Episode 183 - Honor Among Thieves (Boston Blackie)

Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

Jack Mooney

Arts, Performing Arts, Tv & Film

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2016

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Master jewel thief turned ace detective, the infamous Boston Blackie is an "enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend." Much to the chagrin of Inspector Faraday, Blackie puts his criminal mind to work for the good guys, nabbing crooks, cons, and thieves with the same sleight of hand and crafty calculations that served him on the wrong side of the law. We'll hear Chester Morris recreate his big screen role of Blackie in "Black Market Blackie," originally aired on NBC on July 21, 1944. Then, Richard Kollmar takes over in the syndicated episode "The Undersea Murder."

Transcript

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0:00.0	The On radio and on the big screen Boston Blackie was described as an enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend.
0:31.0	It was a great introduction for one of Radio's most popular gumshoes, albeit
0:36.5	one who began life as a lawbreaker. In his earliest literary appearances, Blackie was a safe cracker and a thief, just like his creator,
0:46.8	writer and con man Jack Boyle. Boyle created the character while serving time himself, and he wrote several stories starring Blackie upon his release from incarceration.
0:58.0	But the idea of Boston Blackie as a hero originated in a popular series of B movies from Columbia Pictures,
1:05.4	starring Chester Morris as Blackie.
1:08.5	The films established Blackie as an ex-jewel thief who played detective usually in an attempt to save his own skin and prove his innocence
1:16.0	when a hiced or other crime was committed.
1:19.2	He often had to explain himself to Inspector Faraday of the police, a thick-headed cop who was never completely convinced that Blackie had abandoned his criminal ways.
1:29.0	Blackie was helped in his cases on screen by the Runt, his diminutive right-hand man, played in many of the films by character George E Stone.
1:41.0	Between 1941 and 1949, Chester Morris played Boston Blackie in 14 B movies for Columbia,
1:49.0	and it was this portrayal that cemented the new Blackie persona in the public's eye.
1:55.0	The popularity of the Columbia films led to a
1:58.0	1944 summer radio series on NBC.
2:02.0	Morris recreated his screen role, as did Richard Lane, who appeared as Inspector
2:07.8	Faraday. The show aired for 13 episodes that summer, conveniently timed to promote one mysterious night, the
2:16.2	seventh Columbia Boston Blackie movie, due out in theaters that fall.
2:21.6	Boston Blackie returned to the airwaves in 1945 in a syndicated series from producer Frederick
2:26.7	W. Ziv. Mr. Ziv is no stranger to listeners of this podcast. He was the producer who brought Humphrey Bogart and
2:34.4	Lauren Bacall to radio in the Caribbean Adventure series Bold Venture. In addition,
2:40.0	Ziv produced and distributed Philovance starring Jackson Beck and Dana Andrews and I was a
2:47.2	communist for the FBI.
	...

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