Master Detectives

Rating:
Summary: Old Time Radio Detectives
Review: This collection features ten old time detectives in 23 radio shows. Some are classics; some are clunkers; but all entertain.

Gerald Mohr stars as "Philip Marlowe," a hard boiled sleuth who gets involved in some far-fetched adventures. In one episode Marlowe searches for an angelic secretary who has disappeared. In the second he locates an orange dog which turns out to be a feline.

Howard Duff plays a Sam Spade who is plenty tough, but he doesn't have the edge that Humphrey Bogart brought to the character in "The Maltese Falcon." He brings a man back from the dead in "The Lazarus Caper" and wins and loses a fortune in "The Hot Hundred Grand Caper."

Chester Morris portrays Boston Blackie, an ex-con who goes "straight" but still manages to be a thorn in the side of law enforcement.

Jack Webb is Joe Friday in two "Dragnet" episodes, and he plays "Jeff Regan, Investigator" in two more episodes. Joe Friday is the archetypical good cop, but Jeff Regan is something else entirely. He hates his job and hates his boss, a Mr. Lyon. Lyon is the heartless, soulless head of the International Detective Agency, and Regan refers to himself as "The Lyon's Eye."

Orson Welles is "Sherlock Holmes" in an adaptation of the famous William Gillette play. Welles over-acts as usual, and the story is somewhat hectic. Regardless of the flaws, Sherlock Holmes is still the best detective ever, and this episode is the only remaining example of Gillette's classic play. Gillette shamelessly engaged in wholesale borrowing of incidents from the original Holmes stories, and Holmes aficionados will enjoy connecting up the play's incidents to the stories they were drawn from.

Sydney Greenstreet (the Fat Man from "The Maltese Falcon") is "Nero Wolfe," and he plays the part with gusto. I'd read some Nero Wolfe before coming across Greenstreet's portrayal, and I didn't like the character. Greenstreet brought me around to being a Wolfe fan.

Lon Clark is "Nick Carter, Master Detective" in two mysteries from the Ellery Queen genre. The murders are antiseptic and the stories are more puzzles than mysteries.

Dick Powell is "Richard Diamond, Private Detective". A singing detective, I might add. The mysteries are okay, but Powell's character is too flippant, and I could have done without the songs.

The real gem of the collection is "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar," starring Bob Bailey. This show was formatted into five episodes of 15 minutes each which ran from Monday through Friday. The longer stories facilitated better plotting and more character development. Dollar, a freelance insurance investigator, tracks down "The Star of Capetown," a stolen diamond the size of a golf ball, and incidentally solves the murder of its owner.

The only true clunkers in the collection were "Boston Blackie" and "Jeff Regan." "Boston Blackie" was written by an ex-con, and his jaundiced view of law enforcement tends to infect the stories. "Jeff Regan" isn't just "hard-boiled," he's over-cooked.

The cassette case is very well done on the outside, but the interior storage system leaves something to be desired. Cassettes kept falling out whenever I opened the case.

Rating:
Summary: Old Time Radio Detectives
Review: This collection features ten old time detectives in 23 radio shows. Some are classics; some are clunkers; but all entertain.

Gerald Mohr stars as "Philip Marlowe," a hard boiled sleuth who gets involved in some far-fetched adventures. In one episode Marlowe searches for an angelic secretary who has disappeared. In the second he locates an orange dog which turns out to be a feline.

Howard Duff plays a Sam Spade who is plenty tough, but he doesn't have the edge that Humphrey Bogart brought to the character in "The Maltese Falcon." He brings a man back from the dead in "The Lazarus Caper" and wins and loses a fortune in "The Hot Hundred Grand Caper."

Chester Morris portrays Boston Blackie, an ex-con who goes "straight" but still manages to be a thorn in the side of law enforcement.

Jack Webb is Joe Friday in two "Dragnet" episodes, and he plays "Jeff Regan, Investigator" in two more episodes. Joe Friday is the archetypical good cop, but Jeff Regan is something else entirely. He hates his job and hates his boss, a Mr. Lyon. Lyon is the heartless, soulless head of the International Detective Agency, and Regan refers to himself as "The Lyon's Eye."

Orson Welles is "Sherlock Holmes" in an adaptation of the famous William Gillette play. Welles over-acts as usual, and the story is somewhat hectic. Regardless of the flaws, Sherlock Holmes is still the best detective ever, and this episode is the only remaining example of Gillette's classic play. Gillette shamelessly engaged in wholesale borrowing of incidents from the original Holmes stories, and Holmes aficionados will enjoy connecting up the play's incidents to the stories they were drawn from.

Sydney Greenstreet (the Fat Man from "The Maltese Falcon") is "Nero Wolfe," and he plays the part with gusto. I'd read some Nero Wolfe before coming across Greenstreet's portrayal, and I didn't like the character. Greenstreet brought me around to being a Wolfe fan.

Lon Clark is "Nick Carter, Master Detective" in two mysteries from the Ellery Queen genre. The murders are antiseptic and the stories are more puzzles than mysteries.

Dick Powell is "Richard Diamond, Private Detective". A singing detective, I might add. The mysteries are okay, but Powell's character is too flippant, and I could have done without the songs.

The real gem of the collection is "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar," starring Bob Bailey. This show was formatted into five episodes of 15 minutes each which ran from Monday through Friday. The longer stories facilitated better plotting and more character development. Dollar, a freelance insurance investigator, tracks down "The Star of Capetown," a stolen diamond the size of a golf ball, and incidentally solves the murder of its owner.

The only true clunkers in the collection were "Boston Blackie" and "Jeff Regan." "Boston Blackie" was written by an ex-con, and his jaundiced view of law enforcement tends to infect the stories. "Jeff Regan" isn't just "hard-boiled," he's over-cooked.

The cassette case is very well done on the outside, but the interior storage system leaves something to be desired. Cassettes kept falling out whenever I opened the case.