blacke, a stage magician who also serves as a part-time consultant to the police on seemingly impossible cases, and Morgan is an old-school conman who will often lend his son some assistance. The series was created by mystery legends Richard Levinson and William Link.
The series was preceded by a pilot TV movie. This episode firmly establishes the status quo for the new ongoing series, as Alexander is called in to investigate the seemingly impossible disappearance of a 10-ton statue brought from a museum where it had been brought by an Italian businessman (Romero). The CCTV was running and nothing appeared on camera. It appeared to have vanished without a trace.
Cesar Romero displays the typical charm and charisma that made him so fun to watch throughout his career, whether playing a dashing hero in the 1940s or the Clown Prince of Crime. He’s a delight to watch in this, even though it becomes clear from early on that he’s behind this. This isn’t really a spoiler as this episode is less about “whodunit” and more about figuring out why and, more importantly, how.
The solution to the case is actually pretty clever, although there are a few finer points of it which would warrant an expert in 1980s technology weighing in.
Linden and Morgan play well off each other, with Linden making for a believable magician, and the more sober and responsible of the pair, while Morgan captures the lovable rogue with eccentric quirks that call to mind his character on Dragnet, Bill Gannon, despite having been on the opposite side of the law. The episode did have a subplot of a glory-hungry insurance agent (Jane Badler) trying to hog media publicity that takes up time but is really hard to care about.
The series, which ran for only thirteen episodes, is a real curiosity. The concepts seem to be an amalgam of ideas from other obscure detective programs. The prominence of the “impossible crime” element is reminiscent of Banacek; the protagonist being a magician calls to mind Bill Bixby’s series The Magician, and one of our leads being a conman calls to mind Tenspeed and Brownshoe. These were all programs that aired within the previous fifteen years. Like Blacke’s Magic, none of these made it long-term.
Beyond that, this is a series that doesn’t feel like the decade that produced it. I don’t say that as a criticism but more as an observation. This doesn’t feel like it fits into the same decade that gave us Murder, She Wrote; Magnum, PI; Matlock; Simon & Simon; and the Perry Mason movies. Only the trappings (clothes, cars, and some of the elements of the solution) feel of its time. The style of the story and the way the two leads relate wouldn’t have been out of place in a 1940s B-detective film. I liked it, but I could definitely see why audiences in 1986 might not have gone for it.
Still, this was a fun curiosity, boosted by a strong performance from Cesar Romero.
We continue our look at actors who played villains in the 1966 Batman TV series. This week, we turn to Cesar Romero, who played the Clown Prince of Crime, The Joker.
We takea look at Sangaree from the Lux Radio Theatre, where Romero plays an ex-indentured servant and doctor who returns from the Revolutionary War to fulfill the dying wish of his benefactor, and goes to Georgia to run the family plantation over the objection of the deceased’s headstrong daughter (Anne Blythe) and has to deal with lawsuits, pirates, and plague.
Original Radio Broadcast Date: January 25, 1955
Cast: Cesar Romero as Dr. Carlos Morales; Arlene Dahl as Nancy Darby, Lamont Johnson, William Conrad, Carleton Young, John Sutton, Herb Butterfield, Frances Robinson, Edward Marr, William Walker, Jack Kruschen, Leo Britt, Bill Bouchey
After listening to and discussing the program, we talk about the Joker two-part episode from season one: “The Joker Trumps an Ace’ and “Batman sets the Pace.”
While Drummond and Denny are dining at a restaurant, Denny’s hat and umbrella disappear. Then Denny is arrested for murder based on the hat and umbrella being found at the murder scene.
Original Radio Broadcast Date:April 16, 1945
Originating in New York
Starring: Ned Wever as Bulldog Drummond; Luis Van Rooten as Denny
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