Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

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America's Number One Detective Oct 03, 2017

Show notes

Of all the actors to play private eyes and gumshoes during the Golden Age of Radio, William Gargan may have been the most uniquely qualified. Ironically, while success as a detective seemed to elude him, he enjoyed a great deal of success by playing detectives on film, television, and radio.

His father was a bookie, and as a boy Gargan would accompany him when he made his collection and payment rounds. During Prohibition, he dropped out of school and became a salesman of bootleg liquor to speakeasies in New York; his sales partner during this time was Dave Chasen, who would later go on to open Hollywood's Brown Derby restaurant. The two would remain lifelong friends. For a time, Gargan worked as a collection agent for a department store. On one of his jobs, he was shot at by an irate customer. He lost another job as an operative for a detective agency when the subject he was assigned to follow eluded the tail.

Gargan found more success as an actor than he did as a detective. He turned to acting in the 1920s and appeared in dozens of films, including two turns as Ellery Queen in 1942. In 1946, Gargan had his first run at radio crimesolving, starring as private eye Ross Dolan in ABC's I Deal in Crime (launched alongside another ABC detective series, The Fat Man with J. Scott Smart). That series only ran for eleven months, but Gargan found more success a few years later on NBC radio and TV as Martin Kane, Private Eye. Gargan starred in the radio and TV series for two years before frustration over the quality of the scripts drove him out. As Gargan later recalled in his 1969 autobiography, "Very soon in the game, I realized our stories were nothing to rave about. How much well plotted story line and genuine character development can you accomplish in a half-hour? So I made the program a showcase for me. After all, that was what we were selling - Martin Kane. I developed a tongue-in-cheek style, a spoof of the hard-boiled detective, a way of silently saying, 'Don't blame me for the lousy stories, I didn't write them. And anyway, what's the difference? Relax.'"

Given his attitude towards the caliber of radio detective scripts, it may come as a surprise that Gargan came back for another run as a radio shamus. Maybe it was because he was past his leading man prime in 1951 when the offer was made to star in a new series on NBC. It might have been the money that was on the table; NBC brought him to their network with a $1 million contract for five years. The deal covered the new series and other radio and TV appearances.

The series was launched as part of NBC's silver anniversary celebration under the title The Adventures of Barrie Crane. Gargan used the spelling of his own son's name for the title character, and while the character's surname switched to "Craig," the characterization was intact from the beginning. Craig was a wry, sly operator in the mold of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. He narrated his adventures with a tongue in cheek style that kept the hard boiled business in check. He was loyal to his clients and friendly with the police (in the person of Ralph Bell's Lt. Rogers). From 1951 until July 1954, Barrie Craig was broadcast from NBC in New York. For the last run of the series, production shifted to Hollywood. It left the air in September 1954 but returned for a 39 week run beginning in October before Barry Craig closed his last case.

Sadly, William Gargan's acting career came to an end only a few years after Barry Craig left the air. He returned as Martin Kane for 39 syndicated episodes in 1957, but throat cancer diagnosed in 1958 ended his work on the screen. Doctors removed his larynx in 1960 and he was outfitted with a voice box. He spent the remaining years of his life as a crusader and activist for the American Cancer Society, cautioning against the dangers of smoking. The Screen Actors Guild honored his career and his philanthropic work when it awarded Gargan with their lifetime achievement award in 1967. He passed away at age 73 in 1979. Cancer may have taken William Gargan's voice, but his talent and his performances will live forever in these wonderful mystery shows from the Golden Age of Radio.

Episode 245 - Matinee for Murder (Broadway is My Beat) Oct 01, 2017

Show notes

It's Broadway – "the gaudiest, the most violent, the lonesomest mile in the world." Join Detective Danny Clover as he fights crime in the Big Apple in one of the all-time great radio detective shows Broadway is My Beat. Larry Thor stars as Clover, the cop with the soul of a poet who wears his heart on his sleeve, in a show unlike any other radio crime drama. We'll hear "The Secretarial School Triangle Murder" (originally aired on CBS on April 12, 1952) and "The Manipulative Magnate Murder" (originally aired on CBS on June 13, 1953).

Happy Birthday, William Conrad Sep 27, 2017

Show notes

Even if you don't know his name, chances are you know William Conrad's voice. You may know it from the jovial narrations of the adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle or the somber voice-over that followed Richard Kimble, The Fugitive. Maybe you'll recall his heavyset but still hard-nosed private eye Frank Cannon or the rascally courtroom antics of J.L. "Fatman" McCabe. Or you may remember him as Matt Dillon, "the first man they look for and the last they want to meet," on the old time radio classic Gunsmoke. Audiences had ample opportunities to meet the actor in his five decades in show business, and it all began when he was born September 27, 1920.

Conrad was born John William Cann, Jr. in Lexington, Kentucky, and he began a career in radio as an announcer and writer for a Los Angeles station before he entered the Air Force in World War II. Like other radio professionals who were enlisted men, he worked with the Armed Forces Radio Service. After the war, Conrad was in demand as a supporting radio player. He could be heard in a variety of roles, with a seemingly endless variety of accents and characterizations, on shows like Escape, Suspense, The Man Called X, and The Adventures of Sam Spade. Some believed he was heard a little too often, and perceived overexposure almost cost Conrad a shot at what would prove to be his biggest radio role.

Producer-director Norman Macdonnell had been tasked by CBS President William Paley to develop a series that would be a "Philip Marlowe of the Old West." Paley was a big fan of Macdonnell's The Adventures of Philip Marlowe starring Gerald Mohr, and wanted a show with a similar feel. (Coincidentally, Bill Conrad filled in for Gerald Mohr and played Marlowe in "The Anniversary Gift," the April 11, 1950 episode of the series. You can hear it in Episode 43 of the podcast.) Up until that point, radio westerns were primarily kids' stuff. The Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, and others rode the range in what amounted to little more than B-movie entertainment (no knock against those shows; it is thrilling to hear the Ranger and Tonto chase down bandits, but compelling drama it is not). Just as Jack Webb brought grit and realism to the police drama with Dragnet, Macdonnell and scriptwriter John Meston saw an opportunity to revitalize the western. When it came time to cast their lead of Matt Dillon, the US Marshal who tried to keep the peace in the "suburb of hell" known as Dodge City, Kansas - Meston pushed hard for William Conrad. CBS had other ideas.

Conrad recalled years later, "I think when they started casting for it, somebody said, 'Good Christ, let's not get Bill Conrad, we're up to you-know-where with Bill Conrad.' So they auditioned everybody, and as a last resort they called me. And I went in and read about two lines…and the next day they called me and said, 'Okay, you have the job.'"

Gunsmoke premiered on April 26, 1952, with a powerful script involving Matt Dillon facing down a lynch mob. The episode (listen to it here) erases any doubts as to whether William Conrad was the right choice for the role. Backing him up every week was one of radio's strongest regular casts. Parley Baer was Dillon's easygoing deputy Chester Proudfoot; Howard McNear was the wry Doc Addams; and Georgia Ellis was Kitty, the saloon owner (and, although it was never explicitly said on the show, prostitute) and Matt's love interest. Rounding out the supporting company every week was a repertory company of actors assembled by Macdonnell, including John Dehner, Larry Dobkin, and Harry Bartell.

There were attempts to bring Gunsmoke to TV as early as 1953, and by 1955 CBS was ready to move ahead. Conrad, Baer, Ellis, and McNear were given token auditions, but none were seriously considered to reprise their roles on the small screen. Conrad never had a shot due to his growing obesity; the network believed viewers wouldn't believe the short, heavy actor as the rugged hero, even though he effortlessly sold the role on radio. Losing the role to James Arness left Conrad embittered. He'd continue to work in radio until the end of network radio drama in 1962, and he went on to a career off-camera in television. Conrad directed episodes of Have Gun - Will Travel, 77 Sunset Strip, and even the TV version of Gunsmoke. He narrated the adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and the exploits of Richard Kimble on The Fugitive (it's from his prologue to that series that we get our podcast title this week - "Fate moves its huge hand.")

A starring role on the small screen came at last in 1971 when Conrad starred as the titular character in Quinn Martin's Cannon. It was the glorious era of "gimmick" TV detectives - Longsteet was blind, Barnaby Jones was old, Kojak was bald, and Frank Cannon was...portly. But Conrad's performance elevated the series above the "fat detective" concept. The private eye drama ran for five seasons and earned Conrad two Emmy Award nominations. Conrad gave TV one of its most memorable detectives, and Cannon's adventures continue to air today in syndication.

There was an attempt to revive Cannon with a 1980 TV movie, and the following year Conrad played Nero Wolfe in a short-lived series on NBC. Conrad was a tremendous fan of the character, and you can tell he's having a ball opposite Lee Horsley's Archie Goodwin. Unfortunately, the series only aired for 13 episodes before it was cancelled. Following a well-received turn as a D.A. opposite Andy Griffith on Matlock, Conrad returned to the small screen in a starring role in 1987 with Jake and the Fatman. Conrad played J.L. "Fatman" McCabe, a Los Angeles prosecutor who relied on investigator Jake Stiles (Joe Penny) to do his legwork (shades of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin again). The show ran until 1992.

Conrad passed away February 11, 1994 at the age of 73. In 1997, he was posthumously inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. With thousands of performances across dozens of shows, Conrad's voice will live forever, wherever Rocky and Bullwinkle get into misadventures or whenever Matt Dillon is forced to draw his gun to keep the peace.

Episode 244 - The Final Matters Matter (Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar) Sep 24, 2017

Show notes

On September 30, 1962, the Golden Age of Radio came to a close with the final broadcasts of Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. The man with the action-packed expense account solved crimes right up until the end of the era as he wrapped up a thirteen-year career of radio crimefighting. For those final years, Mandel Kramer starred as America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator, and we'll hear his final radio adventures: "The Deadly Crystal Matter" (originally aired on CBS on September 23, 1962) and "The Tip-Off Matter" (originally aired on September 30, 1962).

"The man in the saddle" Sep 20, 2017

Show notes

"The man in the saddle is angular and long-legged. His skin is sun-dyed brown. The gun in his holster is gray steel and rainbow mother-of-pearl, its handle unmarked. People call them both 'the Six Shooter.'"

Today in 1953, James Stewart rode on to the radio range as Britt Ponset, the wandering plainsman and infamous gunfighter known far and wide as The Six Shooter. In his only regular starring role in a radio dramatic series, Stewart lent his trademark screen persona to the character of Ponset, a hero who had to reluctantly live up to his reputation as he traveled the plains. With Stewart's amazing performance in the title role, engrossing scripts, and a talented troupe of supporting players, The Six Shooter stands up today as one of the finest frontier offerings from the Golden Age of Radio.

Each week, Ponset drifted into a new town and a new adventure. He encountered everything from gunslingers looking for revenge to a dangerous sibling rivalry on a cattle drive to being strong-armed into marriage. Whether the story of the week was intense and dramatic or played for laughs, Stewart was an amiable hero. His drawl was put to excellent use as the show's narrator, and he would drop his voice to a whisper as Ponset crept up on a gun-toting villain.

The series was created by Frank Burt, the writer who two years later penned Stewart's film western The Man from Laramie, and it was directed by Jack Johnstone (who later helmed the Bob Bailey era of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar). Despite the caliber of talent on and behind the microphone, the show ended after only 39 episodes. For most of its run The Six Shooter aired without sponsorship, but it wasn't because potential sponsors weren't interested. Jack Johnstone later recalled "Chesterfield begged and begged and begged for months trying to get sponsorship, but Jim didn't feel that, because of his screen image, it would be fair for him to be sponsored by a cigarette." Without sponsorship, even the best shows fell to the rise of television in the early 1950s, and Britt Ponset rode off into the sunset on June 24, 1954.

Episode 243 - Big Easy Beat (New Adventures of Michael Shayne) Sep 17, 2017

Show notes

Jeff Chandler trades the biology lab for the back alleys and swamps of New Orleans as Brett Halliday's "reckless, red-headed Irishman" Michael Shayne. Chandler, known to radio fans as bashful science teacher Philip Boynton in Our Miss Brooks, gave radio one of its toughest, most two-fisted private eyes in a sensational syndicated series. We'll hear Chandler as Shayne in all of his ultra-hard-boiled glory in three radio mysteries: "The Hate That Killed," "The Case of the Deadly Dough," and "The Case of the Bayou Monster."

Happy Birthday, Edmond O'Brien Sep 10, 2017

Show notes

Academy Award-winning actor Edmond O'Brien was born September 10, 1915. In a career that spanned five decades, O'Brien was one of the all-time great character actors of the big and small screens. But to old time radio fans, O'Brien is best known as "the man with the action-packed expense account" – Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. O'Brien starred as Dollar from 1950 to 1952, and to many fans (this writer included), he's second only to Bob Bailey in the ranking of actors who played "America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator."

O'Brien worked onstage before he made his film debut in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). It led to a long film career where he turned in memorable performances in White Heat and – in a kind of test run for Johnny Dollar, O'Brien starred in The Killers (1946) as an insurance investigator probing the murder of Burt Lancaster's Swede. In 1950, O'Brien starred in one of his most famous movies – the film noir classic D.O.A. where he played a poisoned man investigating his own murder.

That same year, O'Brien assumed the title role on Johnny Dollar and he would star as the sleuth for 103 episodes. O'Brien succeeded Charles Russell, who voiced Dollar for the program's first year. Russell was sardonic and sly, a lighthearted character more in the vein of a Dick Powell radio detective (Richard Diamond or Richard Rogue of Rogue's Gallery). As played by Russell, Johnny Dollar was described "at insurance investigation, he's only an expert. At making out his expense account, he's an absolute genius." The tongue-in-cheek grifter aspects of the character were exiled when Edmond O'Brien stepped in. His Johnny Dollar was no-nonsense, two-fisted, and tough. It wasn't hard to imagine him taking hits from an office bottle while he waited for the phone to ring and bring him a new assignment.

Interestingly, O'Brien had a shot at a radio series one year earlier. In May 1949, he recorded an audition program for Night Beat in the role that would eventually be played by Frank Lovejoy. While I think O'Brien would have been good in that show, I think his tougher approach was better suited for Johnny Dollar. Frank Lovejoy's more compassionate take was a better fit for the character and the series.

Elsewhere on radio, O'Brien made four visits to Suspense ("radio's outstanding theater of thrills") and he could be heard on Family Theatre and The Lux Radio Theatre. One of his memorable appearances on Lux came in the program's November 28, 1949 recreation of Key Largo with O'Brien playing the Humphrey Bogart role in John Huston's film.

Throughout the 1950s and his tenure on Johnny Dollar, O'Brien continued to appear in films but his fluctuating weight made it difficult for him to get leading roles. He continued to do strong character work – as a mobster in Pete Kelly's Blues and in an Oscar-winning turn opposite Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart in The Barefoot Contessa. He'd pick up a second nomination for what I consider one of his all-time best performances – as an alcoholic Senator enlisted to defeat a military coup against the President in John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May (1964).

O'Brien transitioned into television in the 50s even as he continued to star on the big screen. He played another private eye in the syndicated series Johnny Midnight (1959-60) and he starred as a flamboyant San Francisco attorney in Sam Benedict. The single-season show was created by E. Jack Neumann, a veteran radio writer who'd penned episodes for Johnny Dollar during O'Brien's run on the show. Elsewhere on television, O'Brien made guest appearances on many classic shows of the 60s and 70s, including Mission: Impossible, The Streets of San Francisco, and McMillan and Wife. His final credits came in 1974 before memory problems (later diagnosed as Alzheimer's Disease) led him to retirement. Alzheimer's would ultimately claim him at age 69 on May 9, 1985. Though he died far too young and was forced to retire before his time, Edmond O'Brien left behind a legacy of amazing performances both on screen and on radio in over 100 episodes of "action-packed expense accounts" as Johnny Dollar.

Episode 242 - Pat-a-Cake (Pat Novak For Hire) Sep 10, 2017

Show notes

If you head down to Pier 19 at the San Francisco waterfront, you'll find Pat Novak For Hire renting boats and doing anything else to keep a few steps ahead in one of radio's best noir detective dramas. Featuring duplicitous dames, gun-toting toughs, and dialogue right out of a pulp novel, the series packed a punch then and now. Jack Webb stars as Novak in a pair of episodes: "Father Leahy" and "Geranium Plant." Then, Ben Morris is Novak in "The Mysterious Set of Books" (originally aired on ABC on August 10, 1947).

Close Shaves Sep 07, 2017

Show notes

"It's smooth - so smooth! It's slick - so slick! It's the smooth, smooth, slick, slick shave you get with M-O-L-L-É!"

Presenting "the best in mystery and detective fiction," The Mollé Mystery Theatre premiered on radio on September 7, 1943. Like Suspense, the Mystery Theatre presented dramas designed to deliver thrills and chills pulled from the best authors of the genre and stocked with some of the best actors working in radio. But where Suspense raided the movie studios of Hollywood for its special guest stars, the Mystery Theatre rounded out its casts with the talented men and women working in New York radio.

In a departure, the master of ceremonies wasn't a sinister storyteller in the vein of The Whistler, The Mysterious Traveler, or the Man in Black from Suspense. The weekly tales were introduced by "Geoffrey Barnes," billed as a criminologist and master of crime. For most of the run, Barnes was played by the talented New York actor Bernard Lenrow. Lenrow was no stranger to the world of radio mysteries. Listeners could hear him elsewhere on the dial as Captain Logan in Casey, Crime Photographer, as Inspector Lestrade in The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and as Commissioner Weston in The Shadow.

Each week, Barnes introduced stories from writers like Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Richard Connell, and even an up-and-coming writer named Ray Bradbury. The casts included stalwart radio players like Berry Kroeger, Martin Gabel, June Havoc, Frank Lovejoy, Elspeth Eric, Bud "Superman" Collyer, and Richard Widmark, only a few years away from his breakout Oscar-nominated film debut in Kiss of Death.

The series picked up Mollé ("Mo-lay") Brushless Shaving Cream as a sponsor (and acquired one of radio's best jingles delivered by announcer Dan Seymour), but many of the episodes of the show that survive today come from the Armed Forces Radio Service. The AFRS stripped the show of its commercials and aired it as part of its Mystery Playhouse wheel series. Servicemen and women could tune into the Mystery Playhouse and hear installments of the Mystery Theatre alongside adventures of Mr. and Mrs. North and The Thin Man. Peter Lorre served as the host for those broadcasts, opening the series with a tongue in cheek greeting of "Hello, creeps!"

Back on Episode 131, we heard an episode of the The Mollé Mystery Theatre - a radio adaptation of L.G. Blochman's "Red Wine." Here are a few more episodes to enjoy on the anniversary of the series premiere:

"Murder in the City Hall" - In this story from Raymond Chandler, political pressure and scandal plague a cop as he tries to nab the killer of a judicial candidate. (Originally aired on April 5, 1946)

"Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" - Peter Lorre hosts this one from the AFRS Mystery Playhouse - the story of the hunt for Jack the Ripper in 1945 Chicago.

"A Crime to Fit the Punishment" - In between flights as the Man of Steel, Bud Collyer plays an antique dealer and amateur detective in this mystery.

Happy Birthday, Kenny Delmar Sep 05, 2017

Show notes

Somebody, I say, somebody get a cake and candles. Kenny Delmar was born September 5, 1910. He was born in Boston, an unlikely birthplace for a man who made a name for himself as Beauregard Claghorn, the blustery senator from south of the Mason-Dixon line and longtime resident of Allen's Alley.

Born into a vaudeville family, Delmar made his stage debut before he was ten years old. He pursued a career in radio, and by the late 1930s he was already being heard all over the dial. He voiced Commissioner Weston opposite Bill Johnstone on The Shadow, and he voiced several characters in the infamous War of the Worlds broadcast from Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. Fans of that program will recognize Delmar as the "Secretary of the Interior" who sounds suspiciously like then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Delmar was a skilled impressionist who played world leaders on The March of Time and Cavalcade of America.

But his most famous radio role came when he made his first appearance as Senator Claghorn on The Fred Allen Show. Delmar was also the show's announcer even as he portrayed the proud son of the South who only drank out of Dixie Cups and refused to drive through the Lincoln Tunnel. The character proved to be so popular that Delmar reprised the role in commercials and even in a film - It's a Joke Son! from 1947.

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