The Revival Series Casey 's life on radio ended with The Upholsterer on 1950-11-16 as Philip Morris let its sponsorship expire. It all seemed like very bad news on top of other bad news. The movie rights were sold, but it never went into production....This item belongs to: audio/casey-crime-photographer.This item has files of the following types: Archive BitTorrent, Flac, Item Tile, JPEG, JPEG Thumb, Metadata, PNG, Spectrogram, VBR MP3
The Revival Series
Casey's life on radio ended with The Upholsterer on 1950-11-16 as Philip Morris let its sponsorship expire. It all seemed like very bad news on top of other bad news. The movie rights were sold, but it never went into production. The comic book failed. A stage play, written for performance by theater groups hit with a thud. There was television. It seemed like a natural. There had been five experimental TV broadcasts in 1945. The only radio cast member in the episodes was John Gibson.
The series may have died on radio at the end of 1950, but it premiered on television in 1951 with Richard Carlyle in the starring role, and of course, there was John Gibson in the cast, yet again. Jan Miner was playing Ann. A young reporter, Frank Lipman, was added to the regular cast of characters. Cole did not participate in any of the scripting.
A few weeks into the series, the cast was changed to have Darren McGavin in the lead, and Gibson was replaced, too, but Miner stayed. Believe it or not, Toni was one of the sponsors! The company alternated week-to-week with Longines watch company. The series survived just a year. In mid-June 1952, it was replaced by the game show, I've Got a Secret.
For sure, Casey was dead now... multiple times...
At the end of 1953, CBS issued a press release announcing that Casey was returning to radio as a sustaining feature, with much of its original cast. Pianist Herman Chittison was replaced by Teddy Wilson. The new announcer was Bob Hite who was the announcer before the Anchor-Hocking series. Alonzo Deen Cole was still supplying most of the scripts.
Not everyone was thrilled with the idea. Casey was generally disliked by the critics for most of its run. In the 1954-01-10 Rochester NY Democrat & Chronicle columnist Bob Fischer that likely reflect those of others in the newspaper trade. "We learn with regret," he wrote, "that CBS has disinterred Crime Photographer." He believed the series lacked realism and trivialized the professional status of newspaper staffers. This did not sit well with Fischer and others. No one ever thought that Casey could be just plain fun and that they might want to go along for the ride.
The episodes recalled its earliest format, using the show opening that was most like Casey, Press Photographer, with Casey clicking his camera and saying "Got it! Look for it in the Morning Express!" Organ music replaced much of the orchestral arrangement, also giving it an early 1940s (and low budget but somewhat innocent) feel.
There were 62 broadcasts. Only the first two survive as circulating recordings, Road Angel and Source of Information. Cole wrote most all of the episodes, and based on what we now know about the original series, the bulk of the 62 are repeated scripts with mild adaptations to them. There are even some broadcasts in the 62 that are repeats of themselves. There are many episodes that are unidentified, and newspapers had so de-emphasized radio coverage and limited it to timetables that plot descriptions are not available. There is a good chance that because the programs were recorded on tape that the tapes were eventually re-used and that the revival broadcasts are gone for good.
Road Angel
Road Angel is the first of the revival series and is a below average Casey presentation. The broadcast is interesting, however, for its use of the original show opening from the early sustaining years and how the characters are introduced to the audience through dialogue. Off the radio for 37 months, the listening audience had changed dramatically, with many new listeners who needed to be familiar the characters, and returning listeners who needed to be refreshed (and perhaps de-programmed from the different characterizations of the television series). The big band flourishes of the Anchor-Hocking period are long gone, and the lusher orchestral arrangements of the Philip Morris era are replaced by organ music, a staple of early radio and always of soap operas. The revival could be viewed as a step down in show quality, which it was, but it also reclaimed the innocence of earlier years of both radio drama in general and Casey in particular.
There are no continuity notes for any of the revival series, nor are there any episode-specific news clippings.
1:10 Casey says hi to cops Charlie, Pete, Frank, and there is a group greeting in return. No clue why those names were picked by Cole, but they usually have some meaning to staff and others.
1:25 The murder victim (Pierce) has been shot with a .38; he was a sales representative, shot by a hitchhiker.
2:45 We hear Teddy Wilson for the first time in the drama portion of the program; he played along with Lew White's organ music at the show open. Ethelbert answers the phone "Blue Note Cafe, Ethelbert the Bartender speaking." New listeners get an intro to the character and the location.
3:15 Ethelbert asks Walter for a cup of coffee (for Casey) and to bring up more olives. Olives? Martinis, though a drink with a long history, had a surge of popularity in the mid-1950s; and this may have been a nod to that. Walter has no response. We do hear the sound effects of the coffee being delivered at 3:36.
4:55 Logan has fingerprints from the car of a known criminal, Flagler. It's a false lead.
6:10 Casey would like to take a ride to Clinton County to get away from things. This is another indicator that Casey's locale is New York City. The county is along the west shore of Lake Champlain and borders Canada. This was a popular area for summer homes on the lake or in the Adirondack Mountains. In the center of the county is the town of Dannemora, known for a 2015 prison escape that made national headlines and became a 2018 Showtime feature directed by Ben Stiller. It is one of the more remote parts of New York state, 300 miles from New York City, so it is unlikely that a pleasure trip for an afternoon would even be possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Clinton_Correctional_Facility_escape
10:00 Casey considers a theory of the case that Pierce survived a botched holdup by Flagler, but would pick up another hitchhiker if it was a woman, especially an attractive one.
11:40 Hite announces that On Stage is coming back in a new time slot; Casey has taken its time slot. The program, which starred Elliott and Cathy Lewis, resumed in early February.
12:30 Casey is up in Ardmore, described as "upstate." There is no such town in New York or New England.
13:15 Casey stops for gas after four days of picking up woman hitchhikers with no success in attracting the killer.
14:05 Casey gives his business card to the gas attendant in case he hears of anything about the hitchhiker. The attendant recognizes the name as the photographer for crime pictures. He mentions the Pierce killing; he knew Pierce as a regular customer. Casey is thinking of packing it in and purposely and sarcastically misquotes a line from Longfellow's The Day is Done. The attendant corrects him. It was common at the time that high school educated persons would have some familiarity with such literature at the time, so while amusing, it is not out of place. 14:50 The attendant knows of the "girl hitchhiker" and she robbed him. He never said anything because he was concerned about his reputation as a family man. He describes her for Casey... "an angel of the road." That is where the show title came from. He describes her gun as a snub-nose .38 revolver!
17:55 Casey finally spots the "road angel" and she gets into his car. She says her name is Doris Chapman. She is 21. They eventually get into small talk, all a ruse to gain Casey's confidence. She turns at 19:57 saying how much she hates men and makes Casey stop and get out. She takes the car and drives away.
20:55 Hours later, Casey is back with Ann and Logan, getting a good razzing from both of them. At least he has a good description of her ("I haven't been photographing people all these years without lookin' at 'em"). Logan thinks that Ann, knowing the description, can send her to find the "road angel" and win her confidence. She does, this time her name is "Doris Larkin." Ann plays it up that she's a tough grifter, too, and this time she wins Doris' confidence. Doris explains her tough family experiences. Ann scuffles in the car with Doris and takes her gun! Casey and Logan were following Ann's car (for four days... that's unlikely in real life to have a homicide captain out of the precinct for that long) and come running to get Doris and protect Ann. Ann had a recorder in the car hidden in the luggage, and was able to capture Doris' confession.
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| # | Наименование новости | Тональность | Информативность | Дата публикации |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Casey, Crime Photographer 1949-11-17 and 1950-11-16 The Upholsterer | 0 | 9.67 | 20-08-2026 |
| 2 | Casey, Crime Photographer 1947-04-15 SPECIAL Closed circuit broadcast to Anchor Hocking Sales Convention | 0 | 14.8 | 21-08-2026 |
| 3 | The Casey, Crime Photographer Project | 0 | 13.22 | 26-08-2026 |
| 4 | Casey, Crime Photographer 1949-08-04 Sell Out | 0 | 17.13 | 19-08-2026 |
| 5 | Casey, Crime Photographer 1948-03-04 Tough Guy | 0 | 14.15 | 19-08-2026 |
| 6 | Casey, Crime Photographer 1948-02-26 The Fix | 0 | 9.88 | 19-08-2026 |
| 7 | Casey, Crime Photographer 1950-04-13 The Disappearance of Mr Dizzel | 0 | 10.95 | 20-08-2026 |
| 8 | Casey, Crime Photographer 1948-11-25 Holiday | 0 | 13.07 | 19-08-2026 |
| 9 | Casey, Crime Photographer 1950-11-09 Woman of Mystery | 0 | 11.12 | 20-08-2026 |
| 10 | Casey, Crime Photographer 1948-03-25 Blind Justice | 0 | 13.23 | 19-08-2026 |