Episode 177 – Flashbulbs and Felonies (Casey, Crime Photographer)

Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

Jack Mooney

Tv & Film, Performing Arts, Arts

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2016

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Staats Cotsworth is on the scene and on the job as Casey, Crime Photographer – ace cameraman and amateur sleuth. Casey gets the pictures of crime stories of the big city and he works to bring the criminals to justice. It's all in a day's work, and he's usually done in time to enjoy a drink at the Blue Note Café with his friends. We'll hear Casey in "The Red Raincoat" (originally aired on CBS on August 29, 1946) and "The Gentle Strangler" (originally aired on CBS on April 24, 1947).

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Our hero this week didn't carry a badge or a gun. Instead he wielded a press card and a camera.
0:28.0	And even though he wasn't a professional detective, he could get to the bottom of bizarre cases that baffled the cops.
0:35.0	He was Casey, crime photographer, the ace cameraman who went beyond the call of duty
0:41.0	and investigated the stories of murder and mayhem he was assigned to cover.
0:45.0	Casey was the creation of writer George Harmon Cox, who introduced the character in stories published in Black Mask magazine.
0:54.0	Cox saw the popularity of tales of adventurous newspaper reporters,
0:58.8	but he felt it was the photographers who frequently had to put themselves in danger to get a great shot.
1:05.0	He created Casey, a hard-drinking two-fisted photographer, more Sam Spade than Jimmy Olson. The character was a hit, and Cox wrote 24 short stories and five
1:17.3	novels featuring Casey. The character hit the big screen in a pair of 1930s B movies, but his most enduring success outside of print came on radio.
1:28.0	The Adventures of the Crime Photographer premiered on CBS on July 7th, 1943 as Flash Gun Casey.
1:37.0	Flash Gun Casey, Press Photographer. Out of the big city's roaring life, out of a great newspaper, pounding hearts, come the exciting
1:59.0	adventures of a man with a camera, Flash Gun Casey, press photographer.
2:04.0	Columbia presents a new adventure character, Flash Gun Casey, press photographer.
2:16.0	Tough, daring, typical of the men who often risk their lives so that you may see the news as well as reading.
2:23.0	Their salaries are not large and they seldom get much credit,
2:27.0	but their lives are packed with danger and thrills.
2:30.0	Tonight and every Wednesday night at this time,
2:32.0	Columbia invites you to follow the story of
2:34.4	Flash John Casey and the people who pass in swift moving parade before the shutters of his camera.
2:41.0	In the earliest days of the program, was played by Matt Crowley the voice of Batman on radio and by Jim Backus later to achieve TV immortality as Mr Howell on Gilgan's Island. But their stints in the role
2:55.6	were short. Stots Kotsworth took over as Casey early in the show's run and he
3:01.1	would play the character into the 1950s.
	...

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