Welcome to Down These Mean Streets, bringing you the best of detectives from the Golden Age of radio. This week we're off to Egypt for a story of exotic adventure on Rocky Jordan.

This series might best be described as a combination of the Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.

Rocky Jordan was a two-fisted tough guy who hailed from St. Louis and who set up shop as an overseas club owner during the post-war years. His cafe tambourine was a popular watering hole for customers on both sides of the law, sometimes looking to conduct business inside the club.

Rocky Jordan first came to radio as a five night a week serial that ran from January 8th to June 29th 1945.

When that series ended, a 30-minute weekly series aired on CBS West Coast Network

until 1947. During this run, Rocky's Cafe

Tambourine was in Istanbul. In 1948, Rocky returned to CBS for a new series

sponsored by Del Monte Foods.

In his year off the air, Rocky had evidently relocated the club

as the Café Tambourine was now doing business in Cairo.

The Egyptian setting helped Rocky Jordan stand out from

the pack and the show's writers were committed to authenticity in their

depiction of the GIs during World War II. Real street names were used and cool and Roman found story ideas

and inspiration from news bulletins coming out of Cairo.

Actor Jack Moils starred as Rocky from 1945 to 1947 and again from 1948 until 1950.

Moiles was a veteran radio character actor.

We've heard him before as Sergeant Pete

Carger on the lineup. Jane Vello co-starred as Captain Sam Sabaya of the

Cairo Police. Like other radio detectives in their police counterparts, Rocky and Sam had a friendly rivalry, similar to that of Rick and Captain Rinald in Casablanca.

The series returned to radio for a brief run in 1951 with actor George Raft stepping in his rocky,

but Jack Moiles stands as the definitive Rocky Jordan.

So now let's listen to Jack Moiles in The Map of Murder, originally aired on CBS on

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