LISTENING TO CRIME

by Steven Steinbock

Last week I rambled for almost two pages about mystery stories and OTR (that’s “Old Time Radio” for anyone who missed last week’s Bandersnatches). The trouble with rambling is that you run the risk of never getting to your original point. (The advantage of rambling is that sometimes Serendipity happens, which will be my theme next week, and which would make a very good bumper sticker).

The point that I never got to was that for me, the experience of listening to a thirty-minute radio program is much like the experience of reading a short story. They can both be done in one sitting, and in them, you get characters, tension, and resolution. For me, the slow reader that I am, it’s a rare short story that I can finish in less than thirty minutes.

Thank you to reader Brenda, who gave me an update on Carl Amari, the founder of Radio Spirits. (It’s fascinating that he’s working on an audio-Bible project. Last year Zondervan’s The Bible Experience won the Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year, but that version didn’t do it for me.)

And speaking of Radio Spirits, in my last column I mentioned some of the box sets and collections that they’ve been publishing. A couple months back I wrote about the Poe set. This time, without too much rambling, I’ll share some of the highlights on two of their packages: “Radio’s Greatest Mysteries” and “Agatha Christie’s Casebook Mysteries.”

“Radio’s Greatest Mysteries” collects six tales culled from Radio Spirits’ archives of programs. Leading is Thomas Burke’s story of a Victorian serial killer, “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole,” from a 1945 episode of “The Mollé Mystery Theatre” (so named for its sponsor, Mollé Brushless Shaving Cream).

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!
Mollé, the heavier brushless shaving cream for tough whiskers or tender skin.

A 1938 episode of “The Shadow” is the only program in this set that comes not from an anthology program, but from an ongoing series featuring a regular set of characters. In this episode, called “League of Terror,” Orson Welles plays Lamont Cranston (“The Shadow”) with Agnes Moorehead as his lovely assistant Margo Lane, as they confront the kingpin of a counterfeiting ring.

One of the highlights of this set is “The Story of Markham’s Death” featured on a 1949 episode of “Suspense.” Kirk Douglas plays mystery writer who takes a trip to London to cure his writer’s block. The story involves plagiarism, a lost Poe manuscript, and a Mystery Writers of America Edgar dinner.

“Suspense” may be the best of the mystery anthology series. “Inner Sanctum” comes pretty close. I get a kick out of listening to the commercials. For a time, Roma Wines was the sponsor of “Suspense.” One of the commercials has a Californian and a Cuban talking together. The Californian is praising the Cuban on his country’s fine cigars. But the Cuban interrupts, saying, “yes, but you Americans have such fine wines!” Man, those were the days.

Another episode of “Suspense” from early 1949 features “Murder through the Looking Glass,” based on a novel by Craig Rice (written under the pseudonym Michael Venning). In it, Gregory Peck plays Jeff Bruno, a man who awakens aboard a Philadelphia-bound train with no memory of what he’s doing there. In his wallet he finds a driver’s license bearing the name “John Blake.” Then he sees a newspaper with his photo on the cover with a caption saying that John Blake is wanted for murder. Is he suffering multiple personality disorder?

To choose the best mystery stories ever produced for radio would be a daunting, if not impossible, task. But with “Radio’s Greatest Mysteries” Radio Spirits has selected six entertaining and memorable tales, digitally remastered them to clean up the sound, and presented it as one of their many OTR offerings.

“Agatha Christie’s Casebook Mysteries” contains five whodunits based on Agatha Christie stories. The lead story in this set may be the best, but it’s also the oldest recording, and thus the most difficult to listen to. From an hour-long 1939 installment of “The Campbell Playhouse,” Orson Welles introduces “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” in which he plays dual roles as Hercule Poirot and Doctor Sheppard the narrator.

A 1949 segment of Radio City Playhouse dramatized Christie’s story “Witness for the Prosecution” (from her 1933 collection, The Hound of Death and Other Stories) with Arnold Moss playing a man accused of murder while his wife served as the chief witness against him. Christie was able to pull of some clever twist endings. This one had several.

Christie’s moustachioed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, played by the talented and flexible radio talent Maurice Tarplin (who was also the host of “The Mysterious Traveler”), is heard in the anthology series “Murder Clinic” in a retelling of Christie’s 1923 story, “The Tragedy of Marsden Manor.”

In Christie’s novel, The A. B. C. Murders (1936), the case of an alphabetically inclined serial killer was solved by Hercule Poirot. Writer Robert Tallman removed Poirot from the story altogether in this 1943 episode of CBS’s “Suspense.” But with star performances by Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester, listeners are not likely to complain. I guess this is one place where we see the difference between short stories and novels. Christie’s original novel would have been too involved — with all the train schedules and with Poirot and Hastings role in the investigation — to adapt as a half-hour play. But by expunging the Belgian and his little gray cells, Tallman was able to create a reasonable short adaptation.

Last week another of our readers, Jeff Baker, commented on his own experiences collecting and listening to OTR, and reading the stories of Robert Arthur. Jeff, you’re right, his stories should be collected. I know that Crippen and Landru has tried to get a collection happening. Arthur’s heirs have been talking about an anthology for several years. He wrote wonderful ghost stories and mysteries, including one of the most off-beat Sherlockian pastiches ever composed. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Stay tuned until next week when Bandersnatches brings you the mimsy borogroves of Serendipity!