Crime Classics:
“The Tiger & Brad Ferguson “
(03/10/54).
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The Creaking Door :
“Cat Woman”
(4/3/57).
***
Exploring Tomorrow:
“The Trouble with Robots”
(8/3/57).
***
The Croupier:
”The Roman”
(1949).
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In segment one is an episode of Crime Classics – “The Tiger & Brad Ferguson ” which originally aired on March 10 of 1954.
Crime Classics is sometimes called a, “Docudrama“( I know I’ve been guilty of that myself). But I have come to think that this is a bit too grand a claim. To start off with you have, in the person of the host, a completely fictional “expert”. There is not now nor was there ever a ,”Thomas Hyland” (played by Lou Merrill ). Also, I have found while researching backgrounds of individual programs the historical content to be a bit dodgy; with the show willingly repeating legends and interesting anecdotes as well-established facts. Nonetheless, I will rise in defense of the program (of which I am very fond), to remind you that the entertainment industry of the 1950s was not different from that of our own time when inconvenient facts are simply not allowed to interfere with a good story.
I do not think that producer/writer Elliott Lewis intended for these shows to be taken as historical documents. He was, after-all, a producer of popular entertainment using the vehicle of tongue-in-cheek re-creations of some of history’s more interesting crimes.
The fact is Crime Classics freely mixes fact and fiction and tosses in apocryphal and anecdotal details as garnishments. I don’t think the producers were attempting to create an historically accurate account but entertainment. In this they succeeded, for entertaining they were and are.
And so we are off…
I find that ordinarily a simple Google search will turn up copious documentation of the crimes dramatized on Crime Classics.
Such is not the case with this particular episode. But I will say that previous experience in encountering the historical record in regard to previous episodes has left me with a fair confidence. The story will be a true one and if some of the details have been tinkered with to, “improve” the narrative it will, in general, be accurate enough to be recognizable by those familiar with the history.
The Cat Woman, which first aired on The Creaking Door on July 13, 1964.
The Creaking Door was an old-time radio series of horror and suspense from South Africa that took its name for the iconic sound effect that signaled the commencement of the American program The Inner Sanctum.
There are presently 37 or so episodes in circulation, but no program logs that indicate the total number of episodes. Their broadcast order remains uncertain . Al though I have found this …”The Creaking Door (1961-1969)…produced by Michael Silver and for many years sponsored by State Express 555 Cigarettes (a British American Tobacco product, excerpted from Wikipedia’s page about Springbok Radio ).
The series can currently be heard on the internet Radio Service of Springbok Radio and is aired every Friday”.
This episode is certainly going to remind you of the Val Lewton/ Jacques Tourneur 1942 film, ”Cat People”, at least superficially.
Like the previous story it is a tale about a sorry excuse for a man and some confusion regarding a woman and a cat.
Exploring Tomorrow: “The Trouble with Robots” (8/3/57).
Exploring Tomorrow was hosted by the longtime and extremely influential editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazineJohn W. Campbell Jr.
This short-lived series, ran on the Mutual Broadcasting System from late 1957 to mid 1958.
There appears to have been no actual connection to the magazine which did not sponsor the series. Campbell merely acted as host and, perhaps (this is not certain), supervised scripts.
Very few of the episodes have survived the years intact. Most copies have a lot of scratching and are in generally poor audio quality . While the series was designed to be 25 minutes in length with most episodes comprised of one story this is occasionally deviated from by the occasional presentation of two very short stories in one episode.
The Trouble with Robots is based on a novelette by Randall Garrett (1927-1987). It appeared originally as, “The ‘”Hunting Lodge” in the July 1954 issue of John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction (now Analog).
In which a representative of the U.N. is in Transylvania to conduct a rare interview with a reclusive prime minister as the country is about to be admitted to the U.N.
Randall Garrett was one of John W. Campbell’s favorite, and most prolific, writers for Astounding (especially from around 1945-1955), but now is pretty much forgotten.
There is a nice short article at Tangent Online about both this story and Garrett:
Vincent Price stars in The Croupier episode, ”The Roman” from 1949.
Vincent Price starred in the only surviving episode of The Croupier . A short lived program that aired Sept 21 – Nov. 16 in 1949 for eight episodes of tales of fate that could also include a supernatural theme. Unfortunately, longevity just wasn’t in the cards for The Croupier. Like so many before it, it died an early death. Only the fading memories survive in an audience that is getting older and will eventually disappear as well. At least one recording remains.
