Casey, Crime Photographer, known by a variety of titles on radio including Crime Photographer, Flashgun Casey, and Casey, Press Photographer was a media franchise from the 1930s to the 1960s. The character was the creation of novelist George Harmon Coxe and was featured in the pulp magazine, Black Mask as well as in novels, comic books, radio, film, television and theatre. The central character Jack "Flashgun" Casey was a crime photographer for the newspaper The Morning Express and with the help of reporter Ann Williams, solved crimes. He would later recount his stories to Ethelbert the bartender and other friends at the Blue Note tavern and jazz club. Sponsors of the show included Anchor Hocking, Toni home permanents, Toni Shampoo and Philip Morris. Today's episode was originally broadcast on August 29, 1946. Please enjoy "The Red Raincoat" from Casey, Crime Photographer. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/support

Behind the Mic | Old Time Radio

Ep9 | "The Red Raincoat" (Casey, Crime Photographer)

In 1946, CBS radio debuted a new anthology series called Academy Award which presented 30-minute adaptations of plays, novels and films. Rather than always adapting Oscar-winning films, the series offered "Hollywood's finest, the great picture plays, the great actors and actresses, techniques and skills, chosen from the honor roll of those who have won or been nominated for the famous golden Oscar of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences." With that as a guideline, any drama could be presented as long as the cast included at least one Oscar-nominated performer. The series began March 30, 1946, with Bette Davis in Jezebel. On that first show, Jean Hersholt spoke as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, welcoming E.R. Squibb & Sons (a pharmaceutical company that would later became part of Bristol-Myers Squibb) as the program's sponsor. The was expensive to produce and cost the sponsor $4000 a week for the movie stars and another $1,600 each week to pay the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the use of their name in the show's title. This eventually became a factor in Squibb's decision to cancel the series after only 39 weeks. Today's episode is the 25th in the series and features an adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt" which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story and holds a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Joseph Cotten, one of the lead actors in that film, reprises his role of Charlie in this adaptation. The episode was originally broadcast on September 11th, 1946, the same day the Brooklyn Dodgers and the visiting Cincinnati Reds played the longest scoreless tie in Major League Baseball history, going for 19 innings and 4 hours, 40 minutes, before the game was called because of darkness Please enjoy "Shadow of a Doubt" from Academy Award. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/support

Ep8 | "Shadow of a Doubt" (Academy Award)

In 1930, Simon & Schuster published the first book in their "Inner Sanctum" anthology series. The series featured serious drama and romance, but became best known for it's mysteries. In the 1940's, Simon & Schuster licensed the name for a radio program on condition that the announcer would promote the latest book title published in the series at the end of each broadcast. On January 7, 1941, the very first episode of the Inner Sanctum radio program premiered on the NBC network. The series featured stories of mystery, terror and suspense, and its tongue-in-cheek introductions were in sharp contrast to shows like Suspense and The Whistler. The program's familiar and famed audio trademark was the eerie creaking door which opened and closed the broadcasts. The show's creator, Himan Brown got the idea from a door in the basement of an old studio that made a horrible creaking sound when it was opened. The program did originally intend to use a door, but on its first use, the door did not creak. Undaunted, Brown grabbed a nearby chair, sat in it and turned, causing a hair-raising squeak. The chair was used from then on as the sound prop. On at least one memorable occasion, a staffer innocently repaired and oiled the chair, thus forcing the sound man to mimic the squeak orally. Today's episode is the 204th in the series and was originally broadcast on November 28th, 1944, the same day that Albania liberated from Nazi control. Please enjoy "The Voice on the Wire" from Inner Sanctum. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/support

Ep7 | "The Voice on the Wire" (Inner Sanctum)

On July 7, 1947, CBS radio aired the very first episode of Escape, a high-adventure anthology series featuring a new story and a different set of characters in each episode. Many stories, both originals and adaptations, involved a protagonist in dire life-or-death straits, and the series featured more science fiction and supernatural tales than other popular shows of time like Suspense. Despite becoming one of the most popular series of it's genre, it did not have a regular sponsor and was subjected to frequent schedule shifts and lower production budgets during it's seven-year run. Escape enthralled many listeners during its seven-year run and which concluded on September 25, 1954. Today's episode is the 4th in the series and was originally broadcast on July 28th, 1947, the same day English swimmer Tom Blower completed the first swimming of the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland, achieving the feat in 15 hours and 26 minutes. Please enjoy "Typhoon" from Escape. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/support

Ep6 | "Typhoon" (Escape)

In the late 1940s, CBS chairman William S. Paley, asked his programming chief, Hubell Robinson, to develop a show about a "Philip Marlowe of the Old West". Robinson, in turn, asked their West Coast Vice President, Harry Ackerman, to take on the task. Ackerman, who had developed the Philip Marlowe series, worked with his scriptwriters to create two different versions of the show. The first, recorded in June 1949, was very much like a hardboiled detective series and starred Michael Rye as the lead character Mark Dillon; the second, recorded in July of that same year, starred Straight Arrow actor Howard Culver in a lighter, more Western version of the same script. CBS liked the Culver version better, and Ackerman was told to proceed. A complication arose, however, when Culver's contract with Straight Arrow would not allow him to do another Western. So the project was shelved for three years, until producer Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston discovered it while creating a Western series of their own. They wanted to create a radio Western for adults, in contrast to the popular kids shows such as The Lone Ranger and The Cisco Kid.  Gunsmoke, as their show would be called, was set in Dodge City, Kansas, during the thriving cattle days of the 1870s. It's lead character was renamed from Mark Dillon to Matt Dillon and they hired William Conrad in the lead role. The show ran from 1952 to 1961 and drew critical acclaim for it's unprecedented realism. Well known radio historian John Dunning wrote that among radio enthusiasts, "Gunsmoke is routinely placed among the best shows of any kind and any time." Today's episode is the 20th episode in the series and was originally broadcast on September 6th, 1952, the same day Canada's first television station, CBFT-TV opened in Montreal. Please enjoy "The Brothers" from Gunsmoke. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/support

Ep5 | "The Brothers" (Gunsmoke)

On June 17, 1947, (the same day Pan American World Airways began their first regularly scheduled around-the-world passenger service), NBC radio debuted The New Adventures of Philip Marlowe. The radio series was based on the character created by Raymond Chandler in 1932 for the popular pulp magazine Black Mask. "The pulps" as they were often referred to, were inexpensive fiction magazines published until the late 1950s that got their names from the cheap wood pulp paper that was used to create the magazines. Philip Marlowe became popular within the genre of hardboiled crime fiction in which the genre's protagonist is typically a detective who witnesses the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition (1920–1933), while dealing with a legal system that has become as corrupt as the organized crime itself. Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of the genre are often antiheroes and Marlowe is no exception. Underneath the wisecracking, hard-drinking, tough private eye, Philip Marlowe is quietly contemplative and philosophical and enjoys chess and poetry. While he is not afraid to risk physical harm, he does not dish out violence merely to settle scores. The episode featured in today's podcast is the fourth episode of the series that aired on October 17th, 1948. By that time, the series had moved to the CBS radio network and had been retitled The Adventures of Philip Marlowe. Please enjoy "Where There's a Will" from The Adventures of Philip Marlowe. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/support

Ep4 | "Where There's a Will" (Philip Marlowe)

One of the most iconic theme songs to come from the Golden Age of Radio has to be the "ominous, four-note introduction" composed by Walter Schumann for the radio program Dragnet. This theme, derived from Miklós Rózsa's score for the 1946 film The Killers, is still instantly recognizable decades later, even to those who have never heard of the radio program it was created for. Dragnet was an American radio series, created in cooperation with the Los Angeles Police Department, that took listeners step by step through actual cases from official police files. The show took its name from the police term "dragnet", describing a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects. It was created by actor and producer Jack Webb who also played the lead character Joe Friday. His goal was to create a true to life show that would give audience members a feel for the boredom and drudgery, as well as the danger and heroism, of police work. The program ran from June 3rd, 1949 to July 26th, 1957 and is regarded by many as the most famous and influential police procedural drama in media history. The episode featured in today's podcast is the fourth episode of Dragnet that aired on June 24th, 1949. It is also the first episode still publicly available that features the theme song. Without further ado, please enjoy "Quick Trigger Gunman" from Dragnet. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/support

Ep3 | "Quick Trigger Gunmen" (Dragnet)

Just a few weeks ago, I was listening to an episode of Richard Diamond, Private Detective when I heard a line that jumped out at me. The episode I was listening to is called "The Hollywood Story" and begins with someone coming to see Richard Diamond to get his help on a case in CA (and for those of you unfamiliar with Richard Diamond, he lives in New York City). Diamond agrees to take the case but while in route to CA he says to the man "Why come all the way to New York for me? You've got some pretty good boys in California. Spade, Novak…" Now, as I mentioned in my first podcast, Sam Spade is another fictional character that appears on his own radio program. So it Pat Novak. So what stood out to me as I was listening to this was that this was the first time I'd ever heard what I'd consider to be a "connected universe" in the land of Old Time Radio. The idea of a connected universe is not unfamiliar to anyone who's read a comic book or been to the movie theater in the last 12 years. It's fairly common to see character's like Batman and Superman appear in each other's comic books and since the release of the movie Iron Manin 2008, Marvel has been raking in billions on this concept as they create movie after movie with iconic character's like Captain America, Thor, and The Incredible Hulk all living in the same universe. In fact, it's been such a success that their most recent movie, Avengers: Endgame, holds the record as the highest-grossing movie of all time after passing Avatar which had held the record since 2009. Universal Studios even tried to create a "dark universe" with all of their classic monsters like Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man but they scrapped those plans after their Mummy reboot with Tom Cruise bombed in 2017. I personally find that disappointing as I loved the 1999 reboot with Brendan Fraiser and Rachel Weisz and I was excited to see a world where all those characters interacted with one another. Now, while it's not uncommon to see this happen in today's pop culture, I'd never heard an example of it on the radio. If anyone listening thinks I'm crazy for not noticing this before, please let me know of other episodes that do the same thing. I'd love to listen to them. And since this is the first time we'll be listening to something from Richard Diamond, Private Detective, I want to give a quick series intro before playing the episode. I forgot to do the same last week when we listened to an episode of Suspense so I'll be sure to provide some background the next time we listen to something from that series. Richard Diamond, Private Detective is radio series featuring Dick Powell as a wisecracking, former police officer turned private detective. Episodes typically open with a client visiting or calling cash-strapped Diamond and agreeing to his fee of $100 a day plus expenses. It began airing on NBC Radio on April 24, 1949 and jumped around to various networks and sponsors until it's final broadcast on September 20, 1953. The script for today's episode was originally used on the CBS radio network on November 16th, 1951. However, since a recording of that episode is not available, what you'll be hearing today is a second performance that aired on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) on August 23rd, 1953. Please enjoy "The Hollywood Story" from Richard Diamond, Private Detective. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/support

Ep2 | "The Hollywood Story" (Richard Diamond, Private Detective)

My introduction to Old Time Radio began at a young age after my parents got a few cassette tapes featuring popular radio programs like Dragnet, Lights Out, Inner-Sanctum, and Suspense. My brother and I shared a room at the time and we both loved falling asleep listening to those old radio shows. Of all the episodes we listened to, one of the most memorable for me was "The House in Cypress Canyon" from the radio program Suspense. I remember being terrified while listening to that episode but I couldn't stop listening because I had to know how it ended! While preparing for this episode, I did some research and it appears that I wasn't the only one who thought it was scary. According to John Dunning (known in OTR circles for his Encyclopedias on Old Time Radio), "the episode is frequently cited as one of the most terrifying programs broadcast during radio's Golden age." The plot is presented as a "story within a story," framed by a meeting between detective Sam Spade (who also appeared in his own radio program which will cover in a future episode) and a real estate agent who has discovered a manuscript in a currently unfinished house in Cypress Canyon. After a brief introduction, the narrative shifts to the story presented in the manuscript. I won't go into further detail because I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't already heard it. But, trust me, it's worth a listen. As you listen to the episode, listen for the voice of the real estate agent Jerry. He's played by Hans Conried who voiced Captain Hook in Walt Disney's Peter Pan. The characters of the detective Sam Space and the main character Ellen Woods are performed by Howard Duff and Cathy Lewis. Both of whom were born in WA state. I find that particularly interesting consider I live in Seattle. The episode first aired on December 5th, 1946 and, despite being very popular, was never performed again. On that same day in history: President Truman issued      Executive Order 9808, creating a 16-member Presidential Committee on Civil      Rights José Carreras, Spanish opera singer, and      one of The Three Tenors; was born in Barcelona Now, without further ado… please enjoy "The House in Cypress Canyon" --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/support

Ep1 | "The House in Cypress Canyon" (Suspense)

Welcome to the Behind the Mic from otrpodcasts.com. On this podcast, we explore the history behind many of Old Time Radio's greatest performances! We jump around from series to series, picking one episode each week and together we learn about the actors, producers, sponsors, and more before listening to that full episode as it was originally broadcast. Thanks for tuning in! Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otr-behind-the-mic/support