118 pounds of warm smoke…Radio Noir

One of the great things about mp3 players–be they Ipod, Iphone, Iriver or Zune–is the opportunity to experience some very old media in a new way. I listen to podcasts continually. Some are by friends and I keep up to date with what is happening in their lives, their particular passions.

The majority of my listening time is spent exploring the wonder of old time radio broadcasts. Most folk are aware of the great radio shows like “The Shadow” or “The Jack Benny Show”. But along with the kitschy shows being churned out to sell shampoo and cheap wine, there were 1/2 hour radio detective shows written by the great Noir names of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s like Raymond Chandler and Cornell Woolrich. The voice talent included Jimmy Stewart, Richard Powell, Cary Grant, Vincent Price,  Alan Ladd, plus up and comers like Edmund O’Brien, Raymond Burr and William Conrad.

These programs walked a fine line with the Hays code, where crime would be punished but the good guys lost too. And there was a lot of double entendre dialogue leaving no doubt, if a gorgeous dame was involved, their feet were not going to stay on the floor any longer than necessary.

Richard Powell was the smooth talking, bright bad boy of the Rogue detective agency. No matter how the show started, with a murder or a damsel in distress, it always ended with him a little more beat up than he started but signing off with a song to sooth his girlfriend into his arms again. He also was Richard Diamond in a show written by Blake Edwards…yes, that Blake Edwards.

Edmund O’Brien will always be, “Yours truly, Johnny Dollar” in my heart. The man with the action packed expense account. Alan Ladd’s character was a writer who advertised for adventure in “Box 13“.

Vincent Price was the original Saint and wicked sharp with dialogue. Despite his later career as a ghoul, in the early days his comic timing and charm were second to none.

The champion of the radio noir genre, hands down, however, is an obscure series called “Pat Novak for Hire“. It stared Jack Webb in pre-pre-dragnet days and was written by Richard L. Breen.  The atmosphere is thick as San Francisco Bay mud. The narration and dialogue stand up after all these years. The first time I heard an episode, I had to play it back to be sure of what I was hearing, the lines were so slick and the delivery so deadly. If you’re looking for one of those cute little shows we like to feel superior to in our ever so much more sophisticated modern lives, don’t try this one. It will treat your misconceptions like “a guy feeding arsenic to a rich aunt.”

The title of this post is from one of my favorite lines, “”She sauntered in, moving slowly from side to side like 118 pounds of warm smoke.” Imagine that delivered in Jack Webb’s deep, cynical voice. Not even Bogart can touch this: it is in a class all by itself.

If you are interested in hearing these great shows, there are a number of podcasts I’d recommend. First and foremost, with excellent commentary, is Jim Widner’s Radio Detective Story Hour.  Jim is knowledgeable and respectful of the old shows. His commentary before each show really puts everything in context and adds to your understanding of how these shows were crafted.

There are a number of other podcasts with extensive Detective, Thriller, Sci-Fi and Comedy archives. If you can stand his nasal twang, Adam Graham has every episode of every radio detective show ever made on his “The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio“. I’d advise getting a good grounding by listening to Jim first as Adam’s analysis is limited– mostly ‘I really like the way he says…’ or ‘she wasn’t very nice, was she’– and, well, I can only listen to his remarkable nasal delivery for a minute before scrubbing to the beginning of the show.

Relic Radio has several streams of nostalgia radio plus “Case Closed“,  a 60 minute podcast with 2 episodes of each genre and a bumper of Ripley’s Believe it or Not in between.

I’ll leave you to go exploring now but first, some lines like they just don’t write anymore:

“She didn’t die, baby. With that much lead, she sank.”

“She was at least 50 because you can’t get that ugly without years of practice.”

“He slipped out of my arms and stopped paying taxes.”

GL: You got a favorite profile, fella?
PN: What?
GL: ‘Cause I’m gonna put this gun on one side. Take your choice.

[Girl jumps over embankment]
IH: It’s a long way down.
PN: Yeah, too bad her name wasn’t Jill.

“There’s nothing in nature so sad as a half-empty bottle. It’s like a broken vow or an unfulfilled promise in the sky, a falling star almost. A falling star and you shrug it off, never realizing that a whole world has ended at that moment. A hundred millions dreams, maybe, and you watch it fall and make an asinine wish, that’s all the good it does a star to fall. It gives some kid a chance to wish for a bicycle.”



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4 Responses to 118 pounds of warm smoke…Radio Noir

  1. Pingback: 118 pounds of warm smoke…Radio Noir | A Sudden Alarm of Donkeys | Old Time Radio

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