Whistler Upgrades

Whistler 1949-06-12 366 Perfect Alibi AFRS.mp3
MEGA [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks, greybelt!

A couple of listening notes:

Whistler 1948-07-07 318 Fatal Appointment - Sounds to me like someone in the cast sneezes as the program ends in the last 2 or 3 seconds.

Whistler 1948-10-31 334 Letter from Yesterday - A lot of the plot of this episode borrows directly from the episode from 1947-03-31 The Blank Wall.

THANKS for the heads up! The Whistler scriptwriters were pioneers in the recycling movement, it seems. Letter from Yesterday was written by Ed Bloodworth. There is no announced writing credit for 1947-03-31 Blank Wall. We need a script! Unfortunately there is no copy in the KNX Collection.

BUT...

The 1947 Blank Wall was one of The Whistler TV episodes. It can be seen at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The writing credit there is for Joel Malone. It seems like a "borrowed" storyline rather than outright recycling.

This is the second time a script with the title "Blank Wall" was used. The first was in 1943 with that backwards storyline trick that J. Donald Wilson played on the audience. Different storyline. The 1947 version was repeated in 1955, and that one is not circulating. Sometimes the 1943 episode is labeled as 1955. Much of that poor labeling has disappeared in the digital collecting era, thankfully, with the availability of better logs. But as we go through reels for transfer that have handwritten contents sheets, it's clear that bad dates was a rampant problem. They were doing the best they could at the time.

As far as the sneeze in Fatal Appointment ... can't you imagine the perpetrator trying to run away from the microphone and attempting to muffle that without tripping over fellow performers or furniture? Now we know the broadcast wasn't pre-recorded  For some of the Suspense east and west identifications we did find clearing of throats and covered coughs to come in handy now and then as performance identifiers. Imagine... that sneeze occurred almost 75 years ago... immortalized... get that actor a 4-Way Cold Tablet!

It's the last day of August, 2022... goodbye, Summer! We could use two episodes today, can't we?

Whistler 1949-06-19 367 That Physical Fact AFRS.mp3
MEGA [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Whistler 1949-09-25 381 Incident at Arroyo Grande UPGRADE.mp3
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Thanks greybelt

Best regards
Art

Thanks, greybelt!

Whistler 1949-11-27 390 Clever Mister Farley NETWORK UPGRADE.mp3
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Now we're at the unofficial last weekend of Summer, US Labor Day Weekend. This means only one thing... four days of two Whistler episodes each day...

Whistler 1949-12-11 392 Swan Song UPGRADE.mp3
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Whistler 1949-12-18 393 Patroness of Murder UPGRADE-2.mp3
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Whistler 1949-12-25 394 Letter from Cynthia UPGRADE.mp3
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Whistler 1950-01-01 395 Evening Stroll UPGRADE-3.mp3
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Whistler 1950-01-08 396 Return to Riondo NETWORK UPGRADE-2.mp3
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Whistler 1950-01-22 398 The Go-Between UPGRADE.mp3
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Whistler 1950-01-29 399 Burden of Guilt AFRS UPGRADE.mp3
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Whistler 1950-02-05 400 Ladies Man AFRS UPGRADE-2.mp3
MEGA [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

All of the surviving TV episodes of The Whistler are at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
There are 28 of the 39 episodes available; the other 11 seem to be "lost." The recordings look like they were recorded from a UHF station in the Los Angeles area in the late 1970s and early 1980s and have been transferred from VHS to digital format.

The program was syndicated beginning in Fall 1954 and could be seen on a regular basis on stations around the country through the early 1960s. Then, every once in a while, a station would start playing them in later years. The station that these were recorded from was obviously one of those

My (messy) log can be viewed at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I've been able to match up all of the episodes, including those with title changes, with their original radio stories... except for three of them. These might be missing radio programs which is why I can't match them up with any radio recordings I have. Do any of these plotlines seem like familiar radio versions you might have heard? I pulled descriptions from IMDb and newspapers.

#15 Cancelled Flight
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IMDb: Pilot Lloyd Adams has a lucrative career as a smuggler but when his partner Matt Bannion gets cold feet, his mind turns to plans of murder; SF Examiner 7/20/55: Two partners live in fear of each other as well as the police; written by Adrian Gendot; Philadelphia Inquirer 11/27/55: There is no honor among theives when $50,000 worth of ill-gotten gaines is at stake; Camden NJ Courier Post 12/2/55: A smuggler decides to kill his partner in order to have all the big money to himself but finds he has shot the wrong man.

#21 Favor for a Friend
NO VIDEO AVAILABLE
IMDb: A doctor on his deathbed confesses to his son about how he dealt with a gangster. Hillary Brooke plays Sharon; Joel Malone is writer; Alexander City AL Outlook 4/20/56: A luxurious ocean lined is the setting for the story of a doctor who does a favor for a friend. The drama begins with old Doctor James Roark on his deathbed. He motions his son, young Dr. Roark, to come closer. Then, in a flashback, the dying man recounts a weird shipboard adventure.

#22 The Jubilee Earring
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IMDb: Fran Gilbert arrives in town for a reunion with an old college friend but the woman isn't there to meet her and Fran begins to suspect her husband may have murdered her; writer is Harold Swanton; Lewiston ME Sun-Journal 9/12/58: a 10-year college reunion meets witha strange disappearance; Portland ME Express 9/12/58: A 10-year college reunion is upset by the strange disappearance of one of the class members.

At some point soon, I will clean up the spreadsheet and include it in the draft Whistler log that I posted a few weeks ago.

Whistler 1950-02-19 402 Five Cent Call UPGRADE-2.mp3
MEGA [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

In 2022$US that five cents would be 63 cents today. But technology has changed such that it might as well be zero cents. Oh, how we wish for the innocent days of classic radio when dramatic tension could be raised several notches when main characters could not find a phone or missed a call or missed a message or the other characters had no idea where to call them... And how did they get along without using phones as cameras? Couldn't they listen to radio programs using their phones?

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

Whistler 1950-12-24 446 Three Wise Guys UPGRADE-2.mp3
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The "traditional" Christmas story for the series. I know it's 104 days early...

The network broadcast of this story has been around for a long time. This AFRS was from an old reel; when the national recording became available, this one fell out of circulation.
Whistler 1951-05-27 468 Seattle Take Three AFRS.mp3
MEGA [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


I've been doing work lately on the Whistler TV series. The draft log for the TV series (now cleaned up and much easier to read!) is available at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
My prior post [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] indicated certain shows had not been matched with radio scripts. No progress there, unfortunately. Still digging around.

The following clip has critic Allen Rich explaining that he did not think the series could succeed on television. The radio version was just too well done that a TV version would be a letdown. The episode he refers to is A Matter of Courtesy of 1951-05-13.

The series and character franchise had such a bumpy road media distribution that you can say that the only thing that went well were the movies. They were nationally successful. The radio program was hampered by of all things the breakup of the oil industry decades before that created regional businesses with carved-out territories and no national presence until decades later. That created only regional opportunities in places where Signal Oil's sponsorship was not possible. The Chicago series was a success, but geographically limited. The agreement with CBS stated those had to stop when they had a sponsor for the non-Signal markets. HFC was an awful sponsor, but the productions were solid -- too bad there are so few of them surviving.

There were three 1940s TV pilots seen only in Chicago, none of which gained any traction. Finally, in 1954 the TV series debuted, but as a syndication property. For many non-Pacific viewers, the TV show was not from the radio series, but a spin-off of the movies!

There were some very successful TV syndications in the 1950s but The Whistler was not one of them. Was Allan Rich right? Or was it another case inadequate distribution? The prior post had a link to the YouTube channel that has the surviving videos. What do you think?

It seems that every few days this thing called "the weekend" invades the natural flow of daily life. There's only one way to cope: two Whistler episodes as we prepare ourselves for those two days that start with the letter "S".

Whistler 1951-06-10 470 Law of Physics UPGRADE.mp3
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Whistler 1951-06-24 472 Murder of Byron Blake UPGRADE.mp3
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I watched the TV adaptation of Fatal Fraud yesterday, just to see John Banner in his pre-Sgt. Schultz days. It's a good story, and adapted well. Paul Frees was off-camera doing voice impressions when needed, or other actors in the story had their voice edited in as needed. The video is at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
These TV shows are almost 70 years old -- hard to believe. It would be nice if some 16mm prints could be found so that nice digital copies could be made from them.

Thanks greybelt

Best regards
Art

Whistler 1951-07-29 477 Danger Is a Beautiful Blond UPGRADE.mp3
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Whistler 1952-01-27 503 Borrowed Byline NETWORK UPGRADE.mp3
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This little clipping says that Bill Forman is finally being acknowledged as the "Whistler" character. They tried to keep it secret. From the beginning of the series, there were many actors who played the role. Marvin Miller often played the Signal Oil spokesperson and the snarky narrator, but it was Forman who had the role the longest. The 1951 clipping may have noted that Forman was getting credit in the cast announcements, but word had slipped out in 1946 in Radio Life magazine in the summary of a charity event. The CBS Pacific folks were supposedly pretty annoyed by the mention. Hey... really? Yeah, because Forman was doing other announcing work, like the Fitch program with Phil Harris and Alice Faye. The Whistler series had Forman as a character and narrator, not as just another announcer. So, yeah, really, they were trying to keep it a secret. Like when wrestlers wear masks. Or when Superman wears glasses and a suit and says he's a newspaper reporter. I wonder if Forman wore a wide-brimmed hat and a cape one his way to the studio.


If you want to hear Forman in a lampoon of The Whistler , listen to the Fitch Harris & Faye program Phil Gets A Threatening Letter 04/13/1947 -- it's one of radio's funniest moments. It works because by that Spring 1947, the whole country had heard of The Whistler with the movie series in full swing. It was no longer just an obscure west coast radio series that midwest and eastern radio listeners had heard about. That year may have been the peak of national marketing recognition of the character.

We are gradually coming to the end of this round of Whistler upgrades. Here's two more for today...

Whistler 1952-03-09 509 Breakaway UPGRADE-2.mp3
MEGA [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Whistler 1952-05-25 520 Charming Hostess UPGRADE-2.mp3
MEGA [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Can someone check this

My 49-01-23 and 04-12-1949 have different plots for the show impulse but the ottr set has the same plot for both shows. Have I found something here?

re Impulse: Yes, indeed, they are different stories, and have different writers. RGI makes a mistake in its second listing that it's the same script. They are clearly different. The Whistler's editors (Joel Malone was one, Ed Bloodworth was another, and I'm certain there were others) did not seem to mind re-using titles. This drives us crazy 70 years later as we try to track down show details. Suspense did repeat titles a handful of times in its 900+ episodes, but that series was often adapting stories that had appeared in other media and may have already been known (such as adaptations of Cornell Woolrich work or classic John Dickson Carr work). Molle Mystery Theater rarely repeated titles with different stories as they adapted direct from the original short stories. The Whistler was usually content that was unpublished before broadcast. The producers and editors likely felt "who remembers titles and plotlines?" In a way, they were right, no one was collecting Whister episodes and keeping track of them. We do, today, and can see the full history of the series right in front of us. The listeners back then heard the series unfold one episode at a time, and the producers and writers did the same. Please, if you do find any re-use of titles, post that information here as we are working on the log of the series and trying to capture those details. You can see the log at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and even download it from there. You can see if we've detailed such script differences there.

THANKS SO MUCH FOR BRINGING THIS UP! I have noted this in the log. No "Impulse" script was used in either the Chicago or HFC series, or in the 1946 Summer series.

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

79523. The Whistler. January 23, 1949. CBS Pacific net. "Impulse". Signal Oil. A meek college professor from New Haven realizes that he's no longer in love with his wife. He's then given a chance for a new life in Bermuda, with a new identity and lots of money. The story has a surprisingly happy ending. George W. Allen (producer), Gordon T. Hughes (director), John Beal, Marvin Miller (announcer), Robert Ryf (writer), Betty Lou Gerson, Mary Lansing, Wilbur Hatch (music). 29:41. Audio Condition: Excellent. Complete.
NOTE: This script was repeated on 1953-11-08

49666. The Whistler. December 04, 1949. CBS Pacific net. "Impulse". Signal Oil (limerick contest, pocket calendar premium). A lawyer finds a car with a corpse and $50,000 in cash, the proceeds of a payroll robbery. The lawyer's girlfriend urges him to get rid of the money, for her own selfish reasons. The script was previously used on "The Whistler" on January 4, 1949 [THIS IS AN OBVIOUS ERROR as it should read "the title" and not "the script"]. Adrian Gendot (writer), Bob Bruce, George W. Allen (producer), Marvin Miller, Nancy Shields, Wilbur Hatch (music), Wilms Herbert. 29:28. Audio Condition: Very good to excellent. Complete.
NOTE: The recording is not circulating, but this was likely repeated on 1953-04-12. Much of the early 1953 episodes are missing.

The three circulating episodes titled Impulse are at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The link expires in 7 days (posted 2022-09-12)


Whistler 1952-10-12 540 One Dark Night AFRS#359 UPGRADE.mp3
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Joel Malone was a key figure in the success of The Whistler.
His radio credits are far more than what is documented at RadioGoldindex. Like many in the period, much of his work was uncredited (not announced in the credits). Those who served in editorial supervision were never credited on air, such as Robert L. Richards for Suspense unless their re-writes or adaptations represented signficant amounts of work. They would usually get some kind of recognition such as "co-author" which might be in the form of "written by ___ from an original idea by ____"
RGI [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
IMDb [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Whistler 1954-04-18 618 Days of Fear USAFE UPGRADE-3.mp3
MEGA [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

With these two episodes... the upgrade of The Whistler is now done. A few days off are ahead for attendance at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
On Saturday morning, Don Ramlow, Karl Schadow and I will be discussing the career of Parley Baer.

But for now, enjoy these two episodes from the tail end of the series...

Whistler 1954-05-09 621 Gentleman from Oxford USAFE UPGRADE-2.mp3
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Whistler 1954-06-13 626 Dark Pattern USAFE UPGRADE-3.mp3
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Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art