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The Old RadioTimes The Official Publication of the Old-Time Radio Researchers Nov/Dec 2010 www.otrr.org 2139 Subscribers Number 52 Nina Foch trundles up behind Barton Yarbrough (left) and Jim Bannon (right) in I Love a Mystery. The Forgotten: The Radio Dicks byDavid Cairns "How do you spell 'decapitated'?" straddling of the aural and visual media, are the America's golden age of radio drama fed into three movies directed by Henry Levin from the the cinema like an intravenous drip: Citizen popular show I Love a Mystery. Kane is its most precious legacy, with innovative The movies, entitled I Love a Mystery (1945), use of sound and music honed in The Mercury The Devil's Mask, and The Unknown (both Theater of the Air. But the B-movies leached 1946), sprang from the fertile, perhaps even blood from the airwaves too, by direct adapta- over-manured, mind of Carlton E. Morse, al- tion. We can forget those creaky Inner Sanctum though three or four additional writers were films: the only thing of interest in them is the fact somehow required to adapt his radio scripts to that they're introduced by a floating head in a the screen. It'll be simpler to list the qualities fish tank (although admittedly, that is pretty inter- connecting the three films, and then much more esting). Far more enjoyable, and quirky in their fun to look at the ways in which they differ. 1 2 The stars, or the people who should be the stars (their names are buried in the cast list with everyone else) are Jim Bannon and Barton Yarbrough, as "very private detectives" Jack Packard and Doc Long (doctor of what?). Ah, Jim Bannon! At last, a man truly without qualities. But in his very boringness is a kind of de- pendability, and in those naive days, a hero could be a hero without neuroses, colorful back- story, or any distinguishing features whatsoever. Packard is written as solid, honest, kind-hearted, out to make money. His commercial instincts are never allowed to interfere with his decency. He's a good man to bring into any scene which is in danger of getting too interesting, which happens a lot in this series. Oh, he's also knowledgeable about everything from Tchaikovsky to savages of the Amazon. Sidekick Doc Long has a Texan twang and is a bottomless font of home-spun bullshit: "A good Carlton E.Morse thing my grand-pappy told me, 'Always keep your shirt on,'" he'll say, after being awakened by never seen or referred to again. Although the a screaming heiress in the night. You know: that movies are only just over an hour long, the sec- kind of fellow. ond film manages to fit in an air crash and a Apart from those two agreeable yet some- mysterious shrunken head before the protago- what diaphanous "characters," the films have in nists even appear, and the third delivers eleven common only the mystery genre, the noir look (a minutes of gloomy Southern Gothic, complete tip of the fedora to cinematographers Burnett with a pastiche of Rebecca's famous opening, Guffey and Henry Freulich) and plot—lashings of all before the heroes arrive at the Kentucky plot! The films are so overstuffed with narrative mansion in a taxi. that it comes working out the sprocket-holes like Pastiche is a key element here: certainly, no- sausage-meat. body involved takes these things too seriously. "Is that all one dawg?" The Devil's Mask throws in a beautiful, and quite With such a superabundance of twists, rever- redundant hypnotherapy session, the images sals, revelations, gimmicks and red herrings by filched straight from Cat People, and sees fit to the oceanful, the films naturally vary greatly, but include a vicious black leopard as well. And the they seem to make a deliberate fetish of this. first I Love a Mystery owes some kind of debt to The first movie establishes our heroes as work- Cornell Woolrich's pulp fever-dream The Night ing out of a Russian restaurant (?) and dis- has a Thousand Eyes, but takes its lunatic con- cussing the aftermath of the case with the ceits in fresh and flaky directions. sympathetic proprietor, but he and his eatery are "You mean you sold him your head?" 3 "It seemed the easiest way out of the "Face," because he likes to work in rubbery dis- whole mess." guise—yet his status as master of disguise is In Woolrich's doom-haunted potboiler/master- surely, one would think, hampered by his piece, a wealthy businessman learns to trust the wooden leg. I mean, I wouldn't hire this guy to prophecies of a weird, hydrocephalic psychic, tail someone. Tailing is, as Peter Cook once re- who makes him a fortune with his business tips. marked of the role of Tarzan, "a role for which So when the psychic predicts that our man will two legs would seem to be the minimum require- die at midnight in the jaws of a lion, he's under- ment." standably perturbed. "The funeral wreath on the gate is mine." The ILAM version has George MacReady, he The Devil's Mask seems relatively muted of the scarred face and whispery growl, as a after all this delirium tremens, the storyline tak- man driven close to madness by a prophecy of ing in the aforementioned shrunken head, black death. Some time back he was approached by a leopard, hypnotherapy, and also the blow-pipe secret society, who wished to use his head to re- assassination of a butler. There's also an excel- place that of their long-deceased founder, his lent turn by a crazed taxidermist—the killers in double. Some fault in the mummification process these things are always insane. I guess that's has caused the prophet's noggin to commence the only way everything could make sense. In to crumbling. With the promise that he can keep fact, for all their surreal contortions, fairytale his head until he's deceased, George, perhaps cascade of situations, and melodramatic non- unwisely, sells them everything from the neck sense, the stories do hang together, on gos- up. But then a cult member prophecies his immi- samer strands of narrative logic (note: narrative nent demise, and he finds he's being followed by logic is both cheaper and flimsier than ordinary a sinister man, carrying a bag "just large enough household logic, and tends to disintegrate in di- to contain a man's head." rect sunlight). Are we crazy yet? If not, let me tell you that The third and, alas, final movie, The Un- the man following George, apparently a disfig- known, is an old dark house mystery with a will, ured monster, is in fact a criminal known as creepy uncles, a plucky ingenue, a patriarch en- tombed in the fireplace, and thirties starlet Karen Morley handed a plum role as a crazed belle. A black-coated killer stalks the halls with a doll in one hand, which emits baby cries when up- ended. This is also one of those few films, like Sunset Blvd. and American Beauty, to be narrated by a corpse (Fred Zinneman's The Sev- enth Cross may be unique in being narrated by a series of corpses, relay-fashion). Halfway through, the corpse turns out not to be dead, so I prepared to cross the film of my list of necro- narrations. Then the corpse died for real, and continued it's voice-over. Triumphantly rein- 4 stated! We are offering a FREE issue in Henry Levin would go onto bigger films like hopes you like what you see, and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, but his will want to subscribe. Use the creeping camerawork here, and fine sense of at- mosphere, hints at a cheeky talent smothered in handy coupon below. A-pictures. Of course these films are fast, imaginative and silly, all good reasons to admire them. But they also flatter us by assuming that we too, love a mystery. So they unfold giddying tales of the No.131 Fall 2010 wildly implausible, solve all the puzzles they cre- $3.75 ate, and then, if we're lucky, throw in one more imponderable for luck. What DID happen to George MacReady's head...? ♣ The Forgotten is a regular Thursday column by David Cairns, author of Shadowplay. Yes, send me a free issue of the Digest. Enter my year(s) subscription at One year $15 for 4 issues. Name Address City State Zip Karen Morley's phantom baby evaporates in her I0280 Gunpowder Road Florence, KY 4I042 hands in The Unknown. 888.477.9112 [email protected] 5 The 4th Revised Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming & Guide to All Circulating Shows Written by Jay Hickerson October, 2010 Editor of Hello Again # 565-page reference book listing Includes All Information over 6000 network, regional, local AS OF OCTOBER 1, 2010 and syndicated radio programs. (Soft cover and spiral bound). This information was first presented in this $ combined format in 1992 with sepa- 52.00 rate publications issued in 1986. plus $5 postage and handling # Traces each program by giving broadcast dates, sponsors, network and air time. Often a brief Subscribers to the description with one or two cast Old Radio Times get a members is given. The main pur- pose, however, is to trace each $10 discount. Your cost program by showing when it was is $42 plus $5 P&H on the air. for a total of $47.

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