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Crime Club - 10 hours [Download] #RA138D
Crime Club
 

10 hours - Digital Download


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Crime Club

 
“Yes, this is the Crime Club...I’m the librarian...”
 
In its earliest incarnation, “Crime Club” (or “The Eno Crime Club,” as it was known from 1931-32, since it was sponsored by Eno’s “effervescent antacid salts”) was one of radio’s most popular half-hours, outdrawing the likes of even “The King of Jazz,” Paul Whiteman, and broadcasters Lowell Thomas and Walter Winchell. The reason for the program’s eventual fade in listenership was described by radio historiographer Fred MacDonald thusly: “Many reasons could be suggested for such a development: the paucity of good writers, the still-maturing art of sound effects, the preference of Americans for drama in motion pictures rather than radio. But the most pressing reason was the lack of big-name talent. Movie personalities avoided radio (and) as a new form of programming, broadcast drama had little experienced talent upon which to draw.”
 
The Doubleday Publishing Company introduced its series of “Crime Club” imprints in 1928 with Kay Cleaver Strahan’s “The Desert Moon Mystery,” an imprint which earned them a major mint thanks to a long run of dime-store novels that continued to be released until 1991. Among the books featured under the “Crime Club” banner were all fifty novels of “The Saint,” written by Leslie Charteris, and several of the Fu Manchu first editions by Sax Rohmer. The popularity of the novels even stretched to motion pictures, with Universal Studios producing eleven B-mysteries between 1937 and 1939, several of which (“The Westland Case”, “The Lady in the Morgue”) featured Crime Club stalwart Detective Bill Crane (played by Preston Foster), as created by mystery author Jonathan Latimer.
 
When “The Eno Crime Club” premiered over CBS Radio on February 9, 1931, many of the “Crime Club” imprints were adapted for the six-day-a-week quarter hour series by writers Stewart Sterling and Albert G. Miller. (“The Eno Crime Club” switched to a twice-a-week half-hour format beginning in January 1932, cutting back to a once-weekly appearance in November of that year.) The novels were filtered, however, through a pair of characters created just for the program: Detective Spencer Dean, who was nicknamed “The Manhunter” and played by Edward Reese and later Clyde North, and his sidekick Danny Cassidy, played by Walter Glass and, later, by Jack MacBryde. Other actors to appear on the program included Helen Choate as Jane Elliott, Georgia Backus, Adele Ronson, Brian Donlevy, and Ray Collins. In January 1933, the series switched to the Blue Network and became “Eno Crime Clues,” heard Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 8:00 PM (Tuesdays only beginning September 1934) before calling it quits in June of 1936. (Unlike its predecessor, “Eno Crime Clues” did not rely on adaptations from Doubleday’s pulp novels.)
 
Ten years later, “Crime Club” made a return appearance on Mutual beginning December 2, 1946 as a half-hour series that once again used the imprints as inspiration but acted more as an anthology series, with only a character dubbed “The Librarian” (played by Barry Thompson and Raymond Edward Johnson) making weekly appearances and telling tales of mystery and adventures with detectives frequently in pursuit of crime suspects. This version, for which most of the extant “Crime Club” episodes have been culled today, lasted only a single sustained season under the direction-production of Roger Bower. This post-war revival, from which all twenty of the episodes contained in this Radio Archives collection have been taken, offers modern day listeners interesting and well-produced tales of mayhem that, even after more than half a century, can still capture the attention of the most sophisticated and discriminating radio enthusiast . In “Crime Club,” in fact, you’ll hear echoes of not only good detective stories, but you’ll also enjoy the influences of other contemporary anthology shows of an era that produced such classics as “Suspense,” “The Whistler,” and “The Mysterious Traveler”.
 
Mr. Smith’s Hat
Thursday, January 23, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Dead Men Control
Thursday, March 20, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Silent Witnesses
Thursday, March 27, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
The Sun is a Witness
Thursday, April 3, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
The Grey Mist Murders
Thursday, April 10, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
The Topaz Flower
Thursday, April 24, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Epitaph for Lydia
Thursday, May 1, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Murder on Margin
Thursday, May 22, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Murder Makes a Mummy
Thursday, May 29, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Murder Rents a Room
Thursday, June 5, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Death is a Knockout
Thursday, June 12, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Death Never Doubles
Thursday, June 26, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Death at 7:10
Thursday, July 3, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Coney Island Nocturne
Thursday, July 10, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Death Deals a Diamond
Thursday, July 17, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
Serenade Macabre
Thursday, July 24, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
The Self-Made Corpse
Thursday, July 31, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
A Pitch in Time
Thursday, August 7, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
The Gypsy Sings of Death
Thursday, August 14, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining
 
A Deed Indeed
Thursday, August 21, 1947 - 30:00 - Mutual, sustaining

Average Customer Review: Average Customer Review: 5 of 5 5 of 5 Total Reviews: 7 Write a review

  0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 
5 of 5 June 25, 2022
Reviewer: Paul DePastine from Smithfield, RI United States  


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  1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 
5 of 5 May 28, 2022
Reviewer: Gary Crawford from Washington, DC United States  
First, your service, your products and your prices are just great.  Second...I just got the greatest bargain ever.  I was browsing at the local used book, dvd, cd, etc store.  They have used classic radio cd and cassette sets--many from your main competitor.  They price those RS sets fairly highly, maybe a third to a fourth off the catalog price.   However, last night I found one of your older releases...from 2006, a 20 hour Nightbeat  Volume 2 set.   I gasped when I saw the price....   $3.38.   I grabbed it, paid for it ...but felt like I was stealing it.  Amazing price and quality. Wonderful series.  Just had to relate that story.

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  1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 
5 of 5 May 24, 2022
Reviewer: David Gonzales from Yucaipa, CA United States  
hardboiled!T

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  0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 
5 of 5 Nostalgic suspense entertainment May 24, 2022
Reviewer: Randall Hartman from Tucson , AZ United States  
A great preservation of classic radio program broadcast!

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  3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 
5 of 5 I Love Everything You Do! May 24, 2022
Reviewer: Kathryn St Clair  
I love everything you do! It brightens my day when I find an email from Radio Archives!

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