The Authorized Version

The inimitable Adam Graham has been one of my most-admired friends for many years—and not just because he always wears a kilt! I had even listened to some of Adam’s podcasts of “The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio,” but I had no idea he has done so much. Adam Graham’s podcasts offer a treasure trove of listening.

I asked Adam to tell us how he got into the fascinating, cutting-edge world of podcasting and to send along some links that would appeal to my readers—especially those who are fans of classic British mysteries. If that's you, don’t miss the wonderful list of Adam’s offerings at the end of this article.

Now, over to Adam

I’d first started hosting Old Time Radio podcasts in 2007 with the Old Time Dragnet show. 

In 2008, I started the Old Time Radio Superman show to help promote my own science fiction works.  Listeners to the Old Time Dragnet program kept sending me ideas to do other podcasts based on other old time radio detective programs they enjoyed. 

I was resistant because these programs had already become very obscure. The nature of American Old Time Radio also meant that programs were in circulation or preserved in some form, essentially by happy accident. This meant that if I were to start a podcast based on a program like, for example, Rogue’s Gallery, by the time I could draw an audience, the podcast would be over. (At least, that was my thinking at the time.) By comparison, Dragnet had more than 300 episodes circulating and would take six years to finish. Superman would take more than a decade to complete at a rate of two episodes per week. Those made sense to do, anything else didn’t. 

More than that, I just wasn’t interested in any other programs. Until I stumbled on an online old time radio station and heard a series called Let George Do It that reminded me of my childhood love of mystery-solving TV shows like Perry Mason and Columbo as well as the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. I found myself connecting with other series like Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator starring William Gargan.

Then, I had an idea for a new podcast. If programs were obscure, why make one show the focus of a Podcast? Why not create a podcast that would continue on to another series after one was finished? And better yet, this would be a daily podcast. 

My initial idea was to try to go through an entire series one episode at a time, five episodes per week until I finished. However, I realized a flaw with the plan.  Not all mystery fans would enjoy every program. If I started with a hard-boiled detective program and then did Sherlock Holmes, many listeners would drop out, and if I switched to something unlike Holmes when I finished, I’d again lose listeners.

Finally I came up with the formula. We would do five different detective programs Monday-Friday. We’d go through each series from its first available episode to the sleuth’s final bow and we’d do different types of detective programs to appeal to the most listeners. 

We began with our initial line-up:

Monday: Box 13, an adventure mystery program starring Alan Ladd.

Tuesday: Pat Novak for Hire, one of the most over-the-top hard-boiled detective programs ever made.

Wednesday: Let George Do It, even though it took a while after its original launch for it to become a good program, it had, and will always have, a special place in my heart.

Thursday: Sherlock Holmes, doesn’t require elaboration.

Friday: Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, a series about a freelance insurance investigator who could end up taking any case anywhere in the world which ran from 1949-62.

I would introduce the episode by providing original air dates and some information on them as well as comment afterwards and respond to listeners comments and feedback.

The series was successful. Each time we finished one series, we’d replace it with another.  Over the years, I’d receive notes from listeners who would take the time to list what programs they liked and which they hated and there would be listeners whose hates and likes would be opposites which confirmed that my plan worked. 

In 2013, when the Old Time Dragnet Show ended, the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio expanded to offer a sixth day of podcasting focusing on police procedurals. Eventually, we’d go through Dragnet again on the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio and are going to start a third run through the series after taking three years to do other procedural programs in August. 

It’s been an incredible journey. When I started, it’s safe to say I didn’t know what I was doing. Having done the Old Time Dragnet Show for 2 ½ years, I was getting a handle on the podcasting part, but I learned I didn’t know nearly as much about real classic detective stories. One of my most embarrassing mistakes was when I played an episode of the American Hercule Poirot program and didn’t realize it was a half-hour condensation of Death on the Nile. My listeners let me know about that one! 

But I learned. I read more, listened more, and watched more. I got into the habit whenever I set out to do a series that was based on a movie series or book, to seek out media in advance to get a feel for how the character originally worked and what the original stories were like. Some opened a whole new world. Nero Wolfe was only a featured series on the podcast for six months, but I spent years devouring every one of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books as well as watching both TV series. I didn’t have the same level of obsession with Michael Shayne, but I’ve seen all the movies, and whenever I’m in the mood for a decent, but not great detective novel on the hard-boiled side, I start reading a Shayne novel on my Kindle. Others were not nearly as fun. Craig Rice’s John Malone novels were a slog to get through and if I never read another Larry Kent novel, it’ll be too soon. Still, it’s all been an interesting experience and I’ve been blessed with a gracious audience over the year. 

Series of Interest to fans of British Mysteries: 

For a variety of reasons, there are fewer British radio programs available than American programs. So, we’ve not played much radio directly recorded in the UK. However, many British detectives were popular and there were enough British ex-pats and Americans that could do passable British accents that there were several programs focusing on great British detectives and mysteries.

 Old Time Radio and British Mysteries 

Many American radio writers drew inspiration from British writers. For example, both Let George Do It and Box 13 used ads in the newspaper to solicit cases: 

Alan Ladd’s character in Box 13 read an ad “Adventure wanted -- will go anywhere, do anything.” And advised listeners to contact Box 13 at the Star Times. 

Private Detective George Valentine’s ad was, “Personal notice: Danger's my stock in trade. If the job's too tough for you to handle, you've got a job for me. George Valentine.” 

When I read The Secret Adversary a few years later and saw Tommy and Tuppence’s ad, “Willing to do anything, go anywhere. Pay must be good. No unreasonable offer refused.” I couldn’t but help feel that the others had borrowed from Agatha Christie. 

Another example was the final episode of the West-Coast mystery program Candy Matson. The title of the episode was, “Candy’s Last Case.” At first glance, this appears a rather obvious statement of this being the last episode of Candy Matson. However, the story actually borrowed key plot points from British writer E. C. Bentley’s novel Trent’s Last Case. 

Series Featuring Detectives Created by British Writers or Set in the UK: 

Sherlock Holmes: 

We did weekly Sherlock Holmes episodes for more than three years.  These include the iconic radio programs featuring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. But we also did a few episodes featuring earlier Holmes series starring Richard Gordon and Luis Hector, as well as an episode of the Mercury Theater featuring Orson Wells as Holmes. There’s even more available from the post-Rathbone-era with Tom Conway (Nigel Bruce Continuing as Dr. Watson), John Stanley, and one episode of Ben Wright’s 1949-50 series. Most of these were part of, “The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” which mixed in adaptations of Doyle’s stories with new stories written by Edith Meiser or Anthony Boucher with approval of the Doyle estate. Because of the commercial nature of American radio, each episode of The New Adventures would have the format of a host coming to visit Dr. Watson as a framing device.Commercials for sponsors such as G Washington Coffee, Petri Wines, and Clippercraft Clothes would be worked into these segments. In one episode of the John Stanley, Holmes and Watson even did a commercial for Clippercraft Clothes in character. 

We also played the only British-originated program in fourteen years: the Sherlock Holmes program produced independently by Henry Allen Towers for Worldwide distribution starring Sir John Gielgud as Holmes and Sir Ralph Richardson as Doctor Watson. 

Father Brown: This series moved Father Brown to New York with the idea of giving him American adventures. The series starred Karl Swenson, who was very good at performing dialects, and is best remembered as Mr. Hanson from Little House on the Prairie. There are two episodes surviving. One of which is a faithful adaptation of, “The Three Tools of Death.”

Hercule Poirot: There are two Poirot adaptations from anthology series that survive. In a Campbell’s Playhouse adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Orson Welles played both Poirot and Dr. Sheppard. There was also an adaptation of a Poirot short story. Then there was a series of original tales that told of Poirot’s American adventures. In the first episode, Poirot struggles to find an apartment in New York’s World War II housing crunch. The series had Agatha Christie’s approval. The first episode exists and was supposed to feature a live transatlantic transmission but technology failed and they had to use a recording instead.

Raffles: There were two self-contained half hour episodes from different iterations of Raffles as a reformed thief turned crime solver: “Raffles Imposter” in which Raffles is accused of murder, and “Murder Signs it’s Name” where a woman asks Raffles to recover her stolen jewels.

Pursuit: I honestly didn’t know whether this was a British or American series at first, but it was actually an American series about Scotland Yard Inspector Peter Black solving crimes in post-War England. Three actors played Black, though Ben Wright was probably the best.

 Series with British Born Actors In the Lead: 

The Private Files of Rex Saunders: This series starred Rex Harrison as Rex Saunders, a freelance troubleshooter. The series had a lot of similarities to Bulldog Drummond right down to its opening foghorn. 

Tales of Fatima: In this series, Basil Rathbone plays Basil Rathbone who is constantly finding himself involved in mysteries. This is an odd idea for a series with two episodes in circulation: “A Much Expected Murder” and “Time to Kill.” 

The Man Called X: British-born American Actor Herbert Marshall stars as a top-flight International Troubleshooter for the US government.  It was the most popular espionage program in the US prior to James Bond. 

Mystery Specials Featuring Well-Known British Stories:

There were quite a few British-originated stories that were adapted for anthology programs:

G K Chesterton’s classic The Man Who Was Thursday  from the Mercury Theater with Orson Welles; 

The Thirty-Nine Steps was featured three times. Once with Glenn Ford in a version that was based on the 1930s Alfred Hitchcock Movie, once with Orson Welles in a version that tracked more closely with the John Buchan Book, and a third abbreviated version with Herbert Marshall;

“The Lost Special” we featured twice. We did a version with Ben Wright that was a straight detective mystery.  The other with Orson Welles imagines the perpetrator of the crime doing a radio broadcast explaining how he did it and threatening to name his employers if they don’t get him a pardon before the episode is over;

 “The Holloway Flat Tragedy” featured blind British detective Max Carrados; 

“Death in the Dressing Room” is one of John Dickson Carr’s classic locked room mysteries detected by Carr's HM Merrivale; 

We featured a two-part adaptation of The Moonstone (Part One) and (Part Two); 

We also played an hour-long adaptation of Trent’s Last Case; 

We featured an adaptation of Dorothy L Sayers’ short-story  “The Caves of Ali Baba” with Lord Peter Wimsey; 

For our 3,000^th episode special, we played an adaptation of the greatest British film of all time, The Third Man. (Joseph Cotton appears but not Orson Welles); 

We also played an adaptation of Thomas Burke’s classic story, “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole” with Vincent Price and Claude Rains.

 The Amazing World of RadioThis includes a Summer series each year that’s chosen by my Patreon supporters, many of which should be of Interest to lovers of British Literature: 

Listeners voted for a Summer of Angela Lansbury in 2019 featuring her old-time radio performances. She appeared in several adaptations of the greatest of British literature:

Pride and Prejudice

Mansfield Park

Of Human Bondage

Cashel Byron’s Profession (the G B Shaw novel)

For our New Year’s special after 2020, we played an adaptation of Noel Coward’s Cavalcade;

We also presented a Spring series featuring a two-part adaptation of the novels Alice in Wonderland (Part One) (Part Two) and Through the Looking Glass (Part One) (Part Two) and then an adaptation of the Disney Version. 

We played a radio adaptation of the film version of The Scarlet Pimpernel  starring Leslie Howard as part of our series honoring Olivia De Havilland when she passed away in 2020.

 Finally, we also featured two radio version of Shakespeare Plays: Henry IV (with a small part for Humphrey Bogart) and Julius Caesar  (starring Thomas Mitchell as Brutus and Claude Rains as Cassius).

 World War II: 

I did this series in 2013 and 2014 with one episode added in 2016 and put together a wide variety of different radio programs (mostly with Americans and mostly from during the War) to tell a narrative of America in World War II from the pre-War isolationism to a few episodes that looked at the aftermath. One episode that might be of particular interest is this episode of an American in England in which Norman Corwin narrates and explains the effect of the War on Cromer. 

Note from Donna—I found the Cromer broadcast to be a tear-jerker, as true war stories so often are. If you have a sense of nostalgia or a love of history you will find no end of delights in Adam Graham’s podcasts.

Main website link

List of Old Time Radio Detective Programs 

Main Podcast episodes link

 We also have a YouTube page. I know some people find the whole podcasting thing difficult technically. With the YouTube, we upload the audio of the program with still cover art and people can listen on YouTube. We also have our Public Domain Video Theater posted on Youtube which is a video version of the podcast with public domain TV shows and movies.  

Enjoy!