Episode 653 - Leading Men of Mystery: Glenn Ford (Christopher London & Studio One)

Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

Jack Mooney

Tv & Film, Arts, Performing Arts

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2026

⏱️ 98 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We wrap up our series of Hollywood stars who solved crimes on the air with Glenn Ford. The star of Gilda, The Big Heat, and 3:10 to Yuma appeared on radio as Christopher London, a globetrotting private eye created by Erle Stanley Gardner. We'll hear Ford as London in "The Missing Heiress" (originally aired on NBC on February 5, 1950). Then, he's a man on the run in a Studio One adaptation of "The 39 Steps" (originally aired on CBS on March 23, 1948).

Transcript

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0:00.0	Get this and get it straight.
0:02.1	Crime is a sucker's road.
0:03.9	And those who travel
0:04.6	it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave.
0:12.3	The story you were about to hear is true.
0:15.2	Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
0:18.6	The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective.
0:21.7	The Adventures of the Saint,
0:23.4	starring Vincent Price.
0:25.5	Bob Bailey, in the exciting adventures
0:27.7	of the man with the action-packed expense account.
0:30.6	America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator...
0:33.4	Yours truly, Johnny Dollar.
1:06.2	... Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. Hello and welcome to Down These Mean Streets with more old-time radio detectives and crime solvers.
1:13.0	Our month-long series of Hollywood leading men with careers in radio crime-solving concludes today with Glenn Ford, an actor who found big-screen success in multiple genres.
1:21.0	Noir pictures like Gilda and The Big Heat, westerns like 310 to Yuma, and social dramas like Blackboard Jungle.
1:30.3	Other movie fans may know him as Jonathan Kent in a short but memorable appearance in
1:36.3	1978 Superman.
1:39.3	Unlike the other actors we've heard in this series, Glenn Ford starred in a network radio show, and he played a character created for the air by one of the country's most popular mystery writers.
1:53.0	Earl Stanley Gartner, who gave us Perry Mason, came up with Christopher London, a globetrotting private investigator whose cases took him all around the world.
2:05.1	The series was produced and directed by William N. Robeson, a veteran of Escape and the Man Called X,
2:12.0	and it featured a terrific supporting cast of West Coast radio players.
	...

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