Welcome to Down These Mean Streets, bringing you the best of detectives from the Golden Age of radio. Hello and welcome to down these mean streets and another old time radio detective. This week we're hearing from Boston Blackie,

Safecracker turned detective who uses his underworld connections to solve tough crimes, usually a few steps ahead of the police department.

The character emerged from the printed page to appear in movies, on television, and in two radio

series, one of which we'll hear today.

Boston Blackie was created by writer Jack Boyle in 1914,

and in his early appearances Blackie was a safe cracker and Jewel Thief.

He made the jump to movies fairly quickly, starring in nine silent films between 1918

and 1927. In 1941, Columbia revived the property for a series of B movies

starring Chester Morris as Blackie, who had given up his criminal ways but always wound up as a prime suspect when a baffling crime was committed.

Blackie wasn't a licensed private eye, but he would work his way into the investigation to clear his name and bring the guilty party to justice in the process.

Along the way, Black used his old underworld contacts to track down leads and stay one step ahead of the police that dogged his track.

His chief adversary, even though their rivalry was usually friendly,

was Inspector Faraday of the police, who was always quick to point the finger at Blackie when a jewel was stolen or a corpse was discovered.

It was this version of Blackie, the reformed thief-turned-detective, who came to radio in 1944. informed Thief and Morris was supported by Leslie and Richard Lane as Inspector Faraday.

By this time Blackie was firmly entrenched on the side of law and order,

even if Inspector Faraday wasn't completely convinced.

Blackie was introduced each week as an enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who

have no friend.

The Summer Series was perfectly timed to promote

Morris's seventh Boston Blackie Columbia feature, One Mysterious Night, which hit

theaters in October, 1944.

The following year Blackie returned to the airwaves in a syndicated series produced by Frederick

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