I have no idea who the person was that thought up the chapter titles for the serial Mandrake the Magician (1939), but I have a sneaking suspicion he was phoning it in. As we last looked in on our favorite prestidigitator, he was—as the narrator breathlessly says—“facing certain death” from a sped-up paddle wheel. But since the wheel seems to have been constructed with balsa wood, I’m guessing that outside of a really nasty splinter he came out okay.

“The Devil’s Playmate” does allow Mandrake to finally discover that all of the conversations in the Professor’s lab are being monitored by a bugging device installed by the Wasp’s gang (it only took him five chapters to find this out—obviously a man who won’t be bringing potato salad to the Mensa picnic anytime soon). Mandrake decides to set a trap for the Wasp’s employees by pretending to want to strike a bargain with the arch criminal by trading Professor Houston for the "platinite" formula, which he hints is hidden in a safety deposit box at his bank. Sure as you’re born, he and Lothar arrive at the bank to find a trio of goons waiting for him—he and the Loth dude manage to capture one named Blair (Chuck Hamilton) who tells them that the Wasp has designs on blowing up an interstate powerhouse.

I’ve neglected to mention in previous Mandrake posts that the Wasp’s second-in-charge in this serial is a fellow named Dirk (John Tyrrell), whose duties—from what I’ve noticed so far—appear to be largely administrative; he rarely goes out and does the grunt work, most of the time he sits at a desk and speaks through to the Wasp via a televised screen. Personally, I think Dirk’s made out like a bandit (pardon the pun)—he has a conversation with the Wasper in which the evildoer tells him, “Take care of the men responsible for bungling this job.” (The motto of Wasp, Inc.: “Failure is not an option.”)

Anyway, Mandrake and Lothar high-tail it out to the powerhouse, where they are quickly subdued by henchman and are left to perish in the eventual explosion (I think Mr. Wasp is becoming a little too attached to that radium energy toy of his, don't you?). I’ll analyze Chapter 6 tomorrow, but in closing I will comment that you’ll notice a clear indication of just how evil these villains are by how one thug blatantly ignores a “No Smoking” sign in the powerhouse and continues to puff away. What we have here is a total disregard for the law.
10:30:50 AM    comment []  trackback []  

Gone, but not forgotten

It’s been a downer of a week for fans of old-time radio, as the Hobby saw three of its stars from those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear pass on to the Big Studio Beyond.

Sam Edwards, who was probably best known for his long-running role as boyfriend Dexter Franklin (“COOOOORRRR-LAISS!”) on radio’s Meet Corliss Archer passed away at the age of 89 Wednesday. Sam had one of the most distinctive radio voices and I believe he may have been one of the first OTR actors I remember hearing; from a Gunsmoke episode entitled “The Executioner.” His list of credits (Suspense, Have Gun Will Travel, Fort Laramie) is endless, but I think my personal favorite of his performances is an appearance on Dragnet from May 11, 1950 (“The Big Knife”) Sam plays a high schooler suspected of carving on some female students, and there’s this incredible powerful scene (all audio) in which he confesses to Friday (Jack Webb) and Romero (Barton Yarborough) after the two cops convince him that they have the technology to prove him guilty of the crime (this happens as the three of them are walking through the school corridors, so all you hear is their voices, footsteps, doors opening and closing, etc.) Edwards was diagnosed Sunday with a hole in his heart and he wasn’t expected to live long past that day; his son Bill expressed it better than anyone could by remarking on the OTR Digest: “Now it is all of us who will have a hole in our hearts for a long time.”

We also lost actor-announcer Jackson Beck on the same day at age 92. Jackson had an incredible career in radio, from announcing duties on The Adventures of Superman to the starring roles on The Cisco Kid and Philo Vance. (The New York Daily News has a nice write-up here.) Before I got into old-time radio, I always remembered Beck’s distinctive tones as the voice of Bluto in the Popeye cartoons and as the pitchman extolling the virtues of Little Caesar’s (“Pizza! Pizza!”), Thompson's Water Seal and Brawny Paper Towels.

Doug Douglass also reports on the Digest than Ann DeMarco has passed on (information from The New York Post); along with siblings Arlene, Maria, Gene and Gloria the five DeMarco Sisters were the vocal group on my comedic idol Fred Allen’s series during the late 1940s. (I was always curious as to why the DeMarcos never had any hit records outside of the Allen show; I thought they were sensational—particularly a hip rendition of “When the Red, Red, Robin Goes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’” from April 11, 1948.)
9:44:45 AM    comment []  trackback []