Category: Golden Age Article

Golden Age Article

Bill Cosby’s Detective Show

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One of the Google searches that hit the site recently was for “Bill Cosby Detective Show.” People remember Bill Cosby for his Comedy, particularly the ratings sensation, The Cosby Show. But, Bill Cosby did try his hand as a TV detective.

 

It was 1994 and Cosby’s first project after the end of the Cosby Show and his choice was the Cosby Mysteries which followed recently retired police officer, Guy Hanks as he found himself retired after a heart attack and winning the lottery on the same day, but still drawn back to serve as criminologist solving cases for the NYPD or occasionally private clients.

The mysteries were well-written with surprising twist and turns, and plenty of tension. The character of Guy Hanks was typical Cosby. There was always the light touches that are in most Cosby Characters (going back to Kelly Robinson in I Spy.)  He and Police Detective Adam Sully (played by James Naughton) had good chemistry. He also had a good sidekick in aspiring young criminologist, Dante (Mos Def.) Cosby as an elder mentor always make for good entertainment.

The show had some fantastic episodes. My favorite featured Douglas Adams (writer of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) as a husband who runs into Hanks at the Party and has a discussion about the art of murder because he’s about to murder his own wife, and Hanks has to stop him without leaving the party.  In another, his Cosby show wife, Phylicia Rashad played an old flame and competing criminologist.

It was a fun show that sadly lasted only for 19 episodes. There are a number of reasons why. Cosby pointed to the timeslot quipping that with the Cosby Mysteries, “The biggest mystery was when it was on.”

The show may simply have come too late. Cosby chose to make the show a character-driven detective story rather than using violence and sensationalism to gain ratings.  The PG Detective shows that had been popular through much of the 1970s and 1980s with TV shows like the Rockford Files, Quincy, and Magnum PI, were passing from the scene.

Matlock had been forced to jump networks from NBC to ABC in 1992. The 1990s saw CBS fail with a revival of Burke’s Law and later in the 1990s drew a blank with Buddy Faro. Angela Lansbury continued to have success with Murder She Wrote, though that would also disappear in 1996.

The TV mystery and cop series that would take to the air in the 1990s and since have tended to be more lurid and violent, and to really sell the show based on that. Of course, there are exceptions, but the PG detective show may be the hardest one to make today.

The Cosby Mysteries’ biggest problem may not have been that there was something wrong with the series but not enough right. Two truly sucessful PG Detective shows that each managed eight seasons on the air were Diagnosis Murder. (1993-2001) and Monk (2001-2009). Both shows succeeded by being more than detective shows. The quirky Mark Sloan and the Neurotic Adrian Monk made for shows that you didn’t have to be a mystery fan to enjoy, with plenty of comedy. In Diagnosis Murder’s case, they also made use of guest stars, bringing several old TV detectives back to television such as Mannix, Adam 12 co-stars Martin Milner and Kent McCord, and Andy Griffith as Matlock, after Matlock was cancelled by a second network.

The biggest problem with the Cosby Mysteries was that its creators didn’t understand that a good mystery wasn’t enough to hold an audience. Still, fans of good mysteries would do well to give the Cosby Mysteries a look if they see it on reruns. Unfortunately, the show has not been released on DVD.

Golden Age Article

These are a Few of My Favorite Shows…

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Daniel over in the Dragnet Facebook page asked where I got my shows and what some of my favorites were. That was going to be a long answer, so I thought I’d make it a blog post.

First as to where to get the shows, here are four sites to try:

Archive.org Old Time Radio Collection

Calfkiller Old Time Radio

Radio Mick Danger

Tennessee Bill’s Old Time Radio Library

As to favorite shows, that’ll take a while. Let me go by categories:

Comedy:

If I want a good laugh, there are usually three shows I go for right away. Abbott and Costello are hilarious on the radio, even though they keep losing their place in their script they roll with the punches beautifully, their neo-Vaudeville jokes are hilarious and Lou Costello’s timing is dead on, plus they have fantastic guest stars including Bugs Bunny!

Bob Hope is fantastic as well. I didn’t watch too much of Hope’s older stuff growing up, but now that I’m older I’ve got a stronger appreciation of his style. Hope doesn’t give all the funny lines himself, but his guest’s material was written very well, so whether its Basil Rathbone, Jack Webb, or Chico Marx as his guest star, it’s a fanastic show.

I also like Life with Luigi. I actually heard about the show during a commercial break on Yours Truly Johnny Dollar and then listened to the show as a curiosity. It’s a very sweet comedy focusing on the little immigrant, Luigi and his struggles with life in America. A wonderful cast of characters and a beautiful show.

I also appreciate Fibber McGee and Molly and the Great Gildersleeve.

Detective Shows:

I have a list of all the Detective Shows I like and want to do. It’s pretty exhaustive. Picking favorites is hard, but here goes.

Dragnet was unique because it really combined the police procedural with real detective stories. It was truly a mystery show where we followed the law and solved the case with them. S.S. Van Dine once couselled detective story writers,  “No lesser crime than murder will suffice.” Webb managed to create human drama out of burglaries and passing bad checks, a tough feat to accomplish.

Let George Do It is truly an underrated prorgram. It managed to really create a unique character and story that defies people’s usual hard-boiled/soft-boiled division of detectives. Clearly George Valentine had elements of both. The mysteries were ususally cleverly written and the acting by Bob Bailey was superb.

Pat Novak for Hire with Jack Webb was truly one of the most unique shows on radio. Pretty edgy for its time, but they delivered more great lines than a Shakespearean Actor in a one man play. Had Jack Webb not done Dragnet, he may have seen some more limited stardom on this show.

 I also have to say I’ve become a fan of Yours Truly Johnny Dollar with its exotic locales, and its unique perspective of an insurance investigator as the protagonist make for a compelling story. Johnny Dollar is the ultimate troubleshooter and with over 700+ adventures in circulation, there seems to be an almost never-ending supply of action, adventure, and mystery. I really like the Russell, O’Brien, and Bailey versions of the character. I haven’t heard enough of Mandel Kramer and Bob Readick to make a judgment, and John Lund either (though Lund seems to be everyone’s least favorite Johnny Dollar.)

I didn’t linitially like Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigatorbecause of his identifying his job as a confidential policeman who could make arrests, but then I realized that was Gargan tweaking a genre that didn’t exactly treat things realistically. He’s the easiest going, sweetest private detective around who always believes his clients. Conversely, if you cross him, he’ll set you down quick. The show plays with the genre in a fun way.

Philip Marlowe with Gerald Mohr may just be the most perfect detective show ever made. Marlowe is a good man dealing in a world full of rough and dishonest ones with an impeccable sense of integrity. Mohr delivers Marlowe’s lines with a real sense of authority. More than any other adaptor of Marlowe, Mohr brings Marlowe to life. The beginnings of the show are iconic, “Get this and get it straight. Crime is a sucker’s road and those who travel it wind up in the gutter, the prison or the grave. There’s no other way, but they never learn.” And then Marlowe would tease the episode in a way that would intrigue so much you wouldn’t dare change the dial, “When it started, a girl’s wedding and New Year’s Eve were only six hours away. And I didn’t think the bride-to-be would make either one of them. But that was before I ran up against a slot machine operator, the escaped convict, and above all, the old acquaintance.”

Boston Blackie. There are nearly 200 episodes of this show in circulation, and it’s no wonder why. Blackie is a clever former crook turned ameature detective. He’s hunted by Inspector Farraday of Homicide who always blames crimes on Boston Blackie at first. One of the most unique things about the Ziv Transcription run of Boston Blackie was that the relationship between Farraday and Blackie changed over time into an actual friendship.

Broadway is My Beat: “from Times Square to Columbus Circle, the gaudiest, most violent, and lonesomest mile in the world.”  A great story about New York Police Lieutenant Danny Clover as he solves murders for the NYPD. There’s a great sense of poetry to the show that’s remarkable.

Drama

Family Theater is a huge favorite with great stories that truly touch the heart. Their uplifting and inspirational with great stars such as Bing Crosby, Jimmy Stewart, and Don Ameche coming on to do plays like “God and the Red Scooter” and “I Give You Maggie.” 

Cavalcade of America is a wonderful show about American history and values. They bring great stories to life. It’s truly educational. You could plug your kid into the 700 + episodes of Cavalcade of America circulating out there and they’d learn more about American history than is taught in schools these days.

The Shadow: I love the Shadow particularly the Orson Welles version. I think those early Orson Welles versions really are templates for everything that Superhero fiction became in its golden age. The later shows were okay, but not as good. Some of them got into too much horror, and we could be 20 minutes into the Episode sometimes before The Shadow made his appearance or disapperance, I guess. But, it’s still a classic.

Mayor of the Town is a classic show of small town life and public service starring Lionel Barrymore and Agnes Moorhead. I wrote about it in some detail here.

I Was a Communist for the FBI is gripping cold war spy drama done by Dana Andrews, and again a little bit of a tone of lament in it. “I’m a Communist for the FBI. I walk alone.”

You Are There: Another great show from CBS. This one was a news show that provided news-style coverage of historical events such as the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Assassination of Lincoln. I actually was in tears listening to the Lincoln drama. It was so affecting, that I felt strangely like it were happening live. My wife asked me what was wrong. I said, “The President’s been shot.” I clarified. “Not Obama, Lincoln.”  Dennis at the Digital Deli has a nice definitive log that arranges the episodes in historical order.

Horatio Hornblower: I like this show, though I don’t quite know why. The narratives are narrated by Horatio as an old man retirement who is remembering all of his adventures out of chronological order. Horatio himself is filled with self-doubts and insecurities. And he does some dreadful things.  Still, once you get to the actual action, it’s a remarkable show with some great adventures.

Ava Maria Hour’s Life of Christ: While I’m not Catholic, I do truly appreciate the Ava Maria Hour’s treatment of the life of Christ. First of all, it was a 44-part series which shows they took the time to really tell the story in depth. The dialogue was clearly written by scholars, but scholars with a good sense of story. To understand the story of Christ, you have to understand the times and the places in which he lived, and they worked a lot of background into the story in ways that were interesting and non-intrusive.

I also have a special place in my heart for Lux Radio Theater, Screen Director’s Playhouse,  and The Screen Guild Theater, three shows that brought movies to the radio. It’s a challenge, and I think that Lux usually rose to the challenge quite well, as they had about an hour, as did Screen Director’s Playhouse towards the end. With Screen Guild Theater, we tended to get more a selection of scenes from the story rather than a complete story. Still, if the scenes include Bogart as Sam Spade or Rick in Casablanca, I’d say its a pretty special show.

These are just a few of my favorities. The wonderful thing about radio is that it seems like there always more shows to discover, always more stories to hear, and I’m certain I’ll find more favorites as time goes by.

Golden Age Article

The Gold Standard for Radio Research

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I’ve added a new link to the sidebar, for the RadioGoldIndex.

The Radio Gold Index is an incredibly helpful radio research tool. It provides information on an exhaustive collection of golden age radio. The two most helpful functions in the site are the ability to search by program and to search by artist. With either search, you pull up a list of shows that usually include a synopsis of the plot and the known cast of the show. Thus, for most of old radio shows, the Radio Gold Index is the closest thing to episode guide, they’ve got.

The story of the proprietor, Mr.  J. David Goldin, his involvement in radio preservation, and how he accumulated his extensive collection is also a fascinating story in itself. One of my favorite parts of the story is where Goldin finds himself a victim of some journalistic mythmaking:

A former reporter for the Boston Globe did a story about me once in a trade publication. Describing me as “a young man (who) worked weekends at an important New York radio station,” he quoted me as saying that I “showed up at the rear of the radio station…loaded (transcriptions of) old shows into the back of a truck” and made a small fortune by “pilfering” those great old shows. Before calling my lawyers, I tracked the writer to his retirement home in Florida and gave him a call. We had a pleasant chat and he later admitted (in writing) that his “facts” were based on an interview he did with me “20 or 25 years ago” and that “I was relying on my memory (of that interview). There may have been some minor errors.”

Minor errors would be an understatement. Goldin describes the actual way he accumulated his collection and the truth makes for less journalistic fodder, but is still a fascinating read that I enjoyed for the pure value of understanding where these shows come.  You can read the rest of the story here.

Of course,  Goldin’s database isn’t perfect and he concedes as much on the front page. There are a few errors to be found such as Goldin listing a Sam Spade Episode from 1949 as guest starring Jack Webb when Webb’s show Johnny Madero was mentioned but Webb himself never made an appearance.  The problem is that The Radio Gold Index is so respected that its errors are copied by other sites.

However, even with the occasional hiccup, it is still a fascinating, mostly accurate tool that gives you a window into the history of the golden ages greatest shows.

Golden Age Article

How a Movie Becomes Public Domain

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You see them in the video stores. Movies that always seem to be available from a wide variety of different companies, TV shows in cheap packaging such as Burns and Allen and Sherlock Holmes. Most of these productions are in the public domain, but how did they get there?

This is a topic I’ve studied up on as we’ve added public domain movies to the Podcast. I’ve learned just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s in the public domain. There are two ways that movies enter the public domain:

1) The Copyright has expired

Prior to the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976, movies and TV shows had a copyright term of 28 years, which was renewable for another 28 years. The Copyright Act of 1976 extended the term of all works that had been renewed and were not already in the public domain for an additional 19 years. In 1992, Congress gave all works that were made before 1978 and had not entered the public domain an automatic renewal for 47 more years. In  1998, Congress approved the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension act which further extended copyrights already in existence for 20 more years.

So, what does this mean? There are several classes of films.

Films made before 1923 are almost certainly in the public domain. If a film was made in 1922 and renewed its copyright in 1950, and then been given a 19 year extension of copyright by the Copyright of 1978, the film would have entered the public domain in 1997.

For films made between 1923-1964, it’s a bit more tricky. It depends on if the film’s copyright was renewed or not. If a film was made in 1923, the copyright was renewed in 1951 and given a 19 year extension by the ’78 Copyright Act, it would have come into the public domain in 1998, except for Congress’ extension which means it won’t come into the public domain until 2018.

If on the other hand, a TV episode was made in 1963 and never renewed, it would have fallen into the public domain in 1991.

A copyrighted movie or TV show made after 1964 would have had its term extended from 28 years to 95 years through acts of Congress even if the owners had long since abandoned the work.

This doesn’t mean all works made after 1964 aren’t in the public domain. There’s another a class of works that includes more recent films.

2) The Homer Simpson Class of Works

Okay, this isn’t a term of law. However, the explanation of how the work ended up in the public domain would have earned an appropriate, “Doh!”

Before March 1, 1989, all works were required to have a copyright notice included. If you didn’t have a valid notice, the work wasn’t under copyright protection. This is really a small class of films. The most famous was the horror classic, Night of the Living Dead.  Those films that were made after 1964 that are in the DVD bin are mostly made for TV movies. Made for TV films with few exceptions have rarely had big resale values, and many of the films didn’t bother to take time to copyright something that would be watched today and forgotten tomorrow.

Of course, this doesn’t mean all films without a copyright notice made prior to 1989 are in the public domain. (No, that would be too simple.) After the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976, copyright owners had five years to correct the problem.

And of course, this doesn’t even begin to touch on the issues of foreign films, which is actually making its way through the courts. Or other little exceptions that some clever lawyers for multinational corporations can find if they put their minds to it, but this gives you the general idea of how it happens.

Golden Age Article

RIP Robert Culp

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Robert Culp has passed away. As with other older actors whose work I shouldn’t be familiar with, I’m a big fan of Culp’s and Bill Cosby’s I Spy. I have it on my Netflix Instant watch queue. It was truly cool and showed forth wonderfulness. Even 40 years later it stands up pretty darn well. And Culp will definitely be missed

Bill Cosby paid tribute to his friend :

“The first-born in every family is always dreaming for an imaginary older brother or sister who will look out for them,” Cosby said. “Bob was the answer to my dreams.”

If you haven’t seen I Spy, I’ll give you a fair chance to avail yourself if you’ve got 51 minutes to spare. (yes, in the 1960s, you actually could get 51 minutes of show in an hour.) And if you’ve got another fifty minutes check out Greatest American Hero, a 1980s show featuring Culp.

Golden Age Article

Cartoons that Loved the Classics

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Outside of watching a lot of old movies growing up, thanks to my dad, if I were to attribute my love of classic films and radio to anything modern, I’d have to say that the Steven Speilberg cartoons of the early-to-mid 1990s would be a strong candidate.

Steven Speilberg produced not one, but three seperate cartoon series, which stand out from most modern series in that, to one extent or another, they each payed homage to the classics that came before. The goal was to produce shows that parents could watch with their children and both have a good time.

Tiny Toons Adventures brought back some of the classic cartoon characters as professors at Acme Looniversity. One episode in particular involved one of the young cartoon characters trying to bing a long forgotten 1930s cartoon.

Animaniacs billed itself as a real throwback to the 1930s, with its premise that the three stars had starred in old style cartoons and then been locked in a water tower for over sixty years until “they escaped.” The comic stylings of Yacko Warner were very reminsicent of Groucho Marx.

But perhaps the most nostalgic of the three shows was Pinky and the Brain. The show’s plot centered around two lab mice with designs on World domination. One was a frantic manic scatterbrain, while the other was a high IQ mouse that dreamed of world domination.

The show was perhaps the most intelligent cartoon show of its time. Its plots borrowed heavily from classics of television, film, and literature, as well as its satire of modern popular culture. Pinky and the Brain offered their takes on Around the World in 80 Days,  The Third Man, and one plot even involved the Brain’s plan to take over the world through the power of radio with a parody of The Shadow. The Brain also plots to take over the World using Orson Welles famous War of the Worlds broadcast as a basis for his plot.

The Brain was consciously modeled in many ways after Orson Welles, and his entire character is somewhat reminiscent of Orson Welle’s Harry Lime. His goal of world domination should make us hate the Brain, but the audience can’t help but like him, and even pity him as he goes through his many trials.

Maurice LaMarche who did the voice of the Brain is a big Orson Welles afficianado. One of the more interesting Pinky and the Brain shorts had LaMarche recreating Orson Welle’s famous pea soup commercial in a G-rated version.

While many of the episodes have become dated by references to politicians like Clinton and Gingrich, the most timeless ones were those that took a look back to some of the best of the past.  For more on the links between Brain and Orson Welles, read here.

Golden Age Article

The Old Time Radio Show That Was Never Cancelled

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“All good things must come to an end,” the old saying goes and in radio that was definitely true. Whether it was Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, the Bickersons, the Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, or Dragnet, they all bit the dust.

Well, almost all. One show that began during radio’s golden age continues to broadcast new dramas every week.  You can subscribe to the podcast online. 

Unshackled began broadcasting sixty years ago this year and has never stopped. I’d listened to Unshackled in the past, but hadn’t for a few years. When I pulled up one of the more recent episodes, I was reminded of how rare the show is. It was announced this was 3079th weekly edition of Unshackled. 

The number is mind boggling. More than 3000 weeks on the air and headed for the big “60” in the next few months.

Unshackled is a Christian Drama sponsored by Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. It tells a true to life story each week, usually revolving around someone whose life was somehow touched by the ministry of Pacific Garden Mission, which focuses on outreach to the down and out, but it may also talk about people who were impacted by similar organizations around the country.

The show can a bit preachy, and yes, there’s plenty of Bible-quoting in the episodes. But the show has endured because of the true-to-life quality of the stories told.

One great example is the Bob Saler story arch. Mr. Saler’s life and times included being a Prisoner of War during the Korean War, getting bit by a Cobra, and having his professional life threatened with a spurious lawsuit.  That’s some life.

And that’s what keeps Unshackled on the air. The show also still has a strong old time radio touch. The music is old school, with the same music playing now that the show has played for sixty years. You can even walk in and listen to a recording session, which occurs every Saturday Afternoon.

The show is the odd survivor of the Old Time Radio era. Having begun when radio drama was king and continuing on through the years, it can boast of being heard on 1,800 radio stations around the world in more than 140 countries, and in 8 languages.

What else can be said about radio’s longest lasting radio drama other than, “Happy 60th Anniversary!”

Golden Age Article

History, The Way It Wasn’t

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Time for an inaccuracy rant. History.com posted this item for today in History for February 13, celebrating the debut of “Jack Webb’s first crime drama” on February 13, 1949 when Pat Novak began airing. 

The problem?

Webb had been doing crime dramas for nearly 2 1/2 years. He’d done an undetermined number of Pat Novak episodes in San Francisco in 1946-47 and then did 20 weeks of Johnny Madero on Mutual and 23 weeks of Jeff Regan on CBS before Pat Novak’s national premier on ABC in 1949. 

It’s great that history.com remembered Jack Webb. It’d be nice if they got their facts straight. I’d ask for the just the facts, but Joe Friday never said that either.

Golden Age Article

I Vote For The Mayor of the Town

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I make it a policy not to discuss politics on this blog, but I did want to reccomend one politician worth voting for-the Mayor of the Town.

Mayor of the Town was a radio series that ran for 7 years and I first encountered it last weekend while researching the career of Bob Bailey who made a guest appearance in the 1942-43 season.

The Mayor was portrayed by Lionel Barrymore, and those who only knew Barrymore from It’s a Wonderful Life as Mr. Potter  should give this series a listen. Barrymore’s Mayor is a fascinating character. He’s less the modern understanding of a mayor, and more the picture of the town elder from centuries past, who is to every person in town a father and friend who offers wise counsel and encouragement. In the ten episodes I’ve heard, no plot centers around the Mayor expending taxpayer funds, making a law, or applying any government force.

The Mayor is kind, wise, and patriotic. He’s the type of person people could look at and say, “I’d like my son to grow up and be like that.”  Indeed, the Mayor, a childless widower helped to raise many children in the community.

However, this is during World War II, and the Mayor’s love of the people of his town can often be heartbreaking. A lifelong friend blames the Mayor when his son dies at war.  The Mayor faces a difficult decision as to whether to tell a young nurse to join the Nurse’s corps or to get married and stay home. He prays, “God, bring them all home safe” while knowing that prayer can’t be answered.

The Mayor encounters the victims of a war: A British war orphan who cringes in terror when a plane passes overheard, a polish musician who is slowly losing the ability to hear even the beautiful music he plays thanks to being near a bomb blast near Warsaw.

The Mayor  is the master of the great speech, exhorting people to courage and patriotism in the face of adversity. To the modern ear, the Mayor may sound too preachy in his patriotism, particularly to people facing difficult life decisions.

But in the 1940s, the words of the Mayor were something different. Real people were facing these real life and death problems. They were Blue Star widows and war orphans, and people who had to make the decision to leave all their hopes and dreams behind, not knowing if they would return. And maybe the Mayor’s words could give them the courage to do it.

The show is a piece of Americana, even the commercials for Rinso reminding people that there would be no washers made for the duration of the war spoke to the austerity and shared sacrifice of the time. The Mayor of the Town is a wonderful trip back to give you a window into what made the Greatest Generation so great.

Of course, the whole series was not “all about war,” there was the somewhat odd “Papa Bear” episode, as well as typical drama-comedy fare, but Lionel Barrymore as the Mayor the scripts take on a life of their own.

Unfortunately, the episodes are not in the greatest condition. Mostly not so great .mp3s. However, the show is so good, as is Mr. Barrymore and his co-star Agnes Moorhead that I’d reccomend people take a listen to The Mayor of the Town and recapture the spirit of ’42.

Click here to listen to the first ten episodes that are available on Archive.org.

Golden Age Article

Did Agatha Christie Inspire the Creators of Box 13 and Let George Do It?

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The great Agatha Christie may have inspired the creation of two of vintage radio’s best mystery detective series.

In Box 13, Dan Holiday ran an ad to get his adventures, “Adventure wanted — will go anywhere, do anything ”

In Let George Do It, George Valentine got his cases through a similar newspaper ad. Throughout the series, the exact wording changed, but the most famous version was, “Personal Notice: Danger is my stock-in-trade. If the job is too tough for you to handle, you’ve got a job for me, George Valentine. Write full details.”

While doing some research regarding a listener question about Agatha Christie in Old Time Radio, I may have stumbled on what inspired both sets of writers.

Agatha Christie wrote a book in 1922, featuring two detectives Tommy and Tuppence, a young man and young woman that set out to find work after the first World War. They formed the Young Adventurers, Ltd. How did  they propose to make their business work? Advertising in the newspaper. And what did their advertisement read?

“‘Two young adventurers for hire. Willing to do anything, go anywhere. Pay must be good. No unreasonable offer refused.”

Sounds very close to what George Valentine and Dan Holiday offered, and given the popularity of Christie, it seems quite likely that she inspired the use of this particular device.

The Secret Adversary, in which the Young Adventurers was formed is one of only two Agatha Christie works in the public domain in the United States and is available for reading at Project Gutenberg.

Golden Age Article

Review: Radio Archives: Let George Do It, Volume 1

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Let George Do It, starring Bob Bailey has more episodes in circulation than Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.

Combined.

With the exception of one episode featuring Ken Peters, and another featuring Alan Soule, all the episodes star Bob Bailey as a detective that defies the traditional Hard-Boiled/Soft-Boiled division with his mix of solid action with incredible mind-blowing solutions to his cases.

However, the Great Detective’s adventures remain somewhat incomplete. Digital Deli estimates there were 420 episodes in Let George Do It’s 1946-54 run. While, its possible given what little we know about the last two years of the show’s run, that it could have been slightly less than that, what’s indisputable is that half of George Valentine’s radio adventures have been missing.

Radio Archives helps to fill this gap a little bit with its Let George Do It collections. As Let George Do It was winding down its main run on Don Lee Mutual, Harry Goodman productions was syndicating earlier episodes in Canada. Radio Archives has released these syndicated episodes and many of them are episodes that are lost from the Don Lee syndication and not in general circulation.

I received Volume 1 for Christmas and was quite pleased with the set. The audio was fantastic. While I have no problem sitting through crackily mp3s, the sound quality on these CDs is astounding and a nice bonus.

But of course, the big prize was the episodes themselves, fifteen of which are not in general circulation, and of the five that are in circulation, I’d only heard one previously. So, this was a real treat.

These are my favorite episodes:

  • What Became of Terry Cable?
  • Sucker Stunt
  • The Fearless Clown
  • The Ant Hill

However, every episode was a pleasure to listen to, and I can hardly get Volume 2.

My only complaints are that the announcer that Harry Goodman used to replace the Standard Oil announcer Bud Hiestrand was downright irritating for the first nine or ten episodes, though that is hardly Radio Archives fault. Their back cover copy also states George Valentine was a an ex-police officer when he was an ex-GI.

However, these are minor issues for such a great release.  I heartily reccomend this for high quality episodes that are out of circulation.

Book Review, Golden Age Article

Book Review: The Innocence of Father Brown

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Father Brown, as best I can tell is the second among the Great literary detectives, right after Sherlock Holmes. In some ways, Father Brown was a continuation of what Chesterton wrote in his classic Orthodoxy. 

The intellectuals of Chesterton’s time viewed the orthodox Christian as superstitutious, weak-minded. Chesterton, in Orthodoxy asserted his vision of orthodoxy was something entirely different: It was conscious, sensible, winsome, and wise. 

Two years after writing Orthodoxy, he rapped it in a Cossack, embodied it in the person of Father Brown, a physically unremarkable and humble priest, who uses his wisdom, common sense, and experience as a confessor to solve even the most baffling crimes.

It should be noted that contrary to what many people have said, Chesterton was not a Catholic at the time he wrote the first Father Brown stories from 1910-1914. That conversion wouldn’t happen until the 1920s. However, he already knew the priest who would facilitate his confession and Father John O’Connor was the basis of the character.

To enjoy Chesterton’s books, you have to appreciate a couple of things. First of all, many are unlik e any detective stories we read today.  While there’s plot and action, the main focus is the puzzle, not character development. Outside of Brown, most of the characters remain very flat. Either they’re stereotypical Frenchmen, Calvinists, Rich Men, or Atheists. They’re there to provide their piece of the puzzle and then get on with it.

 There’s also not any sense of danger or mayhem. There’s little violence onstage, although Chesterton can come up with some quite ghastly ways to kill a man. If you like your detective fiction hardboiled, well, I’ll be honest, this isn’t Pat Novak.

This is a battle of wits between you and Father Brown, and most of the time you’re going to lose quite badly. The plot unfolds to reveal the puzzle, Father Brown solves the puzzle and the story ends-often abruptly.

What carries the stories is Chesterton’s voice which I find delightful, even when reading a book one hundred years after the time. Chesterton uses his prose like a painter uses paint, true artistry that’s understandable to a modern reader.

Father Brown is an incredibly fun character, who when he speaks, he says something important. Brown was the first in a long line of unlikely detectives that would include heroes such as Charlie Chan and Inspector Columbo: the last person in the world that the criminal would be worried about finding them out. But somehow, he solves the case with a completely unexpected solution.

There are a total of twelve stories in the collection, each constituting a different mystery. Several were exceptional to me:

The Blue Cross: The first Father Brown story and perhaps his most iconic tale. When Chesterton originally published this short story in 1910, readers must have been shocked to see Father Brown emerge as the hero. As through the whole of the mystery, the focus had been on a police detective. But already, the makings of the great detective were in place. He would often hang back as a background figure until stepping forward to solve the case. When that first story was published in September, 1910, a literary star was born.

The Invisible Man: This was a fitting case, because it not only provided an extraordinarily surprising solution, but also an insight on how Father Brown surprised so many with his observations.

The Three Tools of Death: This is the first Father Brown story I heard an adaptation of, and after reading it, I appreciate it even more. The solution is a gigantic surprise. It’s also a reminder that many of the descriptions, Chesterton gives at the start of the story, he’s giving the readers what the popular view of a character is, not necessarily what the person is really like.  You may leave the story with an entirely different view from popular opinion.

The Sign of the Broken Sword: This had to be my favorite in the collection. To give you an idea of how different these stories are from modern mysteries, the entire case takes place on an entirely different continent from where the mystery occurred, and no witnesses are actually questioned. The story centers around a simple enough riddle. 

Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest?

From there, the case proceeds to a startling conclusion, all without leaving a forest,  an Ocean away from the scene of the crime.

On the negative side, I thought the Honour of Israel Gow was slightly absurd. I think Chesterton was trying to make a point about his perception of Calvinist legalism, but it fell a little flat. I also thought the solution in the Wrong Shape was not the right shape of Chesterton’s best Father Brown stories, but it was still passable.

Overall, I found the stories enjoyable and would encourage others to read them. You can read the entire book online or you can buy it on Amazon. (affiilate link.)

Golden Age Article

Pat Novak Doesn’t Swear

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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.

Book Review, Golden Age Article

Review: Nightwatch

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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

Golden Age Article

The Guide to OTR Distribution Models

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There are a number of ways to get an Old Time Radio fix. Each has advantages and disadvantages to it.  There’s some debate back and forth between various sites. I think each can meet the needs of a specific base of fans.

My purpose is not to reccomend any specific products, hosts, or services, only to give the interested fan a look at the benefits and drawbacks of each way of accessing Old Time Radio.

It should also be said that just because there are disadvantages to a method doesn’t mean the medium is bad, just giving pros and cons.

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