BBC Radio 4 Extra is running a series of Lady Detective dramas that feature early female detectives. First up was Loveday Brooke, a Victorian detective created by Catherine Louisa Pirkis. The initial episode has played, but is being repeated today and should be on listen again for a week. Also featured is Anna Katharine Green‘s 1915 detective Violet Strange and Wilkie Collin’s… (more…)
Category Archives: Podcasts
Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 179 – The Crowd (Suspense)
This podcast takes a story from a well known Science Fiction writer – a fantasy horror story – which has been adapted by two veteran radio detective scriptwriters. The result is to take Ray Bradbury’s horror story and have Mort Fine and David Friedkin turn it into a detective thriller. Unusual perhaps, but it seems to hold up well. The… (more…)
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Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 178 – Frightened City (Suspense)
This podcast looks at a rare event in radio when a number of elements coalesce with a brilliant actor, producer, director, writer all creating an excellent production. This Suspense episode called “Frightened City” stars Frank Lovejoy, with his gritty cynical way of speaking and is written by the dual experience radio script writing team of Morton Fine & David Friedkin.… (more…)
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Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 177 – John Lund
After doing a re-evaluation of my opinion of John Lund as Johnny Dollar, I have decided my original thinking was flawed. After listening to more of his portrayal as Johnny Dollar in the early fifties, have led me to raise the bar on his performance. Lund’s Dollar, while dark, is much warmer than Edmund O’Brien who preceded him and quite… (more…)
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Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 176 – Challenge To the Listener
Hugh Pentecost was a pseudonym for Mystery writer Judson Phillips. He was one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America. This podcast features a script he wrote called “Challenge to the Listener” and starred Richard Widmark and Everett Sloane – both intense actors and excellent in these roles. The story appeared on the Molle Mystery Theater and begins… (more…)
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Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 175 – Molle Mystery Theater
Cornell Woolrich was one of the most dominant authors whose stories appeared on the many mystery series of the forties. In this episode of Leg Man from the Molle Mystery Theater based on the short story of the same name, we find Burgess, a tenacious reporter who is seeking out not only a story, but wants to figure out a… (more…)
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Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 174 – Ellery Queen
In 1928, two young men decided to enter a Mystery Novel writing contest. Their book resulted in publication and thus began the career of one of America’s deductive solving detectives – Ellery Queen. Ultimately, the authors turned to radio and one of the more popular and long running series both on radio and television began. The stories of Ellery Queen… (more…)
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Sorry for the silence!
Things have been pretty hectic here recently taking my time away from any new podcasts. Hopefully, I will have another one shortly.
Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 173 – Two Men In a Furnished Room
This week a rare story from the pen of William Irish, aka Cornell Woolrich, that as a radio drama is pure audio noir. The series on which it appeared was the Mollé Mystery Theater in 1946 starring John Beal (right) and Sam Wanamaker. It is an example of what biographer Francis Nevins calls Wollrich’s oscillation thriller. All the elements of… (more…)
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The Complete Smiley
BBC Radio 4 Extra is now repeating the Complete Smiley series they ran last year. Though more spy that detective thriller, this is a very well done set of productions of John LeCarre’s novels of his spymaster George Smiley. They recently began the first of the novels – Call For the Dead. The series stars Simon Russell Beale as Smiley… (more…)
Jim Widner
- A former educator and current radio historian, writer and big fan of detective, suspense, and mystery fiction.
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