Wanted: A beautiful girl. One not afraid to look on
danger’s bright face. Room 1000, The Lorenzo.
This simple advertisement in a newspaper begins one of Dorothy Belle Hughes (left) psychological thriller crime stories. Hughes, whose works are only recently finding resurgence being re-published by The Mysterious Press were written mostly in the forties of which this story was first published in 1940 as The Cross-eyed Bear Murders. Hughes preceded even Jim Thompson whose The Killer Within was considered a seminal psychological crime story. But Hughes, for seem reason, arced and seemed to have lost traction in the publishing world until recently.
Suspense adapted two of her stories, of which this one is from 1943. The adaptation leaves you wanting and I would recommend reading the original works by this fabulous crime writer.
Music under is the Bill Evans Trio performing Young and Foolish.
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Vincent Starrett was a Chicago-based journalist and crime fiction writer in the early part of the 20th century. He was an intense bibliophile and became interested in all things Sherlockian writing what is probably one of the best pastiches of Holmes in 1920 called The Adventure of the Unique ‘Hamlet.’
Eno Crime Clues is a good example of early radio detective stories from the earliest time of radio programming. Often there were very little or crude sound effects, somewhat thin plotlines and the acting was a bit stilted. These series definitely were not the sophisticated versions of later detectives such as Nick Carter, Nick Charles or Philip Marlowe. I always find them hard to listen to as the pacing is so slow.
With changes in how Hollywood worked with actors and contracts, a number of well-known actors began doing usually short term series on radio including Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in Bold Venture, Dana Andrews in I Was A Communist for the FBI, Joel McCrea, Tyrone Powers, Alan Ladd and Glenn Ford, who starred in a detective/adventure series called The Adventures of Christopher London.
