Enjoy two free detective episodes of Philo Vance, Detective w/ Jackson Beck

A) 12/28/48 The Rhumba Murder Case

B) 1/4/49 The Magic Murder Case

Detective Philo Vance was created by S.S. Van Dine (the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright). Vance was featured in 12 crime novels published in the 1920s and 30s. The character was so popular that he appeared in books, movies and on radio. Vance was a stylish, even foppish dandy; a New York bon vivant possessing a highly intellectual nature. On the silver screen, Vance was portrayed by William Powell, Basil Rathbone, Warren William, Paul Lukas, Edmund Lowe and William Wright. In 1945, NBC radio cast Jose’ Ferrer as Philo Vance in a short-lived series. A summer replacement series in 1946 starred John Emery. The best-known radio series ran from 1948 to 1950 starring Jackson Beck. Joan Alexander played Ellen Deering, Vance’s secretary and right-hand woman.

Enjoy two free comedy episodes of Our Miss Brooks w/ Eve Arden

A) 2/4/51 Puppy Love

B) 4/1/51 New Dresses

Eve Arden starred as Connie Brooks, a competent, fair-minded school teacher with a dry wit who is often privy to the pranks of her pupils. Gale Gordon, was stuffed-shirt Principal Osgood Conklin, a pompous and tight-fisted character in charge of a school full of mischievous, plotting students. The success of Our Miss Brooks rested on the basic realism of the situations as well as the deft humor. As the wisecracking schoolmarm who went weak at the sight of Mr. Boynton, the bashful biology teacher (played by Jeff Chandler and Robert Rockwell), Arden found a character that exploited her full range of talents as a comedienne. CBS originally wanted Lucille Ball for the starring role, but she was unavailable. They auditioned Shirley Booth (Booth would later find fame as TV’s Hazel) but Arden was simply a natural for Connie Brooks and today it’s nearly impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. Eve Arden brilliantly communicated the wit and sarcasm of Miss Brooks and the interplay between the various cast members succeeded in bringing out the comedy in every situation. Whether the episode focused on scheming student Walter Denton (Richard Crenna) or Principal Conklin blowing his top, the double-edged zingers spiced up the scripts. Our Miss Brooks came to CBS radio in 1948 and lasted until 1957 and made a seamless transition to television.

Enjoy two free horror episodes of The Sealed Book w/ Phillip Clarke

A) 3/18/45 The Hands of Death

B) 5/27/45 I’ll Die Laughing

Heard for one season in 1945 on Mutual, The Sealed Book offered mystery and terror tales, written by Robert A. Arthur and David Kogan, the same writing team that brought us The Mysterious Traveler and The Strange Dr. Weird. Produced and directed by Jock MacGregor (of Nick Carter, Master Detective fame), it aired March 18th until September 9th, 1945 on Sunday nights from 10:30 pm to 11:00 pm. Each week, after the sound of a great gong, the mysterious silent “keeper of the book has opened the ponderous door to the secret vault wherein is kept the great sealed book, in which is recorded all the secrets and mysteries of mankind through the ages. Here are tales of every kind, tales of murder, of madness, of dark deeds strange and terrible beyond all belief.” All 26 scripts for The Sealed Book were derived from scripts originally written for The Mysterious Traveler but each production used a different cast. It’s important to note that despite the extraordinary similarities between the scripts, writers and director, The Sealed Book was very much its own production. Produced on the east coast, it featured New York’s best supporting players including Mason Adams, Jan Miner, Maurice Tarplin, Lawson Zerbe and Bill Lipton with Phillip Clarke as “the keeper of the Sealed Book.”

Enjoy two free drama episodes of Night Beat w/ Frank Lovejoy

A) 9/25/50 A Case of Butter

B) 9/4/52 The Bomb on Flight 63

Frank Lovejoy starred as Randy Stone (in the pilot his name was “Lucky” Stone), a war hero and streetwise journalist, who combed Chicago’s windy streets after office hours – during the “Night Beat” – in search of human-interest stories. A prolific newspaper columnist for the Chicago Star, Randy was a hardboiled yet kind-hearted character and his laconic style came in handy when talking bad guys out of doing vile deeds. Airing from 1950 until 1952, NBC referred to the program as a “dramatic thriller” but that wasn’t completely accurate and Night Beat seemed to defy classification. It wasn’t really a detective series and there was no sidekick, little violence, and no bullying newspaper editor screaming on the phone about deadlines. Focusing on the psychology of the characters and their motivation, the series was cerebral in nature. The dialogue was rhythmic and hypnotic, the music of Frank Worth set the mood, and the critics raved. Less than a year after the radio program went off the air, Frank Lovejoy reprised his role as Randy Stone for a would-be pilot episode of television’s weekly anthology, Four Star Playhouse. The gritty tough-guy dialogue of the radio scripts was better suited to the airwaves and the pilot never went beyond the initial airing.

Enjoy two free western episodes of The Six Shooter w/ James Stewart

A) 11/22/53 Gabriel Starbuck

B) 12/27/53 Cora Plummer Quincy

The Six-Shooter was one of radio’s best western series but unfortunately, it came too late in radio’s dramatic life to have any longevity.  The hero, Britt Ponset, was a slow-talking, easy-going maverick, but dangerous when pushed into a gunfight.  The epigraph set the tone: 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.”  James Stewart was perfect as the gentleman cowboy who roamed the western plains and blundered into other people’s troubles. The Six-Shooter was easily one of radio’s best westerns alongside Gunsmoke and Have Gun-Will Travel.  Despite Stewart’s great star power, the show was largely sustained. The Liggett & Myer Tobacco Company, makers of Chesterfield was interested in sponsoring, but Stewart declined, not wanting a cigarette company to tarnish his largely wholesome screen image.  The Six-Shooter ran on radio from 1953 until 1954 and did not make a transition to television.

Enjoy two free drama episodes of Dangerous Assignment w/ Brian Donlevy

A) 8/6/49 Investigate Millionaire Murder Conspiracy

B) 3/25/53 Assignment in Portugal

Movie actor Brian Donlevy came to NBC radio in 1949 to star as Steve Mitchell, a globe-trotting secret agent working for our Government. International espionage was the main theme of this action-packed series. Each episode found Mitchell being summoned to the office of “The Commissioner” a nameless administrator who was part of a Big Brother-type government agency enforcing law and order abroad. Mitchell’s usual assignment was to infiltrate various hotbeds of terrorism and thwart forces against America. Radio veteran Herb Butterfield co-starred as “The Commissioner.” The west coast’s best supporting actors were heard, including: William Conrad, Paul Frees, Virginia Gregg, Cathy Lewis, Harry Bartell, Joseph Kearns and Tony Barrett. The radio run lasted until 1953. Donlevy invested his own money in a TV series based on the radio show, reprising his role as Steve Mitchell. In the 39 TV episodes that were produced, Herb Butterfield was seen as “The Commissioner” and featured many of the same supporting actors from the radio series.

Enjoy two free comedy episodes of The Charlie McCarthy Show w/ Edgar Bergan

A) 3/4/51 w/ guest, Robert Cummings

B) 3/14/54 w/ guest, Jane Wyman

Vaudeville in the 1930s had its fair share of ventriloquists but none was more successful than Edgar Bergen. After the entertainer made a guest appearance on Rudy Vallee’s variety program in 1936, many doubted the wisdom of launching a radio ventriloquist. This, however, was a gamble executive at Chase and Sanborn were willing to take. From 1937 onwards, Edgar Bergen and his “innocent” adolescent dummy, Charlie McCarthy, proved that radio listeners did not need to see the act to enjoy the jokes. The hour-long Sunday evening program quickly became fashionable with Hollywood celebrities making guest appearances and the trading of insults between Charlie and cast regulars W.C. Fields and Don Ameche was always a high point. Within two years The Chase and Sanborn Hour overtook Rudy Vallee on the ratings charts and became the most prestigious Sunday evening radio broadcast. Bergen introduced other dummy characters, notably slow-witted Mortimer Snerd and man-chasing Effie Klinker, but the spotlight never strayed far from Charlie. In 1940, the series switched to a 30-minute format that would last until the late 1950s. Bergen tried a few times to bring the series to television but it did not stick. He would, however, father the very talented future actress, Candice Bergen.

Enjoy two free mystery episodes of The Whistler w/ Elliott Lewis

A) 3/19/45 Murder Will Shout

B) 11/12/45 The Seeing Eye

Eerie whistling, picked up by the orchestra for dramatic effect, was the signature tune for this CBS mystery/crime anthology created by J. Donald Wilson. Many considered The Whistler a sister program to Suspense but without the celebrity guests. Through a careless mistake or a twist of fate, nearly every killer, blackmailer, and criminal would ultimately be brought to justice by the show’s conclusion. Always looming in the shadows was the Whistler, an omnipresent figure acting almost as a guilty conscience. Having foreseen the fate of the protagonists, he nevertheless urged them on, strangely aware of what they were thinking. The Whistler’s grim chortles concluded each story of those unfortunate enough to be caught in a dark web of their own making. The program initially aired on the CBS Pacific Network without a sponsor, then in December of 1943 secured the backing of Signal Oil. Two productions with recycled scripts were also broadcast for both Chicago and the East Coast, but with a different cast. The radio program never managed to secure a coast-to-coast sponsor for a nationwide hook-up yet it still had a long and successful run airing from 1942 until 1955. For a time, Gale Gordon, Marvin Miller and Joseph Kearns supplied the voice of the Whistler but Bill Forman had the role the longest. Columbia Pictures produced a series of eight motion pictures based on the radio series from 1944 to 1948. A television series comprising 39 episodes was produced in 1954 which was distributed via syndication throughout the rest of the decade.

Enjoy two free drama episodes of The Lives of Harry Lime

A) 11/23/51 Horse Play w/ Orson Welles

B) 2/1/52 The Dark Enchantress w/ Orson Welles

The Lives of Harry Lime was produced in the United Kingdom during the 1951 and 1952 seasons. Orson Welles reprised his role of Harry Lime from the celebrated 1949 film The Third Man which was based on the Graham Greene novel. The radio series was a prequel to the film, and depicted the many capers of con-artist Harry Lime. Lime engaged in any form of double-dealings that brought him cash but used only his wits to make his way and never a gun. British radio producer Harry Alan Towers and his company, Towers of London, secured rights to the character of Harry Lime and approached Orson Welles about reprising his role in a radio series that preceded the story told in The Third Man film. Welles was living in Paris at the time and agreed, making special trips to London to tape the episodes. Each episode would begin with an echoing gunshot. Then Welles would speak: “That was the shot that killed Harry Lime. He died in a sewer beneath Vienna, as those of you know who saw the movie The Third Man. Yes, that was the end of Harry Lime … but it was not the beginning. Harry Lime had many lives … and I can recount all of them. How do I know? Very simple. Because my name is Harry Lime.” 52 episodes of The Lives of Harry Lime were broadcast in the United States with only 16 episodes broadcast in the UK. When Welles discovered that Harry Alan Towers was paying a whopping $1,000 per script, he offered to write several scripts himself. The scripts were delivered to Towers and Welles was paid $6,000. Then one day, a man named Ernest Borneman walked into Towers’ office, demanding to be paid for the scripts which he had ghostwritten for Welles. When Welles was asked about it later, he smiled and said: “Don’t pay him. They weren’t very good scripts.” Eventually, Borneman was paid in full by Welles for the scripts.

Enjoy two free true-crime episodes of Dragnet

A) 5/10/53 The Big Joke w/ Jack Webb

B) 1/26/54 The Big Bid w/ Jack Webb

Jack Webb was a supporting actor on radio when he proposed Dragnet to CBS. The network heads, content with their own detective programs, turned down the idea but NBC saw its potential. However, a low-key dramatization of the real-life detection techniques used by two Los Angeles policemen and adapted from official case files at the Los Angeles Police Department, was not an original concept: the Gang Busters radio series had beaten Dragnet to the punch more than a decade earlier. But Webb’s insistence on a gritty brand of realism, coupled with innovative direction, storytelling, and convincing dialogue proved to be a winning formula. The result was often imitated but never came close to Dragnet. Jack Webb not only produced and directed each episode, he also played the central character of Sergeant Joe Friday. NBC paid him a mere $300 per broadcast in the first year and $600 in the second, but by the fourth year, Webb and his series were a bonafide hit. Unlike most radio detective programs, Dragnetdidn’t use the standard murder-solving format for each weekly episode. Cases were varied and reflected a wide range of criminal activities, such as supplying obscene comic books for sale in high schools, or forging checks. In December 1951, Dragnet made a monumentally-successful transition to television. Three years later a major motion picture, with some cast members from the radio program, was released. By giving fans a taste of real-life policing instead of the usual Hollywood theatrics, Jack Webb broke the mold. “From beginning to end – from crime to punishment – Dragnet is the story of your police force in action.”