New Adventures of Nero Wolfe - 10 hour set #RA166
Alternative Views:	Nero Wolfe, Rex Stout's gourmand orchid fancier, returns as Sydney Greenstreet stars in "The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe". You'll enjoy twenty baffling and light- hearted mysteries in this ten-hour collection, fully restored for sparkling audio fidelity. Our Price: $29.98 Availability:: Usually Ships in 24 Hours Product Code: RA166 Qty:

Description List of Shows   The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe "I suggest beginning with autobiographical sketches from each of us, and here is mine. I was born in Montenegro and spent my early boyhood there. At the age of sixteen I decided to move around, and in fourteen years I became acquainted with most of Europe, a little of Africa, and much of Asia, in a variety of roles and activities. Coming to this country in nineteen-thirty, not penniless, I bought this house and entered into practice as a private detective. I am a naturalized American citizen." - Nero Wolfe, addressing the suspects in "Fourth of July Picnic" (1957) 1934 marked the year of publication for a mystery novel entitled "Fer-de-Lance", and the book's significance to both the literary world and old-time radio is that it introduced readers and audiences to the fictional detective known as Nero Wolfe, created by American mystery writer Rex Stout. From the 1930s to the 1970s, Stout chronicled the exploits of one of the most popular and beloved of literary sleuths in 33 novels and 39 short stories; a man whose eccentricities transcended what could have been a one-dimensional character and made him an individual of practically flesh-and-blood proportions. Wolfe was a licensed private detective, but his sleuthing served more as a diversion from his other pursuits: a collector of rare books, a preoccupation with sartorial splendor, a prize-winning horticulturist with a mania for orchids, and a gourmet/gourmand who was once described by his faithful assistant Archie Goodwin as weighing "a seventh of a ton" - about 286 pounds. He had learned that detection was a necessary evil to shore up his frequently depleted financial coffers, though he was loathe to abandon his elegant brownstone at West 35th Street in New York City, preferring to let Goodwin handle the legwork Still, "a man's gotta eat" -- and Wolfe often left his luxurious, comfortable surroundings (albeit reluctantly) whenever a case he was working on required mobility. After the success of "Fer-de-Lance", Rex Stout found himself besieged with offers from Hollywood to lease the rights to the Wolfe character as subject matter for feature films. Stout was excited about the prospect, and even thought that actor Charles Laughton would have been ideal in the role of the corpulent sleuth. But the screen rights to the novel were purchased by Columbia for the princely sum of $7,500, and the studio had more in mind using their contract star Edward Arnold as Nero -- the idea being that Arnold could be kept busy making the films in between more serious and prestigious assignments. "Fer-de-Lance" was brought to the screen in 1936 as "Meet Nero Wolfe" (a borderline "A" picture which also featured future screen siren Rita Hayworth in one of her earliest movie appearances), and for the second film -- "The League of Frightened Men" (1937) -- the studio replaced Arnold with character great Walter Connolly. (Lionel Stander appeared in both films as Archie Goodwin.) An unhappy Stout then put the kibosh on any future Wolfe vehicles by declining to authorize any more adaptations. On radio, things were a bit rosier for the detective. Wolfe's first appearance in the medium was in a short-lived series, "The Adventures of Nero Wolfe", originally heard on a regional northeastern network (The New England Network) from April to June 1943 with J.B. Williams in the role. The series then moved to what was still being referred to as the Blue Network (it later became ABC) in July, and substituted Santos Ortega as "the gargantuan gourmet, the detective genius who rates the knife and fork the greatest tools ever invented by man" in the title role. Ortega found himself replaced by Luis Van Rooten in 1944, and Rooten continued as Wolfe until the final episode ("The Last Laugh Murder Case") was broadcast in July. (John Gibson, later to achieve radio immortality as the sardonic bartender Ethelbert on "Casey, Crime Photographer", was also heard on the program as Archie.) It has been noted by Rex Stout's biographer, John McAleer, that "differences between [ABC producer] Hi Brown and Edwin Fadiman, who represented Stout's radio, screen and television interests as Nero Wolfe Attractions, Inc., prevented its later resumption on ABC" -- something that producer Brown ("Inner Sanctum", "The Adventures of the Thin Man") would later regret. Two years later, the detective resurfaced on Mutual in "The Amazing Nero Wolfe", a Sunday night series sponsored by Jergens Lotion and starring silent screen idol Francis X. Bushman as Wolfe and radio's "renaissance man" Elliott Lewis as legman Archie; Jim Bannon was the announcer. The series, written by veteran scribe Louis Vittes and produced-directed by Travis Wells, also came to a quick end in December of that same year. Was a third time the charm for our detective hero? NBC made a gallant effort in the fall of 1950 with "The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe", which premiered on October 20, 1950. The endeavor to make Wolfe as popular as the other radio sleuths was certainly a determined one; Vittes returned to pen the episodes, with Fadiman as executive producer and J. Donald Wilson of "The Whistler" fame directing. It was the casting of the title role that really made Wolfe fans sit up and take notice: actor Sydney Greenstreet, who achieved movie immortality as Kasper Gutman ("The Fat Man") in the 1941 film classic "The Maltese Falcon", was hired to play the role of the portly gumshoe. It was truly inspired casting. Author Stout was quite gung-ho on the selection; according to McAleer, Stout "thought Greenstreet was a splendid choice for the role and Greenstreet did, in fact, fill every reasonable expectation." (Many a critic had suggested that Greenstreet would have acquitted himself nicely as a silver screen version of Wolfe as well.) Choosing an actor to portray the faithful Archie Goodwin didn't turn out to be quite as easy, however. During the series' single-season run, five actors went through a revolving door with the role: Wally Maher, Lawrence Dobkin, Herb Ellis, Gerald Mohr, and Harry Bartell Another body blow administered was that the program had difficulty securing a sponsor. "The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe" debuted at a time when radio's advertising revenues were shrinking - more and more companies were putting their ad dollars into television - and sustaining shows were highly susceptible to getting the boot. Wolfe was briefly underwritten for a time by Plymouth, but Greenstreet's participation certainly didn't come cheap and it wasn't enough to defray the costs of production. "The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe" parted ways with the National Broadcasting Company in April of 1951. Time has been kind to "The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe": of the twenty-six programs broadcast, only one is missing in action, and the surviving shows reveal the series to be an entertaining one, with the appearance of Greenstreet a notable asset. Yes, Rex Stout had a dissenting opinion about the quality of the program (according to McAleer, the author listened to five minutes of one episode and decided enough was enough: "He liked Greenstreet...the script he found impossible"), but authors, being protective of their work, rarely have truly positive things to say about adaptations of their creations. Had Nero Wolfe appeared on radio a few years earlier, there's no doubt that he would be held in the same ether esteem as Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, or any other radio sleuth. Radio Archives is pleased to present twenty broadcasts of this oft-neglected but immensely entertaining mystery series in this collection. We've filled this ten-CD set with newly restored renditions (obtained from the original master discs) of these long-ago broadcasts, and are presented to you in full audio fidelity for your listening pleasure. So sit back and enjoy tantalizing tales of mystery with the man who's "the smartest and the stubbornest...the fattest and the laziest...the cleverest and the craziest...the most extravagant detective in the world: Nero Wolfe!"

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