Breaking Walls

I Love A Mystery first took to the air Weekdays at 3:15PM on NBC’s West-Coast network in January of 1939.

Michael Raffetto starred as Jack Packard, head of the A-1 Detective Agency, with Barton Yarborough as Texan Doc Long, and Walter Paterson as the British Reggie Yorke. The three world travelers searched for action, thrills, and mystery. From the ghost towns of wind-swept Nevada, to the jungles of vampire-infested Nicaragua, they righted wrongs, rescued women, battled evil, and explored unknown parts of the globe.

Morse utilized threatening elements: dark jungles, bizarre rituals, strange languages, sacred amulets, thick fogs. Three characters could be murdered in a single episode. There were ancient curses, hidden panels, piercing cries in the night, and the gathering of a diverse group of suspicious people, all of whom had secrets to hide.

Jack Packard was once a medical student. He shrugged off superstition in favor of logic. Reggie Yorke was British and clever. Doc Long was a red-headed Texan. He defied the laws of chance and always had time for women.

By that autumn it was airing nationally. The show ran from the west coast for five years, first over NBC’s Red Network, then its Blue, and then CBS. The original I Love A Mystery run ended on December 29th, 1944.

A 1945 film with its title starred Jim Bannon, Barton Yarborough, George Macready, and Nina Foch. Two more movies followed with Bannon and Yarborough followed in 1946.

Morse recorded a new radio audition for ABC in May of 1945, but the show wasn’t picked up again until it was briefly revived on ABC as I Love Adventure in the spring of 1948. It lasted thirteen weeks before going off the air.

On the eve of Thanksgiving in 1949, Russian diplomat Andrey Vyshinsky told the UN General Assembly Russia fully supported Communist China’s in removing the Nationalist Chinese delegation from the UN. While US, British and French commissioners agreed to lift many industrial and diplomatic restrictions on West Germany. And Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett rejected a compromise proposal from the UN to internationalize Jerusalem.

Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox was named American League MVP, and smog was becoming a serious issue in Los Angeles.

The Cold War and communist fears were reaching new heights as celebrities listed in the Red Channels found themselves blacklisted in Hollywood.

The U.S. spent the first ten months of 1949 in a recession. Competition for the advertising dollar was stiffer. There were now over two-thousand-six-hundred AM and FM radio stations in the country, and TV was becoming a serious threat.

Over one-hundred Television stations were on the air. Only two Network Radio shows had ratings higher than a 20. Just two years earlier, there were fifteen. Radio’s average Top 50 ratings were their lowest since 1937 and network radio revenue dropped for the first time since 1933.

Meanwhile, NBC, ABC, CBS, and the Dumont Network reported a combined TV income of $29.4 Million. But advertisers were learning that TV production costs were much greater than radio’s. The extra money had to come from somewhere. Radio budgets were the likely source.

But if there was anyone who knew how to stretch a dollar, it was radio writer and director Carlton E. Morse. Tonight we’ll join him in a boxcar somewhere in the lonely west, and celebrate Thanksgiving by burying our dead in Arizona.

In Breaking Walls episode 132 we go back to the late 1940s and say Happy Halloween with Mutual Broadcasting.

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Highlights:

• The Seedy Underbelly of Coney Island on The Crime Club

• Take a Ride with The Mysterious Traveler

• Mystery is My Hobby

• Quiet Please

• 1948 Halloween News with Arthur Bario

• The House of Mystery

• True Detective Mysteries

• Halloween 1948 with Holmes and The Shadow

• Truman Wins a Stunning Reelection

• Murder By Experts

• Finishing With I Love a Mystery

• Looking Ahead to Thanksgiving

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Subscribe to Breaking Walls everywhere you get your podcasts.

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The reading material used in today’s episode was:

American Radio Networks: A History — By Jim Cox

• On the Air — By John Dunning

• Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

• The Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Radio — By Christopher Sterling

• WOR: The First Sixty Years

As well as articles from the archives of

• The Los Angeles Times

• The New York Daily News

• The New York Times

• Radio Daily

• The Saturday Evening Post

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On the interview front:

• Jim Boles, Bret Morrison, Carlton E. Morse, and Russell Thorson, were with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Joseph Julian was with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• Harry Bartell and André Baruch were with SPERDVAC. For more info, go to SPERDVAC.com.

•Orson Welles was with Johnny Carson

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Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Halloween — By Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians

• Manhattan — By Blossom Dearie

• Flag of Columbia — By Jacqueline Schwab

• Danse Macabre — By Camille Saint-Saëns

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A special thank you to Ted Davenport, Jerry Haendiges, and Gordon Skene.

For Ted go to RadioMemories.com, for Jerry, visit OTRSite.com, and for Gordon, please go to PastDaily.com.

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Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Phil Erickson

Jessica Hanna

Perri Harper

Briana Isaac

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Aimee Pavy

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

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WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

We’re going to stop here, but we’re not even close to finishing with I Love A Mystery. Next time on Breaking Walls, while we spend Thanksgiving with Carlton E. Morse, Russell Thorson, Jim Boles, and Tony Randall, we utter a simple statement: Bury Your Dead, Arizona.

The reading material used in this episode was:

American Radio Networks: A History — By Jim Cox

On the Air — By John Dunning

Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

The Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Radio — By Christopher Sterling

WOR: The First Sixty Years

As well as articles from the archives of

• The Los Angeles Times

• The New York Daily News

• The New York Times

• Radio Daily

• The Saturday Evening Post

——————————

On the interview front:

• Jim Boles, Bret Morrison, Carlton E. Morse, and Russell Thorson, were with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Joseph Julian was with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• Harry Bartell and André Baruch were with SPERDVAC. For more info, go to SPERDVAC.com.

•Orson Welles was with Johnny Carson

——————————

Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Halloween — By Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians

• Manhattan — By Blossom Dearie

• Flag of Columbia — By Jacqueline Schwab

• Danse Macabre — By Camille Saint-Saëns

——————————

A special thank you to Ted Davenport, Jerry Haendiges, and Gordon Skene.

For Ted go to RadioMemories.com, for Jerry, visit OTRSite.com, and for Gordon, please go to PastDaily.com.

——————————

Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Phil Erickson

Jessica Hanna

Perri Harper

Briana Isaac

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Aimee Pavy

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

——————————

WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

The reading material used in today’s episode was:

American Radio Networks: A History — By Jim Cox

On the Air — By John Dunning

Network Radio Ratings — By Jim Ramsburg

The Museum of Broadcast Communications Encyclopedia of Radio — By Christopher Sterling

WOR: The First Sixty Years

As well as articles from the archives of

• The Los Angeles Times

• The New York Daily News

• The New York Times

• Radio Daily

• The Saturday Evening Post

——————————

On the interview front:

• Jim Boles, Bret Morrison, Carlton E. Morse, and Russell Thorson, were with Chuck Schaden. Hear their full chats at SpeakingOfRadio.com.

• Joseph Julian was with Dick Bertel and Ed Corcoran for WTIC’s The Golden Age of Radio. Hear these at Goldenage-WTIC.org.

• Harry Bartell and André Baruch were with SPERDVAC. For more info, go to SPERDVAC.com.

•Orson Welles was with Johnny Carson

——————————

Selected music featured in today’s episode was:

• Halloween — By Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians

• Manhattan — By Blossom Dearie

• Flag of Columbia — By Jacqueline Schwab

• Danse Macabre — By Camille Saint-Saëns

——————————

A special thank you to Ted Davenport, Jerry Haendiges, and Gordon Skene.

For Ted go to RadioMemories.com, for Jerry, visit OTRSite.com, and for Gordon, please go to PastDaily.com.

——————————

Thank you to:

Tony Adams

Steven Allmon

Orson Orsen Chandler

Phil Erickson

Jessica Hanna

Perri Harper

Briana Isaac

Thomas M. Joyce

Ryan Kramer

Earl Millard

Gary Mollica

Barry Nadler

Christian Neuhaus

Aimee Pavy

Ray Shaw

Filipe A Silva

John Williams

——————————

WallBreakers Links:

Patreon - patreon.com/thewallbreakers

Social Media - @TheWallBreakers

Have you been enjoying Breaking Walls? If so, give the show a quick rating on whatever platform you listen, especially iTunes.

James Scully here. You’re about to listen to the pilot episode of a reimagined Frontier Gentleman, which was originally created by Antony Ellis for CBS.

In 2020 I met Mr. Ellis’ daughter, Briana Ellis-Isaac thanks to an episode on the original series I produced for Breaking Walls. Briana and I became fast friends who shared an appreciation for the Golden Age of Radio, and a mutual belief in the growth of new scripted audio fiction productions.

In 2021 Briana hired me to help bring Frontier Gentleman back to life in a new adaptation using Mr. Ellis’ previously written scripts and updating the story in order to introduce Frontier Gentleman to current audiences.

This is that pilot episode. To find out more about the new Frontier Gentleman. Please go to FrontierGentleman.com

And now, enjoy the show.

Carlton E. Morse’ I Love A Mystery first took to the air Weekdays at 3:15PM on NBC’s West-Coast network in January of 1939.

Michael Raffetto starred as Jack Packard, head of the A-1 Detective Agency, with Barton Yarborough as Texan Doc Long, and Walter Paterson as the British Reggie Yorke. The show told of three world travelers in search of action, thrills, and mystery. From the ghost towns of wind-swept Nevada, to the jungles of vampire-infested Nicaragua, they righted wrongs, rescued women, battled evil, and explored unknown parts of the globe.

By that autumn it was airing nationally. The show ran from the west coast for five years, first over NBC’s Red Network, then its Blue, and then CBS.

It went off the air at the end of 1944, but was revived in the spring of 1948 on ABC and then from New York for Mutual Broadcasting in October of 1949. It ran for three more years, this time starring Russell Thorson, Jim Boles, and Tony Randall, as Thorson remembered.

Jack Packard was a hero with quiet strength. Once a medical student, he shrugged off superstition in favor of logic.

Reggie Yorke was educated, strong, and had the British stiff upper lip.

Doc Long was a red-headed alley fighter from Texas who defied the laws of chance and loved women.

Three characters could be murdered in a single episode. People were killed in ghoulish, imaginative, and sometimes mystifying ways. Throats were ripped out by wolves; there were garrotings, poisonings, and mysterious slashings.

On Halloween, 1949, part one of a new story, “The Thing That Cries in The Night” aired over Mutual.

Murder By Experts debuted over Mutual on June 13th, 1949. Written by David Kogan and Bob Arthur, it quickly gained the respect and approval from the radio world at large.

Mystery writers like John Dickson Carr and Brett Halliday hosted with New York’s best character talent like Lawson Zerbe, Ann Shepherd, Santos Ortega, Ralph Bell, and William Zuckert being featured.

This is from the debut episode, “Summer Heat” which aired on June 13th, 1949. Murder By Experts won a prestigious Edgar Award in 1950, and aired until December 17th, 1951.

On Tuesday November 2nd, 1948 The United States held its forty-first presidential election. If you’d tuned into the results early in the evening, you’d have been convinced that the pre-election polls were correct and Thomas Dewey would become the next president.

You’d have been wrong.

Dewey ran a low-risk campaign. His advisers believed all he had to do to win was avoid major mistakes. So Dewey spoke in platitudes, avoided controversial issues, and was vague on what he planned to do as president.

But, many republicans disliked Dewey, feeling he was too cold and stiff, and surprisingly against outlawing the Communist Party. Believing he had nothing to lose, Harry Truman ran a feisty campaign. He ridiculed Dewey’s platitudes, and claimed Communists were rooting for a GOP victory to ensure another Great Depression. Energizing traditional Democrats, as well as Catholic and Jewish voters, Truman also fared surprisingly well with Midwestern farmers.

When it was all over, Harry Truman’s victory was considered one of the greatest election upsets in American history, garnering 303 electoral votes to Thomas Dewey's 189.

With simultaneous success in the 1948 congressional elections, the Democrats also regained control of both the House and Senate, which they lost in 1946.

At 5PM Mutual’s most famous program, The Shadow signed on. The show was in its eleventh season on the air in 1948. Andre Baruch handled emcee duties while Grace Matthews played Margo Lane.

Bret Morrison was Lamont Cranston. Halloween’s episode was called “Murder By A Corpse.” This season’s Shadow rating was 13.2. It was Mutual’s highest-rated show.

As night descended on New York on October 31st, temperatures dropped into the upper 40s and an eerie fog rolled in. Police were ready for mischief as children went trick or treating. The Halloween tradition was still seen by many as an act of begging and vandalism. In response, members of the Madison Square Boys Club paraded through the Lower East Side carrying a banner that read "American Boys Don't Beg.”

Politically, Progressive Henry Wallace was making a dent in Harry Truman’s campaign. On Election Day, Truman still carried the City, collecting 1.6 million votes to Dewey’s 1.1 million, but Henry Wallace received over four-hundred thousand votes.

It’s this split that allowed Thomas Dewey to narrowly win New York state by sixty-thousand votes, giving the republicans forty-seven important electorates.

At home, the Mutual Broadcasting System’s prime time programming featured news and music, but at 7PM literature’s most famous detective—Sherlock Holmes—took to the air from WOR.

Sherlock Holmes peaked on radio between 1939 and 1946 with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce playing Holmes and Watson. They made over a dozen films and their rating climbed to 14.1 in 1942 on NBC. The next year, the entire cast moved to the Mutual Broadcasting System. Petri wine sponsored the series. Famed radio character actor Harry Bartel became the announcer.

They remained on Mutual for three seasons until Holmes left for ABC. Basil Rathbone stayed with Mutual to star in a new series called Scotland Yard.

Nigel Bruce still played Watson while Tom Conway became Holmes. When the Semler Company discontinued sponsorship in the spring of 1947, ABC canceled the show.

That summer Clipper Craft Clothing signed to pay the bills. The program moved back to Mutual with John Stanley as Holmes and Alfred Shirley as Watson. By Halloween 1948 it was airing Sundays at 7PM.

As radio audiences changed, Holmes and Watson couldn’t keep up. That Spring Mutual canceled the series. ABC revived it for one final season before the last version of an American Sherlock Holmes series departed the air.