Episode 227 - One Mohr for the Road (Philip Marlowe & Nero Wolfe)

Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

Jack Mooney

Arts, Performing Arts, Mystery, Detectives, Old, Radio, Time, Tv & Film, Oldtimeradio

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2017

⏱️ 124 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From 1948 to 1951, Gerald Mohr turned in a star performance as Raymond Chandler's L.A. private eye Philip Marlowe and gave us one of the best detectives of the radio era. But there was more to Mohr than his celebrated turn as "crime's most deadly enemy." In honor of his birthday, we'll hear Gerald Mohr in two radio mysteries as Marlowe - "The Long Rope" (originally aired on CBS on February 5, 1949) and "The Strangle Hold" (originally aired on CBS on October 15, 1949). We'll also hear him as Archie Goodwin (opposite Sydney Greenstreet) in "The Case of the Killer Cards" from The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe (originally aired on NBC on January 12, 1951). And - as a bonus - we'll hear Mohr playing for laughs as French teacher Jacques Monet in an episode of Our Miss Brooks from October 9, 1949.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Welcome to down these Mean Streets where today we're saluting one of the best voices of the Golden Age of radio, Gerald Moore.
0:30.0	Fans of this podcast may know him best as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlow.
0:35.0	More played the legendary gumshoo from 1948 to 1959,
0:40.0	but he appeared all over the radio dial during his on-air career.
0:44.0	Gerald Moore was born June 11, 1914,
0:48.0	and today, in honor of his birthday,
0:50.0	I'll turn the spotlight on the actor for four of his old-time radio performances.
0:56.6	We'll begin, of course, with Marlow.
0:59.7	More starring turn as the Los Angeles Private Eye stands as one of the very best of the era,
1:05.0	shoulder to shoulder with Howard Duff Sam Spade and Bob Bailey's Johnny Dollar.
1:11.0	More one rave reviews, including one from Raymond Chandler himself.
1:15.0	The author was said to have been disappointed with an earlier radio run starring Van Heflin as Marlow,
1:21.0	but he had praise for Moore's voice. More could play a two-fisted tough guy, a quick-witted
1:27.2	quipster, and a hopeless romantic as Marlow, sometimes all in the same episode, and odds are you'll be immediately hooked by
1:35.0	his breathless introduction to each episode. Today we'll hear a pair of
1:39.8	Philip Marlow's radio adventures beginning with the Long Rope, an episode from February 5, 1949.
1:47.9	In this one, Marlow is hired to deliver a $30,000 pearl necklace, but he arrives to find his client dead and the necklace gone. Junius Matthews, Louis Van Rooten, Ed Begley, Faye Baker, and Jeff Corey co-star, Mel Denelli, Robert Mitchell, and Gene Leavitt wrote the script.
2:07.0	Then we'll hear the Stranglehold. Mystery set in the world of sports reporting and professional wrestling that originally
2:14.0	aired on October 15th 1949. Viddy Janus Charlotte Lawrence, Peter Leeds, Barney Phillips
2:20.9	and Tony Barrett co-star with Gerald Moore.
2:24.0	Robert Mitchell and Jean Levitt penned the show
2:27.0	and both episodes were produced and directed by Norman McDonnell.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jack Mooney, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jack Mooney and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.