Welcome to Down These Mean Streets, bringing you the best of detectives from the Golden Age of radio. Welcome to Down these means streets and another old-time radio detective adventure.

This week we'll hear from Casey Crime Photographer,

Ace cameraman who chased down leads and ended up scooping the police when he cracked the case in one of radio's longest running mystery shows.

Jack Flash Gun Casey was born in the pages of Black Mask magazine in 1934 in stories written by George Harmon Cox.

Cox was inspired by stories of reporters who pulled double duty as detectives.

He figured a photographer could find the same sorts of

adventures when working on a story. In his early adventures, Casey was a Boston-based photographer

for the Morning Express, and like his fellow hard-boiled black mask

characters he was a hard-drinking two-fisted character who could aim a 38 as well as

he could his camera. Casey appeared in 21 short stories, five novels,

and two MGM films in 1936 and 1937.

The character was softened as the stories went on and it was that tamer version of

Casey that made his way to radio.

His adventures aired on CBS on and off from 1943 to 1955 in various incarnations and under several titles.

However, it most often ran under the Casey crime photographer Banner.

Actors Matt Crowley and Jim Backus,

aka Mr. Magoo, played Casey in the earliest episodes

before writer, painter, and actor, Statsz Kotsworth made the role his own before the series left the air.

Kotsworth was an accomplished stage actor and radio veteran who continued to work in supporting roles on other shows, even as he

starred as Casey, a testament to his versatility as a performer. Listeners could

hear him on the mysterious traveler, Dimension X, Rocky Fortune, and other shows throughout the 1940s and 1950s.

Casey's photos ran alongside the stories of his girlfriend, reporter Ann Williams, a character created for the radio show.

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