Monday, August 3, 2015

Tuesday's Overlooked Radio: The Whistler



The Whistler is a know-it-all. He'll narrate your doom while snarking at your stupidity, posing endless rhetorical questions that you can't hear (but we in the radio audience can). The formula for this popular anthology series was a durable one that lasted almost 700 episodes, and had separate movie and television incarnations as well.

Glancing through an episode list, I noticed the title "Danger Is a Beautiful Blonde," and thought, Well that sounds classic enough. The story was broadcast three times on The Whistler, in 1945 (with war-time references), 1949, and 1951. I listened to the 1945 broadcast first and was immediately taken with the quality of the voice acting and the first act set-up.

Van Stevens is a good-looking young single engineer on assignment in an unfamiliar West Coast city, who gets street-cruised and ultimately picked up by a swanky woman in a nice car on a Saturday night. Given that he was facing a boring night alone, our Van can't believe his good fortune. The dame takes him back to her impressive beach mansion (with a Picasso on the wall), and the game is on. The actors (whom I have not been able to identify) capture the thrill of the pick-up scenario very well, and the atmosphere is thickly erotic. But of course, the young woman has an ulterior motive that's not exactly sexual...

In a movie, with some time to work with, this opening might have been spun out interestingly, but a half-hour radio program only has about 25 minutes of actual plot-time, and this has got to move fast! And so it does, if not entirely satisfyingly. The character of the femme fatale Doris seems dangerous one minute, dippy the next. The closing segment features a genuine deus ex machina in the form of a policeman who is actually completely on top of the situation and able to explain every last thing that has happened! The man is an honest-to-goodness doom preventer for Van Stevens. It's kind of a surprise ending simply because that sort of spot-on official assistance is seldom offered in noir, where typically a good chunk of the problems come from policemen who don't understand a darn thing.

The 1949 re-broadcast tweaks this denouement by briefly adding a character who is only referred to in the original, giving rise to an additional two minutes of twistiness, but arrives at the same end-note. This version features the familiar voice of Jack Webb in the lead, opposite Joan Banks (Frank Lovejoy's wife - I swear, we can't get away from Lovejoy!). The Van Stevens character is called Van Barkley this time (and again in 1951). The dialogue is partially re-written; for example, the exchange about Picasso (which makes Van seem like a culturally with-it guy) is lost.

The 1951 version is very close in its details and overall effect to the 1949; it features Bill Bouchey and Michael Ann Barrett in the leads. Bouchey worked extensively in film and television. Barrett had uncredited parts in The File on Thelma Jordan and The Wrong Man, and worked with Jack Webb more than once in the early incarnations of Dragnet.

The Whistler goes on knowing many things, because he walks by night.

3/5/1945 version:


5/8/1949 version:


7/29/1951 version:

Danger Is a Beautiful Blonde

Complete episode logs for The Whistler can be found at these two sites:

The Whistler (Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs)

The Whistler (radioGOLDINdex)

The second of these has detailed information on the three versions of "Danger Is a Beautiful Blonde":

79407. The Whistler. March 5, 1945. CBS Pacific net. "Danger Is A Beautiful Blonde". Sponsored by: Signal Oil. A man walking along the street is picked up by a beautiful, rich woman and finds...murder! The program opening is slightly upcut. The script was subsequently used on "The Whistler" on May 8, 1949 (see cat. #76091 and #16759) and on July 29, 1951 (see cat. #93298). John Dunkel (writer), Hazel Leitel (writer), George W. Allen (director), Wilbur Hatch (music), Bob Anderson (announcer). 29:48. Audio condition: Very good. Complete as above.

76091. The Whistler. May 8, 1949. CBS Pacific net. "Danger Is A Beautiful Blonde". Sponsored by: Signal Oil. A man walking along the street is picked up by a beautiful, rich woman...and finds murder! This is a network, sponsored version of cat. #16759. The script was used previously on "The Whistler" on March 5, 1945 (see cat. #79407) and subsequently on July 29, 1951 (see cat. #93298). Wilbur Hatch (music), George W. Allen (producer, director), Marvin Miller (announcer), Jack Webb, Joan Banks, Hazel Leitel (writer), John Dunkel (writer). 29:43. Audio condition: Excellent. Complete.

16759. The Whistler. May 8, 1949. CBS net origination, AFRTS rebroadcast. "Danger Is A Beautiful Blonde". A man walking along the street is picked up by a beautiful, rich woman and finds...murder! See cat. #76091 for a network, sponsored version of this broadcast. The script was previously used on "The Whistler" on March 5, 1945 (see cat. #79407) and subsequently on July 29, 1951 (see cat. #93298). Jack Webb, Joan Banks, Hazel Leitel (writer), John Dunkel (writer), Marvin Miller (announcer), George W. Allen (producer, director), Wilbur Hatch (music). 1/2 hour. Audio condition: Excellent. Complete.

93298. The Whistler. July 29, 1951. CBS Pacific net. "Danger Is A Beautiful Blonde". Sponsored by: Signal Oil. A man walking along the street is picked up by a beautiful, rich woman and finds...murder! The script was previously used on "The Whistler" on March 5, 1945 (see cat. #79407) and on May 8, 1949 (see cat. #76091 and #16759) Hazel Leitel (writer), John Dunkel (writer), Michael Ann Barrett, Bill Bouchey, Hy Averback, Earl Lee, Charles Calvert. 29:01. Audio condition: Excellent. Complete.

No comments:

Post a Comment