Redbook Magazine has evolved over the years. The modern Redbook is a woman’s magazine, commonly sold in the checkout aisle with relationship and household stories featured prominently. In the early 30s, the magazine was a well-known publisher of short stories, and published a large number of female authors in what was a male-dominated field.

In 1932, Redbook’s short stories came to the radio under the title  of The Redbook Dramas. Redbook was an early example of the magazine to radio format. Reader’s Digest and others would eventually follow suit.

While more of a mixed bag than the Diamond Dramas, the Redbook Dramas still offer a decent quarter hour of entertainment. The stories feature range from adventures to romance, and even two fair detective stories make the cut.

Some of the better episodes:

A Pass to Peking:

A kindly school teacher smuggles a rickshaw driver on a train in a coffin, never knowing that he’s a well-educated military officer trying to escape from his enemies.

Under the Midnight Sun:

A whodunit featuring an Eskimo amateur detective.

You Have to Have Something:

A story of a woman in vaudeville who wants to make her partnership more than just a professional arrangement, but is frustrated by her partner’s interest in another woman.

Minister Wanted:

A good comedy-romance about an unlikely couple drawn together by being held by two desperate criminals.

There were lesser entries of course, “The Kid” was a little too unbelievable and the characters were not very relatable and “Lazy Bones” seemed just a little bit silly.  “England Will Stand” was not a favorite either and I felt more sympathy for the character they made out to be a buffoon than for the one who was supposed to be the hero, an advertising genius who stood firmly on the side of sex in advertising.

Beyond that, I should note that the ending of, “Anything You Want is Yours” was surprisingly suggestive for an OTR show, so parental discretion is advised.

Overall, there are far worse things that could be done with 15 minutes than sampling Redbooks Dramas.  19 episodes of the Redbook Dramas were collected by the Old TIme Radio Researchers and are available for download at the Internet Archive.

Photo courtesy of the Old Time Radio Researchers.

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The mid-30s was an era in radio of forgetable and forgotten 15 minute syndicated radio programs. They were produced, put on transcription disks, and sold to a small number of stations with no name stars. Even those who research the shows may have little information as to where they actually originated or who starred in them.

While some shows are easy to forget, there are some good programs from this era that have survived as Diamonds in the Rough. (Pun Intended.)

I first learned of the Diamond Dramas series from the Digital Deli‘s definitive log. It was  a series of twenty-six programs produced between 1926 and 1927 and first aired in 1934 over KDYL in Salt Lake City.

Each installment included a diamond as part of the plot and was based on actual events in the history of great diamonds including the Mogul Diamond. The stories were tightly packed with a mix of romance, intrigue, and drama. Each 15 minute episode contained 4 minutes of Music (meant for local commercial fills) and an eleven minute self-contained story. The majority of the stories involved royalty: Kings, Queens, Empires, and a mix of love, hatred, and the lust for power. The program had a tremendous scope with episodes set in Russia, India, France, Hungary, and England.  Among those historic personages featured are Napoleon, Mary Queen of Scots, Marie Antoinette, the Marquis De Lafayette, a couple of King Louies, and Catherine the Great.

Some of my favorites in this series:

The Mighty Akbar:

The Mighty Akbar rules India and possesses the great mogul diamond.Despite his best efforts, his wife doesn’t love him and would like to leave him. She plans to escape to her father’s people with Akbar’s diamond. The story takes a surprising turn

The Queen’s Diamond Charm:

Mary Queen of Scots is in France where Charles reigns but is a weakling controlled by his mother. Can Mary outsmart Charles’ mother to save the life of a kinsman as well as her own?

The King’s Astrologer:

The cynical astrologer of the superstitious and ruthless King Louie XI tries to get the King to surrender a valuable diamond to him. Louie decides have the astrologer killed instead. Another great twist ending to this one.

The Diamond Necklace:

Napoloeon III offers a young woman diamonds and jewels, and everything but marriage.

25 of the 26 episodes of the Diamond Dramas are available at the Internet Archive.

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We’ve already looked at detective shows on every major network including multi-network, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Mutual Detective shows.  Now we turn to programs that were aired in  syndication.

Syndicated programming allowed radio stations to fill blocks of programming not filled by network shows and allowed local and regional businesses that couldn’t afford to sponsor network programs.

While network shows were aired once and often lost, syndicated programs aired in different markets for decades after their original creation date which explains why many syndicated shows survive with almost entirely complete runs.  One challenged with syndicated programs is that it’s very hard to determine when shows were first aired, as any number of radio stations may have been the first to play the program.

As always, I asked our Facebook friends to vote and forty-eight  shared their favorites.

5) Mystery is My Hobby

Produced: 1947-49

Mystery is My Hobby starred Glen Langan as Barton Drake, a mystery writer who solves crimes. Each episode was a lighthearted whodunit aided by the upbeat suave performance of Langan as the sleuth. Langan was practically the opposite of Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled sleuth. You can’t get much further opposite of “Trouble is my business” than “Mystery is my Hobby.” At the end of each episode, Barton Drake would remind us that “mystery is my hobby.”

The show was originally called, “Murder is My Hobby” but while the staff thought the original name was funnier, the sponsor who paid for the show’s national run didn’t. The sponsor was Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company of Omaha.

The show features perhaps the most compliant police officer assistant for a sleuth in Inspector Noah Danton who is apparently allowed by his department to serve as the nearly full-time sidekick of Barton Drake. The two are rarely apart and Danton even accompanies Drake when he’s out of town.

Sixty-five years later, the episodes still make for fun and relaxing listening as for twenty-five minutes, mystery becomes our hobby.

Fan vote: 4%

4) The Adventures of Frank Race

Produced: 1949

The war changed many things – the face of the earth and the people on it.

This exciting syndicated series focused on an Attorney whose World War II service brought him into the O.S.S. After the war, rather than returning to the practice of the law,  he became a freelance troubleshooter. The cases that Race took on ranged from insurance cases to international spying. Thus, Frank Race’s adventures were  a mixture  of Johnny Dollar and the Man Called X.

The show was well-written with a fantastic theme by Ivan Ditmars. Frank Race was played first by Tom Collins (Eps 1-21) and then by character actor Paul Dubov (22-43). Tony Barrett throughout the series provided the voice for Cabbie Marc Donovan, one of radio’s most able sidekicks.  The show also featured some of radio’s best players as guest stars including Gerald Mohr, Frank Lovejoy, and Virginia Gregg.

Fan Vote: 0%

3)The New Adventures of Michael Shayne with Jeff Chandler

Produced: 1947-48

After the Mutual Network’s comedy mystery version of Michael Shayne ended, Bill Rouseau took his turn with the character. The result was one of the most sterling of the hard boiled detective shows.

While in the novels, Shayne lived in Miami, Rouseau placed Shayne in New Orleans, a city full of mystery and a perfect place for a Noirish radio series. Jeff Chandler played the role of the two fisted tough guy private eye. The show was also noteworthy, featuring Jack Webb in the recurring role as Lieutenant LeFevre, Shayne’s policeman foil.

The mysteries would never win an Edgar, with often simplistic solutions. However, during its 26-episode run, the show offered plenty of first fights, excitement, Mickey Finns, and femme fatales.  The New Adventures of Michael Shayne continued to be resold and resyndicated well into the late 1960s.

Fan Vote: 4%

2) Boston Blackie with Richard Kollmar

Produced: 1945-50

Boston Blackie was an epic character for around half a century with silent films, talkies, radio, and finally television. In 1944, Boston Blackie first came to radio with Chester Morris playing Boston Blackie,  the role he was most remembered for in films.  A syndicated version was launched by Frederick Ziv with Richard Kollmar, who was otherwise best known for the live morning radio show he did his wife, Breakfast with Dick and Dorothy.

When Boston Blackie made his first appearance, he was a thief. But by the mid-1940s, Blackie had abandoned his life of crime and was completely law-abiding.  He was “enemy to those who had no enemy and friend to those who had no friend.” Blackie’s problem was that someone hadn’t let Inspector Farraday of the police force in on the development. Practically every week, Inspector Farraday tried to arrest Blackie for a crime, usually murder, only for Blackie to escape  and present Farraday the real criminal, thus clearing his name and guaranteeing his freedom until next week. Over the years, Farraday does begin to ease up and have a more cordial relationship with Blackie. Hearing this development in the relationship between the two characters is one of the noteworthy characteristics of Boston Blackie.

Kollmar played the character as smooth, suave, and wise-cracking. Blackie could handle himself with a gun or his fists, and was a tough man for either the police or criminals to hold onto.

The show’s mysteries are a mixed bag of clever stories and somewhat obvious ones. The score uses a relatively light organ score which fits the mood of the show. It also didn’t have the high profile guest actors that other programs did, but it was still very popular with listeners.

While it wasn’t unusual for a syndicated show to have a second season of episodes, there were nearly 300 individual episodes of Boston Blackie produced, and if you have any doubts as to why the show lasted that long, you only need to take a listen to find out why.

Boston Blackie came to television for two seasons, in a mostly forgotten TV series that didn’t make anyone forget the movies or the radio show.

Fan Vote: 33%

1) Box 13 starring Alan Ladd
Produced: 1947-48

Dan Holiday, a reporter turned mystery writer comes up with an original way to come up with plots his stories, placing an ad in the paper, “Adventure Wanted: Will go anywhere, will do anything. Write Box 13 c/o of the Star Times.”

With Alan Ladd as both star and producer,  Box 13 became one of radio’s most exciting shows. As Ladd was not a professional detective, writers had a free hand in writing adventures for Holiday. His many adventures included infiltrating a car theft ring, going to the bayous of Louisiana to help a man who believes he’s under a voodoo curse, intrigue with a jewel thief in Paris, and encountering a murderous psychopath who has chosen Holiday as his next target.

Ladd’s acting was spot on and his resonant voice was perfect for radio. Ladd was able to draw some of the finest guest actors in radio including Gerald Mohr, Frank Lovejoy, and Alan Reed. Sadly, the program didn’t include credits, so for many guest appearances, we can only take educated guesses.

While the show had numerous writers, the scripts were usually good, though occasionally uneven.

Box 13 continued to be resyndicated into the 1990s. The program also helped Ladd to increase his popularity with the American public with Box 13 being a fantastic showcase for his talent. In 1954, Land reprised his role as Dan Holiday on television,  adapting the radio episode, “Daytime Nightmare” as an episode of the G.E. True Theater, “Committed.”

Fan Vote: 58%

Honorable mention:

Dr. Tim, Detective: This was one of the few mystery shows made for kids. The 13 episode serial is a pleasant mix of education and entertainment and education as Dr. Tim’s medical mysteries educated kids about such interesting facts as the uses of blood in vaccination and the treatment of tuberculosis. These 15 minute shows are well-done for both kids and adults.

This concludes our series. Thanks so much for following along.

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Below is a recap of both my rankings  in each category as well as how fans on Facebook voted:

ABC

My Pick	Facebook Pick
Pat Novak for Hire	Pat Novak for Hire
The Fat Man	Sherlock Holmes
Defense Attorney	The Fat Man
Sherlock Holmes (Tom Conway)	I Deal in Crime
I Deal in Crime	Defense Attorney

CBS

My Pick	Facebook Pick
Adventures of Philip Marlowe	Johnny Dollar
Yours Truly Johnny Dollar	Casey
Adventures of Rocky Jordan	Philip Marlowe
Broadway’s My Beat	Rocky Jordan
Casey Crime Photographer	Broadway’s My Beat

Mutual

My Pick	Facebook Pick
Let George Do It	Let George Do It
Nick Carter	Hercule Poirot
Casebook of Gregory Hood	Michael Shayne
Hercule Poirot	Nick Carter
Michael Shayne (Wally Maher)	Gregory Hood

NBC

My Pick	Facebook Pick
Dragnet	Dragnet
Night Beat	Nero Wolfe
Dangerous Assignment	Dangerous Assignment
Barrie Craig	Night Beat
Nero Wolfe	Barrie Craig

Multi-network

My Pick	Facebook Pick
Richard Diamond	Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes (Rathbone)	Richard Diamond
Sam Spade	Sam Spade
The Saint	The Saint
A Man Called X	A Man Called X

Syndicated

My Pick	Facebook Pick
Box 13	Box 13
Boston Blackie	Boston Blackie
Michael Shayne (Jeff Chandler)	Michael Shayne
Frank Race	Mystery is My Hobby
A Man Called X	Frank Race