Casey, Crime Photographer

Disappearance of Mr. Dizzel was a re-use of the script from 1945-06-12 The Strange Case of Mr. Strange. It's an interesting script for a while but the details of the disappearance end up being simplistic and defy the mildest application of practical scrutiny.

For many years this episode circulated in bad sound, and no one was able to figure out the title or the spelling. In the 1970s, it would be listed as "The Disappearance of Adam Gazelle" or other approximations.

ADC continuity notes (the same for both broadcasts)...

The servants of a wealthy dealer in rare books return from their night off to see two men helping a third out or the house and inside they find bullet holes and bloodstains, but no body. Police believe that someone broke in and kidnapped the old man, and his nephew who has been friendly with several questionable characters is suspected. Ransom notes arrive at the nephew's door. The old man has been hiding in the fireplace chimney of his own den and has slipped the notes under the door himself at night in order to secure money to leave the country because his crooked dealings in book have been discovered by the other dealers.

00:50 There are some what may be considered caricatured portrayals of black servants (Louella and Henry Clarence) who work for Mr. Dizzel, speaking with exaggerated accents. It sounds like actors of that background (I suspect portraying the parts as they were "supposed" to sound) and are not imitations by other actors. They are not identified in the credits, but we know Casey only identified central characters and not supporting ones. Since we don't have the network copies of either broadcast or the scripts, we may never know. Cotsworth was very active quietly behind-the-scenes in getting helping actors get into roles on Broadway and radio and situations that broke some barriers. Perhaps that is the case here; again, we're 70 years removed from the day of broadcast so we can't be sure.

It's assumed from the beginning that Dizzel was kidnapped and there will be a call for ransom.

Professor Ishka is rare book thief who wants to do well and make amends after his release from prison. He goes to Casey because he knows the authorities won't believe him and doesn't want to be considered a snitch.

Bruce Madden, Jr. is a well-known extortionist. Neil Lawrence is Dizzel's nephew. Logan thinks they're in cahoots. Madden, Sr. cut his son off for his playboy and spendthrift ways. The Maddens are only referenced; they have no lines.

Another book dealer, Paul Vladimir, is killed later, at the same time as the Dizzel incident occurs, and the same kind of gun was used. We learn he was Ishka's brother.

8:00 Ann is suspicious of a kidnap plot from the beginning.

9:05 The ransom letter appears, placed under Lawrence's door. It's Dizzel's handwriting and says the kidnappers want $150,000. That's more than $1.6 million in 2020 dollars.

11:15 The indication is made by Louella that the building has been renovated with an impractical layout in the conversion from home to book shop. Moving from room-to-room is not intuitively navigated. This plays into the solution. 12:35 It's noted that there are phone extensions all over the house. In 1950, this was considered to be a sign of affluence because of the high costs. More than 35% of homes did not have phones in 1950.

14:15 Ann is still skeptical of Lawrence as the kidnapper.

14:46 Mr. Evans, a new customer at the Blue Note, diverts Ethelbert's attention; not sure which actor is doubling here. While Ethelbert steps away, Professor Ishka gets Casey's ear for a while and gives him some insights into Dizzel's dealings, which were not always ethical. He says that Vladimir was his brother and Dizzel killed him. Dizzel was a fence for stolen books, and that Dizzel was not kidnapped and is still alive, hiding.

18:45 Another envelope has been found. 19:05 It's a letter of instruction from Dizzel to his nephew. Casey gets suspicious. The note was tied to a piece of fire brick, not a rock. For some reason, this is a clue to Casey. He asks for some tear gas canisters.

20:58 The tear gas is dropped into a chimney -- and Dizzel comes out, gasping for air, from behind a bookcase with a gun! He drops the gun and surrenders.

21:35 The tear gas spills into the area, affecting Casey. He says he hasn't "cried so much since the Dodgers... well, you know..." He's could be referring to the 1949 World Series where the Dodgers lost to the Yankees in five games [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] but more likely the 1947 series where the Dodgers lost in seven games [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Since this is a re-used script, this line may have been added. If the 1945 script had a World Series reference that was left intact, it would refer to the 1941 series [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  This is another reference that implies Casey is based in New York.

Back at the Blue Note, Casey explains that Dizzel had a hiding place in the house where he could store stolen books and was using the room hide until he could escape with his own ransom money. It's unlikely his staying in the room could be pulled off in practical daily life. There's no mention of a lavatory in the hiding place, and servants and his nephew would have heard him using such for personal hygiene, or his having to leave the room for that. Dizzel was raiding the kitchen when everyone else in the house was asleep, and eventually he would have been detected, even accidentally by spilling something or dropping something. He would have been found out, just by moving around in an older home with its usual creakiness of floorboards and doors.

23:40 Ann is having a date with Mr. Lawrence, whom she always knew was innocent. Casey is mildly jealous.

The AFRS closing is "This is the United States Armed Forces Radio Service, the voice of information and education."

Casey 50-04-13 336 The Disappearance of Mr Dizzel AFRS.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

There are no newspaper clippings associated with this particular presentation.

This was not the episode originally promoted for this date. The substitution was made after the press releases were sent. The announced performance was done on another date, likely with a slightly different title.

The Suicide is a repeated script that was originally presented on 1945-02-15 with the title Suicide Note. The last time a Broadway-like venue was used was for 1947-07-31 Bright New Star and a non-Cole script 1947-11-13 Too Many Angels were in similar settings of failed plays. This time, a handwritten page of draft dialogue from a very bad play was cut to look like a suicide note. Cole pulls the ol' life-insurance-doesn't-pay-for-suicides routine out of his back pocket. This is an average episode with a predictable plot, but generally well-executed.

ADC continuity notes (notes for 1945-02-15 Suicide Note are the same)...

After his play in which his wife starred and which was produced by her boyfriend fails an author is supposedly a suicide, having jumped from his hotel window while his wife was in the lobby talking with some people. He left a corny suicide note which Casey thinks was from a cut scene of his play. Casey gets the dead man's lawyer to tell the widow that he left very little money and that she forfeits the insurance because death was by suicide, As he thought she would, she goes to see the boyfriend and forces him to write a confession of murder after which she plans to kill him and make that too look like suicide; the police break in before she can complete her plans.

Every time I think of a failed Broadway play, I think of Mel Brooks' The Producers.

- Carl Ashby was the author of the play, a businessman who decided to try his hand at writing.
- Lee Gorman is the producer of the play, who decides to close the play after one night; according to Ann Williams, he is a "beautiful hunk of man."
- Nedra Millard is the star of the play... "Nedra" backwards is "Arden." Could Cole have had Eve Arden in mind? Nedra is Ashby's wife. Cole could have been stuck for a name. The actress-singer Nedra Volz was not active in this era [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] but Cole may have heard of her from her big band singing career in the Midwest. She was not well-known. Her acting career did not really take off until the 1980s when she played grandmotherly types in sitcoms.
- Ben Cartwright is Ashby's lawyer (no, not Ben from the TV show of years later).

4:10 Ethelbert says to them "Say, I didn't see you two last night. Where was you?" He says that Ashby is a regular at the Blue Note.

5:40 Casey is told that Ashby has committed suicide. 6:00 Logan says it's an open and shut case. 7:25 Nedra seems to have a perfect alibi.

7:50 Casey sees the suicide note, and the top of the page has been torn off, and the note is not signed. 8:40 He's really suspicious about it.

10:40 Nedra uses almost the same words "all of us make mistakes, don't we... big ones..." as Gorman did at 1:53 "one of those big mistakes we make at one time or another." The "mistakes" line is used at the end about a sports bet Casey makes.

11:15 Casey explains it all to Logan: Nedra married Carl for his money, but she continued to be interested in Lee. They figured a way to get rid of Carl. Carl wanted to write a play, and Nedra and Lee helped him in such a way to ensure it was a flop. The play dealt with a suicide, so they concocted a way for him to draft in longhand some dialogue that would fit neatly near the center of a page that could be contrived to be a suicide note once they trim the paper to remove the various aspects of character identification and stage direction. The ridicule about the play would give reason to the suicide. 13:21 Casey explains that Lee had a key to the apartment and pushed Carl out the window, and then returned to the post-show event by way of the freight elevator.

14:00 Logan explains that the insurance police Carl had was less than a year old, and would be void if death was by suicide. Logan says that Carl's lawyer says he was not as wealthy as believed. Casey believes that the voided insurance policy was actually part of the plan so no one would suspect Nedra of the murder because there was no financial incentive for it. Casey and the lawyer, Ben Cartwright, meet. The lawyer agrees, at Casey's urging, to tell Nedra that Carl was only worth $10,000 ($110,000 in 2020 dollars) and not $500,000 ($5.5 million in 2020 dollars).

18:48 Nedra meets Lee... neither of them knew about the insurance policy being voided. Now, she will turn on Lee and make it clear that Lee murdered him. 20:40 There's a gun in the room and Nedra has it as she says to Lee: "This gun will tell you what I mean" as she threatens to kill him unless he writes a confession that he was behind everything. Before she has a chance to shoot him, 21:27 Logan shoots the gun from her hand. Casey and Logan had rigged a Dictaphone to record everything they said about the murder. An ad for a 1950 Dictaphone product is at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] The inventor of the core technology for the first Dictaphones was Alexander Graham Bell.

At the close of the episode, Casey mentions he bet Logan that the Red Sox would win today. They lost, Casey reports. And in real life, they lost, too, 5-4 with Cleveland's Bob Lemon beating the BoSox Mel Parnell. It was a day game, and it was over at about 4:30, they had time to adjust the script in any manner needed to make whatever Casey said be true. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  This line was newly added to this script because the original performance of this script was in February of 1945, two months before the baseball season would begin. This adds again to the question as to the locale of Casey, Boston or New York. If it was Boston, Casey would be unhappy if they lost. In New York, the saying has always been "I root for only two baseball teams, the Yankees and whoever is playing the Red Sox."

The AFRS closing is music after the Blue Note epilogue and then "This adventure of Crime Photographer starring Staat [sic] Cotsworth as Casey, came to you through the worldwide facilities of the United States Armed Forces Radio Service, the voice of information and education."

Casey 50-05-04 339 The Suicide AFRS UPGRADE.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

There were no newspaper clippings related to this episode.

This news item was available, however. The 2020 value of Cole's payments were $275,000. It did not last much longer. Cole was not able to adjust to television writing, and did not have any other outlets for his work. More details in an upcoming post, some of it tragic.

Where's Greybelt been? COUNTING!

Based on the Siegel & Cox book it was thought that there were very few repeated scripts in the series. A few years ago, the late Dave Siegel sent me some of the research materials and I've been digging through them in a way that Dave did not have the opportunity to do.

There are very few details of the 1954-1955 revival series episodes. I believe it is safe to say that the majority of those were repeated scripts or altered repeats (like Thunderbolt used the general plot of Gentle Strangler but made a major change to the week's villain from a person out for revenge to someone who thought he was Thor).

Setting those revival episodes aside, the original series had 367 broadcasts. So far, I have identified 141 repeated scripts! That's 38%! I believe there are more, and I'm figuring a way to nail all of those down and expect a few more that would bring it to 40%.

If the same detailed information was available about the 64 revival series episodes, my sense is that 2/3 of those would be repeated scripts, and possibly more. There are almost no newspaper clippings from that era that have any useful plot descriptions or summaries.

Most all of the time, the repeats from the entire series had different titles and new names for that week's characters. The dialogue would remain the same and news or trivial references would be updated to remain current.

I did find two reused titles but the scripts were unique; these were not counted as repeats.

It's been quite an amazing trip to go through these notes that were kept for the series.

The next episode review will appear shortly, Unlucky Numbers. The script is by Gail and Harry Ingram, and I'll have details about them as well.

Unlucky Numbers is a better than average episode, written by Gail & Harry Ingram. The Ingrams were highly capable writers, and their work indicates great familiarity with the details of the Casey program and its often lighthearted moments. Harry wrote Scene of the Crime, one of the more entertaining episodes for its focus on Ethelbert as a wannabe detective. The Ingrams seem well-versed in Casey background and continuity, and may be more entertaining than some of Cole's work.

ADC continuity notes... (typos included)

Casey and Ann are set out to get some info. on "the numbers racket".  They interview the mother or one or the youngsters who has fallen victim to the lure or the numbers game. Mrs. Polachek tells how her son Steve cannot resist trying his luck each week, using his hard-earned money and even going so far as to use the family savings when his own gives out... She is bitter about the whole things and begs Casey to put a stop to it. Casey does some sleuthing and meets up with the head of the numbers racket and with the help or Mrs. Polachek and her son, puts an end to this worthless racket.

0:42 Ethelbert believes that Gladys wants to marry him, because she said so. He says if he doesn't ask her, she'll be mad. And if he does ask her, she'll say yes. He believes neither result is satisfactory. Casey says he needs to be firm, and not let a woman gain the upper hand... and as he rants, Ethelbert tries to get his attention that Ann has walked in and has been hearing all this.

Ann tells Casey that Burke has an assignment about the numbers racket. Casey sees no problem with the numbers games, so thinks it's a "silly" assignment. Elsewhere in the US, these games may have been referred to as lottery games. Both usually were done in bars as the owners looked the other way or may have gotten an under-the-table cut of the take. If there were problems, they would say they were not aware that such things were happening in their establishment.

2:06 Ethelbert says if they want to know about the numbers, they should ask Steve Polachek, a young patron of the Blue Note, since he plays the games. Ethelbert gives his address as 22 Ward Street.

2:50 Casey and Ann meet Steve's mother. She gets very upset when Casey mentions that they are there to talk about the numbers games, thinking that they are there to collect a gambling debt. She explains that gambling is a sickness and he can't stop playing.

7:55 Casey is going undercover to find out who is behind the games. He's going to pretend to be a numbers runner at Al's Pool Hall. Logan warns him that it's dangerous.

Casey meets "Whitey" who really wants to be one of the tough guys but is not smart enough to be one, and leaks confidential information to Casey constantly. Casey's using the name "Duke." Whitey says the mob is concerned about the stories about numbers that are being written in the Morning Express, and that Casey and Williams may have to be dealt with.

11:43 Inadvertently, one of the local cops recognizes Casey and tries to start a friendly conversation with him in front of Whitey. Casey's cover is blown... but he gets away by pretending he has a gun in his suit jacket pocket.

13:50 Matheson, the gang leader, arranges to ambush Casey at the house with the "silver door" where they killed a cop who was investigating the racket two years ago.

14:45 Whitey approaches Steve in the street to play the game again. Whitey is behind in his receipts and he knows Steve is an easy target, and he gives in for "the last time." Steve is told that the "guys at the silver door" are going to take care of Casey.

16:35 Casey gets a call that is a ruse to get him to the trap. 18:00 Mrs. Polachek meets them to tell them that Steve told her it was a trap and they shouldn't go. 19:00 They realize they are at the house with the silver door, but they can't start the car to go away -- some wires were pulled.

They force Casey to drive to the place where they will kill him. But Casey starts to drive recklessly 21:00 at high speed to put everyone in the car in danger. He runs a red light and a police siren can be heard in the distance. The car crashes in a loud collection of skid and inadequate collision sound effects. The next scene is at the Blue Note.

21:44 Ethelbert asks Casey if he wants another pillow behind his back, which he refuses, though it is clear he is in pain (What's a bar doing with pillows?). The he says "Miss Williams, another pillow under your..." is a fill-in-the-blank much of the audience must have chuckled about.

Matheson was arrested for a long list of crimes, including the Sullivan Act. The law restricted the use of guns in New York, another indication of the locale of the series. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  Some people at the time imprecisely used the phrase as a generic name for gun laws in general.

Casey admits to driving through eight red lights in the adventurous driving incident; he still may be charged with reckless driving.

22:30 Steve and Mrs. Polachek visit the Blue Note to thank Casey and Ann for their work and that Steve is no longer playing the numbers. They can now save their money for the farm they wanted and more.

The AFRS closing, after some music, is "Tonight's adventure was written by Alonzo Deen Cole. Staat [sic] Cotsworth played the part of Casey, Jan Miner was Ann, and John Gibson was Ethelbert. Next week, another adventure of Casey, Crime Photographer! This is the United States Armed Forces Radio Service, the voice of information and education."

The Polacheks live at 22 Ward Street. There is a home at 22 Ward Street in Norwalk, Connecticut, the town where the Ingrams lived. There is no indication any connection to the Ingrams that I can find at this time. Many writers of the time inserted real addresses to entertain themselves and others they knew. One of the best at it was Jack Johnstone, who used his home address and those of acquaintances in his writing of Johnny Dollar.

Casey 50-06-15 345 Unlucky Numbers AFRS#47.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

There are no relevant newspaper clippings for this episode.


Gail and Harry Ingram were successful writers and directors of many programs such as Tales of Fatima, The Big Story, The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, and submitted scripts for other series such as Casey, Crime Photographer.

This is the only episode that they wrote jointly. The others were all credited to Harry alone.
48-07-15  246  Farewell Performance
48-08-05  249  Pattern for Murder (2nd use of the title, Cole wrote a different episode with this title)
48-09-16  255  Two Thousand Suspects
48-12-16  267  Blackout
49-03-10  279  The Scene of the Crime
49-06-09  292  Deadline -- Midnight
50-01-12  323  The Love Story
50-04-27  338  Dead Pigeon (2nd use of the title, Cole wrote a different episode with this title)
50-06-15  345  Unlucky Numbers

Pictures of Gail and Harry Ingram can be found at Getty Images
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Harry's death was very unexpected.


Gail Ingram continued her career long after Harry's death. This blogpost has some excellent background about her.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


Harry's script, Blackout, became a photostory in the Summer 1949 edition of Radio Album. The name was changed to Finger of Suspicion. Here is the first page...


Strangely, they give Casey the first name of "Steve" in the article! His name was "Jack" in the pulps. Based on the recordings we have, his first name was never used, but it did appear in some newspaper clippings. Perhaps the writer or editor of the piece was thinking of "Steve Wilson," lead character of the Big Town series?

These photoplays can be great fun to view. Even the gangsters are in suits and ties! These give you a chance to see the stars of the programs. The pictures are so staged and stilted, for the most part, that they have an innocence to them and give the reader a chuckle. Cotsworth can really ham it up for some of the photos, and those are great, too.

Download the full photoplay article as a PDF
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


The series celebrated its eighth anniversary in July 1950. Below is the anniversary press release from CBS. The series would end four months later, when Philip Morris let its contract expire.

The next three Casey episodes that are in circulation or are known are repeats. One of them was The Upholsterer, which was discussed a few postings ago.

These are two episodes, one of which is not available in circulation, another is a repeat episode of Mysterious Lodger under the name Woman of Mystery.


Deadly Wolf is a repeated program of Lady Killer. The details of that episode are at  [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

ADC continuity notes...

When handsome Oswald Vinton strikes up a conversation with Clarissa Mellish, a rich and bored divorcee, she is definitely intrigued. So Oswald buys her a coupl of drinks, takes her driving and strangles her to death. Casey and Ann are sent to cover the case. They discover that from the description given by the hotel people, Vinton is known by other names to the police as a klller with a long record of murdering rich women, then looting their apartments. The scene shifts to another resort where Jane Kitchener is Vinton (under an assumed name) next intended victim. The hotel manager recognizes him and calls the police. However, by the time they arrive, Vinton has disappeared. With Jane's help Casey sets the trap, which, after an exciting sequence of events, springs the mystery of "The Deadly Wolf."

 

The character names were changed. Lady Killer's Madeleine became Clarissa Mellish; Cecil Gramatan became Oswald Vinton; Clara Simmons was changed to Jane Kitchener. 

An AFRS disc of this episode (AFRS #60) was recently sold on eBay, and it is hoped that a recording of it is available sometime in the future.

There are no newspaper clippings available that relate to this episode.


Woman of Mystery is a repeat of Mysterious Lodger, one of the worst episodes of the series.

ADC continuity notes...

This time the corpus delecti is an attractive young woman who has been stabbed in the back by an obviously powerful man, The police find out that she has been a convicted murderess herself, that she had stabbed her lover and spent several years in prison for her crime. Her landlady says that the brother of the man she murdered has been seen hanging around her lately - and when the cops go to bring him in, he shoots it out with them - and he's killed in the process. It Looks like an open and shut case .. the brother obviously was the killer... But then Casey arrives on the scene. He corroborates the story that the police have learned from the young woman's landlady. And, for some reason, he doesn't believe it's quite as much of an open and shut case as the police believe. Casey develops a theory that the police hadn't even thought of - he unreels some of the peculiar quirks in human nature which ultimately portray the real murderer - the landlady..

Eva Condon's part has changed from Mrs. Myers in Mysterious Lodger to Mrs Banks. Details about her interesting career are in the Mysterious Lodger posting.


Casey 50-11-09 366 Woman of Mystery AFRS#61 (ends Came to you Through -- same script as #175)
FROM DISC.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Many thanks

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 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. Herman Chittison was replaced by Teddy Wilson. The new announcer was Bob Hite (who sounds like a combination of Don Pardo and Fred Foy). 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. These are negative comments by columnist Bob Fischer that likely reflect those of others in the newspaper trade. 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 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. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

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 [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] 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.

Lenrow (Logan) finally gets on-air credit as part of the regular cast.

Vox has an interesting brief history of hitchhiking. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] The practice was common in the Depression, and slowly declined as prosperity brought greater car ownership and declines in prices of long-distance travel.

Casey 54-01-13 368 The Road Angel (series returns to air).mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thank you

Source of Information is the second of the revival series and uses Casey's soft spot in his heart for long-serving newspaper veterans, especially if they're hard on their luck. In this case, it's old journalist Grove who has borrowed money from Casey many, many times in the past. Casey's tired of his generosity and respect for the paper's old-timers being taken for granted. Grove's notes for his expose of generations-long corruption in the city government are stolen, and Grove is murdered. Casey springs into action. It's an entertaining listen with an unlikely ending, a less than average episode.

This is the final circulating episode of the series; the 60 broadcasts that followed are likely to never be found.

There are no continuity notes or newspaper clippings for this episode.

1:00 Grove Snyder comes into the photo department and starts a conversation with Casey, who's not really happy to see him. Grove owes him about $200 ($1,950 in 2020 dollars). Grove's been writing a memoir of his decades as a journalist. He's been talking about this work as long as people at the Morning Express have known him, but has never shown anything of it to them. Now that his career is coming to a close, he's been working more feverishly at it. He's finished half of his memoirs, but the document was stolen and his apartment ransacked. Even though his journalistic ethics about not revealing his sources are solid, it is likely the document was stolen because someone feared their identity would be revealed.

3:12 Key line about the corruption on which the solution rests: "Sons even sold out their own fathers and mothers."

4:40 Casey gives Grove $5 ($48 in 2020 US dollars) and a lead on some freelance work. Grove is so depressed that he says nothing of value was ever stolen from him.

5:40 Ann and Ethelbert reinforce the idea that Casey was a sap for Grove, and that his reputation was sullied by his alcoholism. They don't really believe that there are memoirs.

7:30 Logan calls the Blue Note: Grove was shot and killed.

9:10 Grove's apartment is on 90th Street, another street name that indicates New York as Boston does not use street numbers in the way Manhattan did.

11:40 The police find a torn paper with the words "ulty case has been broken" in a hiding place in the floorboards. Grove was hiding his manuscript there. They also find a loaded die for playing a crooked game of craps. Logan remembers it's a trademark of a hitman named "Hialeah Sam" who always has loaded dice with him.

14:08 Logan gets a call in the middle of the night that Hialeah Sam was found "shot in the back and tossed out of a car," and the other loaded die was in his pocket.

16:15 Casey forms his theory of the case. Why was Hialeah Sam killed? He was hired to kill Grove and get the manuscript. Because Grove was out of the apartment at the time, Sam started to read the manuscript and realized the purpose of the hit of Grover. Sam likely tried to blackmail the person who hired him. With Sam dead, how could Casey and Ann figure out who arranged the hit on Grover? Casey has an idea that the secret is in the reporting that Grove did early in his career, which sends them into the newspaper morgue to read Morning Express submissions that cover the era 1915 to 1935.

17:28 There's a great line for Ethelbert here as Casey and Ann head off, that the years they'll be investigating were "the good old days." He suddenly realizes those included the years of Prohibition!

18:00 Casey finds the story of a gang war over bootlegging and a killing similar to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The line on the paper scrap "ulty case" referred to the "McNulty case" and the "McNulty Massacre." The event sent John Keston to jail where he died. The phrase Grove uttered about sons selling out their fathers, leads Casey to remembering that Keston had a son.

20:52 Casey visits Keston's son, now a very wealthy adult in his early 50s. He inherited millions from his father. He confronts him about the killing of Grove and the hiring of Hialeah Sam. Casey tells him that Grove kept a carbon copy of the manuscript (it's a ruse... and it works).

23:59 There's a gun in the room: "Is that the gun you used on Hialeah Sam?" Suddenly, gangster Ziggy Friedlander, a contemporary of Keston's father and recently released from prison, enters the room. He's seeking revenge for an old grudge from the Prohibition days.

25:23 Friedlander kills Keston, but spares Casey because he's respected by the criminals because he plays by the rules. Friedlander surrenders to Casey, willing to go back to prison because of his old age and that he does not have many more years to live.

Grover never used carbon paper out of his habit developed from being in a high-pressure newspaper environment. They always pressed against deadlines for the upcoming edition. Reporters typed their stories and were immediately passed to a copy editor for markup and then sent into production to typesetting. Carbon paper is still manufactured but has mainly disappeared and is limited to small specialty applications. The history of it is at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The constant talk about a memoir that might not exist reminded me a little of the Stanley Tucci film Joe Gould's Secret. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] It turns out that Grover did have manuscript, where Gould just kept leading people on and we never know for certain if there was a workable manuscript or not or just a compilation of lunatic ravings.

Casey 54-01-20 369 Source of Information UPGRADE.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

More information about Teddy Wilson...

Thanks for all your great research on this series.

I learned a lot.

Best regards

Art

What became of Alonzo Deen Cole after the revival series went off the air?

He was a pioneer radio performer and writer, with one of radio's biggest successes of the 1930s, Witch's Tale. When that series ended, he worked mainly as a scriptwriter, and picked up the Casey gig after the series had a very rocky start and righted its course. His fixes worked, and the series became very popular. Once it had its first sponsor after three years of sustaining broadcasts, the series became one of radio's top programs.

The 1940 Census shows Cole as earning $5000 annually, about $95,000 in 2020 US dollars, which is modest income, but very good for the Depression era at a time when the average industrial worker earned $1350. When Casey was in its heyday, Cole was making $25,000 a year ($250,000 in today's dollars). Once the show ended, he never attained similar success.

These are the places he lived over the years with current pictures. Cole always lived modestly in terms of his housing.

1930: This is an apartment building in 477 W 140th & Amsterdam Ave in New York City. This was prior to Witch's Tale. He lived with his in-laws.

1940: The Coles, and his widowed mother-in-law, lived in an apartment building in Mt Vernon, NY just north of Bronx and Manhattan. It was an easy train ride into Grand Central Station.

1949: The Coles moved into their own house in Scarsdale, NY, in the Town of Greenburgh. Scarsdale was an upscale mailing address, and still is today, though the home is modest in size. It was a popular area among executives and office workers for its train service into Manhattan. This is the home where he had his gun incident.
In 1955, Cole divorced his wife Marie, with whom he acted in Witch's Tale. He remarried and moved to Connecticut. This is further away from New York City. It is odd to think about it now, but Connecticut was considered to be a tax haven at the time for high earners who commuted to New York City. Since he was working at home, he did not have to go to the city often.

After the revival of Casey went off the air, Cole had difficulty getting work. He had many proposals for television series that did not work out.

In 1958, a syndicated television series of Witch's Tale was proposed, and never entered production. In the same year, Cole and his second wife, have a daughter, Cole's only clild.

Cole's lack of progress in the new landscape of television and other opportunities must have weighed on him greatly. In 1960, he has a failed suicide attempt. He is found in time, and returns home after his hospital recovery.

This is where Cole tried to commit suicide. It's about a 10 mile drive from the Newtown home. (full map)


1961 A pilot "The Devil's Hands" was produced for a proposed UK Witch's Tales television series. The series did not materialize.

In the early 1960s, Cole moved to the Glendale suburb of Los Angeles, in hopes of having better access to television and movie writing opportunities. He submitted scripts for The Munsters and other programs, with no success.

Cole dies in 1971, at home, of a heart attack. He was 74 years old. His grave is in Glendale at  
Grand View Memorial Park  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47485069/alonzo-deen-cole

Even after death, he could not find a market for his work. In 1974, Viacom bought the rights to produce television programs based Witch's Tale scripts, but never acted on them. In 1981, the rights were on the market again, with no takers.

In Siegel & Cox, pp. 27-28, a letter to Dave Siegel by Cole's daughter recollects her years with him. She was born well after her father's successes, and only knew his post-radio struggles.

This concludes regular posts to this thread. I'm still working on updating the log and found four more repeated scripts yesterday. I'm trying to get the arithmetic right on all of this in figuring out what was new and what wasn't.

The A-H run had 58 single performance scripts of its 85 broadcasts (68%). Toni had 57 of its 69 broadcasts as new (83%) and Philip Morris 33 of its 69 (48%). Now I'm wondering if the Toni series needed more new scripts because of its "toned-down" format.

The plan is to take these posts and get them into a book along with the updated log. I'll be making corrections and additions as I review these posts and polish them up.

I don't plan to do this kind of work for any other series. My affection for Casey started when I was a new collector. The series always seemed different to me as I became curious about both its inconsistencies and its endearing characters.

Over these years I have become very concerned that Casey's cultural references were becoming more obscure to new collectors and would not be understood or put in the right context. Luckily, there are only 80 recordings, so the love of this labor was never really tested to its full limits.

I suspect the Casey book will be done sometime in June and I will make a free PDF of it available to Cobaltia, or at least that's the plan.

Now it's back to Suspense, which is a totally different project. For that I continue to see and annual book release just to keep it all organized. I'm not sure when the Suspense posts will begin again as I'm still recording from a cassette collection that was recently sent to me. I still have more to go from that! My guess is about two weeks from now.

Thank you again for your support and encouragement!

Quite a journey, greybelt! Thanks for all your tireless work on this series and all the background information!

You have made an important contribution to the otr community, greybelt. Thank you for your hard work and sharing spirit.

Thanks greybelt.
It has been a good run.

Thanks!!

This has been fascinating, thank you!

Big thank you for all you do & share with us

Thanks for sharing all of these. I especially appreciated all the research! You've given me a much greater appreciation and understanding of the show.

UPDATED CASEY LOG!

NEED SOME HELP!

Updated Casey log -- not for publication yet -- please do not share outside of Cobalt at this time.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The log has been reviewed in comparison to the notes that were in Cole's papers as given to me by the late Dave Siegel. I made many corrections to the episode names and have identified all of the repeats that I could possibly find. Cole usually changed titles for repeats and often changed character names.

I have a newspapers.com subscription and am looking for the help of someone who has access to different services that have access to other newspapers for their listings.

The key area I need help is for the revival series starting at line 384. There are many episodes early in the revival series for which I have not been able to get information. I did have some CBS press release info for about a third of the revival, and verified others with newspaper listings. But there are some weeks that are missing information.

Those notes do not begin until the March 4, 1944 broadcast. Therefore, I could also use some newspaper clippings for dates prior to that if those clippings have plot descriptions in them, even if it's just a single sentence. Again, I've exhausted newspapers.com.

Remember, newspapers.com is owned by Ancestry.com, so going through Ancestry will not be able to add to the info gathered so far. So if you have a genealogybank.com, newspaperarchive.com, or other service, especially through a library, such as New York Times or ProQuest or some other source, that would be greatly appreciated for any of those dates.

Whatever help you can offer would be spectacular! As sister Edna says about projects like these, "Rome wasn't burned in a day!"

Thanks Joe

Best regards

Art

Thanks for sharing this series, Greybelt.

Verified another missing Casey episode that was adapted for the comic book!
47-05-29 Out of the Past from issue #3
Download it as a PDF for the next few days
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


This is the new table that shows the adaptations...

Getty Images, stock photography organization for publishers and others, has many Casey images in their archives.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Some of the images are of the "old cast" which included Jackson Beck as Logan and Alice Reinhart as Ann. There are also some pictures of the TV cast. Of course, most of the pictures are of Staats Cotsworth.