Episode 453 – This Ladd for Hire (Box 13 & Lux Radio Theatre)
Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)
Jack Mooney
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2021
⏱️ 95 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alan Ladd broke out on screen with his performance as a professional killer in This Gun for Hire. He'd go on to find success on screen in noir dramas and westerns and on radio as mystery writer turned amateur sleuth Dan Holiday in Box 13. We'll hear a Lux Radio Theatre recreation of This Gun for Hire (originally aired on CBS on January 25, 1943). Plus, Dan Holiday takes a sea voyage with a killer in "One of These Four" from Box 13.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Get this and get it straight. Crime is a suckers road and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave. |
| 0:07.0 | The story you are about to hear is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. |
| 0:18.0 | The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective. |
| 0:22.0 | The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize |
| 0:25.4 | Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account |
| 0:30.6 | America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator. |
| 0:33.0 | Yours truly, Johnny Deller. the Hello and welcome to down these mean streets and more old-time radio |
| 1:00.4 | detectives and crime fighters. This week were saluting actor Alan Ladd, |
| 1:07.0 | born September 3rd 1913. |
| 1:11.0 | Ladd broke out in Hollywood with his turn as a professional killer in this gun for hire. |
| 1:17.0 | Most of his screen success came in noir dramas, including the Glass Key and the Blue Dahlia. He also made a name for himself |
| 1:26.0 | in Westerns like with his performance in the title role of Shane. Of course on this show we know him best as Dan Holiday. Mystery writer turned amateur |
| 1:37.8 | detective on Box 13. Holiday concocted a clever but dangerous way to get around writer's block. |
| 1:47.0 | He posted a newspaper ad where he offered to go any place and do anything and each week a letter that was sent to box 13 |
| 1:56.9 | would set him off on a new adventure. Ladd produced and starred in the syndicated series which has long been one of my favorite old time radio detective shows. |
| 2:10.0 | This week for a belated birthday tribute will hear an episode of Box 13 along with a Lux radio theater recreation of the film that made Alan Ladd a star |
| 2:28.2 | Up first is one of these four, a Box 13 mystery that finds Dan Holiday invited on a very unusual sea voyage. His host has summoned Holiday and three others to take a cruise on a luxury |
| 2:37.6 | yacht, but one of the four guests is a murderer. The host is staging a game with life and death stakes as the |
| 2:47.0 | other three have the duration of the voyage to identify the killer and the |
| 2:51.8 | killer has the same amount of time to conceal their identity by any |
| 2:55.9 | means necessary. |
| 2:58.4 | Russell Hughes wrote the script and Richard Sandville directed. |
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