The Our detective this week is another member of Radio's fraternity of Secret Agents,

tasked with keeping America safe on the airwaves in the early days of the Cold War.

He's Steve Mitchell, and from 1949 until 1953 he was dispatched

all over the world in the Weekly Mystery Adventure, Dangerous Assignment.

The program starred Brian Don Levy as Mitchell, an agent for the U.S. government, though it was

never clearly explained which branch or agency employed the character.

He received his weekly dangerous assignment from the commissioner,

played by veteran radio actor Herb Butterfield.

Butterfield also doled out jobs to another radio detective, Jack Webb's Jeff Reagan investigator.

These scenes in the Commissioner's Office that open each episode may remind listeners of the early James Bond movies, where Bond received his mission briefing

from M before beginning a new case.

Like his fellow radio agent, the man called X, Steve Mitchell handled a variety of cases.

Whether it was investigating coups in Latin America, locating defecting double agents, or picking

up where a murdered colleague left off.

The biggest difference between the two was that the man called Axe had the dubious

assistance of international con man, Pegon-Zelt-Schmidt, and Steve Mitchell worked alone. He was a man of action and quick thinking and he was perfectly voiced by Brian Don Levy. Don Levy was a big screen star known for his Oscar nominated turn in Bo Guest and for a series of tough guy roles in the 1940s.

In fact, when he died, the Times in the United Kingdom wrote,

Any consideration of the American film noir of the 1940s would be incomplete without Don Levy.

However, he also had a knack for lighter material, a talent he displayed in collaborations with Preston Sturgis, including 1940s, The Great McGinty.

Don Levy was involved behind the scenes of dangerous assignment, helping to sell the radio series to NBC and co-producing the later television version.

Dangerous assignment premiered with a summer run on NBC in 1949.

The network was eager to find an adventure series to replace the man called

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