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Review: Boston Blackie’s Chinese Venture (1949)(Post)
No sooner has Horatio “Boston Blackie” Black (Chester Morris) dropped off a bundle of dirty clothes to his laundryman, Charley Wu, when frenemy Inspector Farraday (Richard Lane) wants a few answer ...
The blog post you’re about to read is true…(Post)Radio actor Jack Webb was fortunate in that he had just landed a small role as a lab technician in a 1948 Eagle-Lion film noir entitled He Walked by Night…and in between takes, he would find himself ...
Happy Birthday, Agnes Moorehead!(Post)In my days of higher education—where it was joked that I had spent so much time in college, ivy had started to grow up my leg—I was a member of Armstrong State College’s quiz bowl team. I vividly ...
Happy Birthday, Georgia Ellis!(Post)Georgia Ellis, the actress who co-starred on what is fondly remembered by legions of old-time radio fans as the definitive Gunsmoke (namely, the radio version), would have celebrated her ninety-si ...
Happy Birthday, Edgar Barrier!(Post)Life in motion pictures was never easy for actor Edgar Barrier. It wasn’t that the work was difficult—it’s that whenever Edgar appeared in a movie, it was even money that he wouldn’t make it to t ...
The Return of the Whistler (1948): “Yes, I know the nameless terrors…”(Post)On a night that’s raining felines and canines, Theodore “Ted” Nichols (Michael Duane) and his French fiancée Alice Dupres Barkley (Lenore Aubert) reach the home of the justice of the peace who’s g ...
Happy Birthday, Burgess Meredith!(Post)Two iconic roles immediately come to mind when discussing the career of the actor born Oliver Burgess Meredith on this date in 1907. One is his deliciously over-the-top portrayal of The Penguin on ...
“Out of the fog…out of the night…”(Post)It was on this date in 1941 that Captain Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond began what the announcer referred to as “his American adventures” on Mutual Radio. The need to stress “American adventures” stems f ...
“America’s favorite young couple…”(Post)On this date in 1935, bandleader Oswald George Nelson (we know him as “Ozzie Nelson”) tied the knot with Peggy Sue Snyder (we know her as “Harriet Hilliard”), the female vocalist that he hired for ...
“Extra, extra—get your Illustrated Press!”(Post)The Golden Age of Radio—and this may be a good or bad thing, depending upon your opinion of the Fourth Estate—was a regular breeding ground for newspaper folk. Superheroes like The Green Hornet a ...
Happy Birthday, Lionel Stander!(Post)Lionel Stander, the character actor best remembered by fans as chief-cook-and-bottle-washer Max on the TV detective drama Hart to Hart, also had a lengthy radio career—notably playing “stooge” to ...
“M-O-L-L-É…”(Post)It is interesting to note that one of radio’s most popular mystery anthologies—The Mollé Mystery Theatre, which debuted over NBC Radio seventy-two years ago on this date—did without its identifyin ...
Happy Birthday, Jeff Corey!(Post)In May of 2017, the memoirs of character actor Jeff Corey—born Arthur Zwerling in Brooklyn on this date in 1914—were published to much critical acclaim. Written with his daughter Emily, Improvisi ...
Happy Birthday, Chester Morris!(Post)Chester Morris starred in several Boston Blackie movies during the 1940s (Alias Boston Blackie, Boston Blackie and the Law, etc.). In a number of these films, Morris allowed his character Horatio ...
Happy Birthday, Sharon Douglas!(Post)When A Day in the Life of Dennis Day premiered over NBC Radio in the fall of 1946, it was actress Sharon Douglas—born Rhoda-Nelle (Rhodanelle) Nader in Stephens County, Oklahoma on this date in 19 ...
“…that footloose and fancy-free young gentleman…”(Post)In hindsight, the low ebb that marked Frank Sinatra’s show business career in the early 1950s should have been interpreted as a mere blip for the entertainer affectionately known as The Chairman o ...