The Adventures of Nero Wolfe and The Strange Dr. Weird

Sydney Greenstreet played Nero Wolfe
for one season on radio.

This week we feature a detective who was, at one point, voted as a finalist for best detective in an ongoing series - Nero Wolfe.  (He ultimately lost to Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot).

The creation of a Noblesville, Indiana author, whose "Some Buried Caesar" Nero Wolfe mystery was named Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library's choice for "One Book, One City", Nero Wolfe was a corpulent, orchid-loving "foodie" who disliked leaving his comfortable, custom-made armchair, even to solve cases.

Wolfe came to radio at least 3 different times, none of which author Rex Stout particularly cared for.  (This was typical of the detective writers of the time.  Others like Hammett and Chandler were only loosely associated with the productions of the Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe series, associating their names with the programs for the sake of royalty checks, but otherwise despising the writing and, occasionally, the acting). 

But of the Wolfes to be on the air, Stout most enjoyed the characterization of the star we hear from this week - Sydney Greenstreet. 

Stick around after the Nero Wolfe episode for a nice Strange Dr. Weird mystery called "When Killers Meet".

Season #1-Show #15 - "Philip Marlowe", "Blackstone, the Magic Detective" & "Five Minute Mysteries"

We run the gamut of radio detectives this week, starting with one of the most famous fictional detectives - in any medium - Philip Marlowe, and then going on to the lesser light of Blackstone, the Magic Detective, and ending with a radio curiosity called Five Minute Mysteries.

"Where There's a Will" is an early show from the Adventures of Philip Marlowe series, and the famous show intro - "Get this and get it straight. Crime is a sucker's road and those who travel it end up in the gutter, the prison, or the grave."- hadn't yet been introduced.  Those lines set the tone for the next 30 hard-boiled minutes as listeners could almost picture Marlowe spitting those words through clenched teeth and a cigarette.  (Left: Gerald Mohr portraying Philip Marlowe in a lighter moment).

Blackstone is certainly no Marlowe, but is a fun listen, if only for the magic tricks.  Most of the shows take the same tack, with Blackstone showing off a trick to his friends, which reminds him of a mystery, and then he ends by teaching the good folks at home a magic trick. 

We fill the show out with Five Minute Mysteries, though with a good two minutes dedicated to fill music (space where a local commercial would go), this may as well have been called Three Minute Riddles.  It's a neat little show, though, and one wonders how many little filler programs like this existed, but were never recorded.