From Those Were the Days:

1932 - NBC Radio introduced an entertainer this night. The comic genius started working for a salary of $1,400 a week. His name: Jack Benny.
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“Extra, extra—get your Illustrated Press!”

Of the Golden Age of Radio’s numerous reporter dramas (The Big Story, Casey, Crime Photographer, The Green Hornet), the most famous would have to be Big Town, a crime drama that debuted over CBS Radio on October 19, 1937 for Rinso. Created, written and directed by former newspaperman Jerry McGill, the series served as a star showcase for Hollywood’s Edward G. Robinson (Little Caesar, Five Star Final)—who played “fighting managing editor” Steve Wilson of The Illustrated Press, a crusading newspaper in Big Town. (Yes, that was the burg’s actual name—not be to confused with John Mellencamp’s Small Town or even Mamie Van Doren’s Girls Town.)

Radio veteran Jerry Hausner places special emphasis on “star showcase,” in an anecdote about working on the show in Leonard Maltin’s book The Great American Broadcast:

Edward G. Robinson [the show’s star] had a card table with a typewriter on it. The author of that week’s script had to sit there all day long, every day, and rewrite as we went along. He’d read a line and Eddie’d say, “I don’t like that one, cut that out, change this, change that.” He was a stickler for all these things, and that’s what made it a good show, but we had to sit there while this was being done. They rewrote and rewrote all week long, and if you were cut out, they waved you goodbye and you didn’t get any money at all. You had no protection of any kind. If your part stayed in and it was a minor supporting role, you wound up with $15, $20 for the week, $35 if you had a good part.

Big Town was a blend of high melodrama and socially conscious soap-boxing, as Robinson’s Wilson crusaded against society’s ills and for freedom of the press. The show’s memorable opening intoned from an echo chamber: “The power and freedom of the press is a flaming sword! That it may be a faithful servant of all the people…use it justly…hold it high…guard it well…” Assisting Steve was his society editor sidekick, Lorelei Kilbourne—played by a young startlet named Claire Trevor; Trevor was two years away from her signature performance in Stagecoach (1939), and eleven from her Academy Award-winning turn in 1948’s Key Largo, in which Robinson co-starred. Others in the cast included Ed MacDonald (as “fearless, imaginative reporter” Tommy Hughes), Gale Gordon (as District Attorney Miller), Paula Winslowe (as Wilson’s secretary Miss Foster, also played by Helen Brown), Lou Merrill, Cy Kendall and Jack Smart.

By 1940, Trevor had become dissatisfied with her part on the program, which according to her consisted of two lines: “I’ll wait for you in the car, Steve” and “How’d it go, Steve?” She jumped ship and was replaced by Ona Munson. It didn’t seem to matter much, however, because by 1942 Robinson, too, had called it quits, and that seemed to be “-30-“ for the Illustrated Press.

But McGill was determined to prove the nay-sayers wrong, and he resurrected the series at the beginning of the 1943-44 season from New York, with Broadway veteran Edward Pawley in the role of Wilson (which was also briefly played by Walter Greaza in 1952) and Fran Carlon as Lorelei. New characters were introduced to the program, notably a colorful cabbie named Harry the Hack (originated by Robert Dryden, but also essayed by Mason Adams and Ross Martin), who knew the back alleys and by-ways of Big Town (it was a big town, you know) like the back of his hand. There was also a blind piano player named Mozart (Larry Haines) who owned a small bistro and provided underworld tips to Steve and Lorelei on the side, along with Willie the Weep (Donald MacDonald), a waterfront denizen who sobbed when he talked. Other New York acting vets included Lawson Zerbe (as the Press’ photographer, Dusty Miller), Ted de Corsia, Dwight Weist (who also announced the program), Bill Adams, Bobby Winckler and Michael O’Day.

Things were really humming at the hotel last night, but I managed to squeeze in a listen to a December 1, 1948 episode of Big Town: “The Lost and Found,” originally heard over NBC Radio. (Big Town had been a CBS staple since its 1937 debut, but it moved to NBC in the fall of 1948 for a three-year run before moving back to CBS for its final season.) In this tale, a reporter from a rival paper, Dick Rudder, has vanished and his whereabouts are unknown:

LORELEI: …Dick’s last by-line yarn before he vanished somewhere between Tony’s Bar & Grill and the Graphic offices… (on phone) Uh, hello, Mamie—get me Sladen, M.E. of the Graphic, please…yeah, I’ll hold on…

STEVE: Hmm…just a rehash of the Lucky Luke rubout…we ran this in the Press final, night before last…

LORELEI: Note that last paragraph, Steve…that’s where Dick indulged in a little private game of dangerous guessing…read it…

STEVE (reading): “Inspector Callahan of Homicide and puzzled police may be overlooking a bet in not questioning the banker who backed Lucky Luke…” Why, that crazy galoot…

LORELEI: Uh, hold it, Steve…Mamie has his boss on the wire…here you are…

STEVE: Thanks… (into phone) Hello, that you, Sladen?

SLADEN (on phone): Yeah! Whatsa matter, Wilson? Need a lead for that ossified oracle you call The Illustrated Press? All the news that the Graphic won’t use?

STEVE: Listen, you moss-backed fugitive from the journalistic junkyard—at least we can keep track of our reporters…except on Saturday nights…where’s Dick Rudder?

SLADEN: Well, if you can find him, you can have him…

STEVE: Where’d you last hear from him?

SLADEN: Night before last…he phoned in from Tony’s Bar & Grill near your place…said he got hold of something too hot for the wires and he’d bring it in…but he never showed…you got anything?

STEVE: No…Lorelei just told me that you’d been phoning all over Big Town…

SLADEN: Yep…imagine me doing that to find a reporter…

STEVE: Well, that’s easy—all I’d have to do is put myself in your place, and I’d be doing the same thing…

SLADEN: Thanks, Steve…but it wouldn’t do our hard-boiled reputations any good if it got around…got any ideas about Rudder?

STEVE: No, I just wondered…it might be tied up with the Lucky Louie killing…

SLADEN: Yeah, could be…got any notions?

STEVE: Well, I might go out and listen to the wee small voices of the underworld…

SLADEN: Well, thanks…you got me there, Steve…I don’t know enough of the wrong people at the right time…

STEVE: Well, the wrong people don’t talk…but I happen to know a few right ones who know the wrong ones…and sometimes the right answers…

SLADEN: Good…and if you get any right answers, tell me which edition of the Illustrated Press to buy…

STEVE: I’ll send you a complimentary copy by messenger—with Dick Rudder wrapped up inside…so long!

SLADEN: So long, Steve…

(SFX: phone hang-up)

LORELEI: Now who’s playing guessing games, Steve Wilson…?

STEVE: We are, Lorelei…well, let’s go scout our underworld listening posts before someone wraps Rudder up in a sheet…in the morgue!

(SFX: organ sting)

Steve and Lorelei, with help from Mozart and Harry the Hack, trace Rudder to an apartment owned by Myra Winslow, an ex-chorus girl with money who is rumored to be the “banker” in the reporter’s story. They’re able to make their way to Myra’s crib, where they’re soon joined by her gunsel, a hood named Marty the Whoop (his sobriquet originates from a cough he can’t quite shake). Can they rescue Rudder and save the day? (Hey, he’s not a “fighting managing editor” for nothing, you know.)

If you’re a sucker for a good B-picture like I am, I think you’ll enjoy Big Town’s pulpy, melodramatic plots and hard-boiled dialogue. The program harkens back to a time when the media wasn’t obsessed with being liked and palsy-walsy with the subjects they covered, and newspapers made their name with investigative journalism and the old adage of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” The only minor quibble that I have with the show is Edward Pawley—he may have had a sizable reputation as a stage actor but on radio he’s positively wooden.

Big Town was a hugely popular program during the Robinson years (sadly, of the 40-some episodes extant today only a handful feature Eddie G.) and though it lost a little of its luster as a result of its New York relocation after 1943, it still remained a solid radio hit—it spawned a brief movie series from Paramount/Pine-Thomas beginning with Big Town (a.k.a. Guilty Assignment) in 1947, starring Phillip Reed and Hillary Brooke as Steve and Lorelei, respectively. Later, the show also became a successful television transplant, debuting over CBS on October 5, 1950. The show later switched to NBC in the fall of 1954, and wrapped up a six-year-run October 2, 1956. The program was then laid to rest in reruns, appearing under three separate titles: Byline: Steve Wilson, Headline and Heart of the City.
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