Actor Frank Readick’s voice is a familiar one to those fans who remember old-time radio--he was one of the busiest thesps in the aural medium, starring on such programs as Smilin’ Jack and Meet Mr ...
“He hunts the biggest of all game! Public enemies who try to destroy our America!”(Post)In the annals of radio broadcasting, Detroit, Michigan’s WXYZ was a truly remarkable station. It would introduce one of the medium’s larger-than-life heroes (and a genuine pop culture icon) in The ...
Happy Birthday, Rex Stout!(Post)He became famous for creating Nero Wolfe—a character memorably described by an author at The Thrilling Detective Website as a “{m}assively overweight, a cranky, agoraphobic and sedentary gourmet ...
The Punch and Benny Show: Love Thy Neighbor (1940)(Post)Four years after the celebrated radio “feud” between comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen got underway, Paramount Pictures decided to cash in on the fun with a film starring Jack and Fred entitled ...
Happy Birthday, Blake Edwards!(Post)If I enlisted you into playing a word association game and started the ball rolling by uttering “Blake Edwards”—chances are that you would respond with “Pink Panther”…for it was indeed Edwards who ...
Happy Birthday, Tol Avery!(Post)Actors, when they’re very lucky, concentrate on their chief profession: acting. The less fortunate thesps, however, often have to have a sideline to ensure there are groceries in the pantry on a r ...
Happy Birthday, Reed Hadley!(Post)The man born Reed Herring on this date in Petrolia, Texas in 1911 had one of the most instantly recognizable voices in show business. Actor Reed Hadley was the go-to man for narrating film noirs; y ...
Happy Birthday, Paul Frees!(Post)“Paul Frees is EVERYWHERE!” A cartoonist of my acquaintance adopted that statement as both a personal mantra and a tribute to the man born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago on this date in 1920. Fo ...
“...the whole drama of life is written in the sands of time…”(Post)From the late 1930s to the late 1950s, Lawrence Klee was one of the busiest scribes working in radio—largely owing to his employment with the Hummert daytime drama factory, which churned out “soap ...
Review: After Midnight with Boston Blackie (1943)(Post)Jewel thief “Diamond” Ed Barnaby (Walter Baldwin) has just been paroled from prison, and his loving daughter Betty (Ann Savage) is anxious to make a new life with him…but “Diamond” Ed has a few lo ...
Review: The Lineup (1958)(Post)As San Francisco antiquities dealer Philip Dressler (Raymond Bailey) disembarks from a cruise ship, a porter snatches one of his valises and tosses it into a waiting cab. The driver speeds off…dire ...
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 ...