The Adventures of Frank Race Radio Program

Background

Bruce Eells' Broadcasters Program Syndicate was reorganized in 1948 to offer syndicated programming on a par with both the four major networks and the other successful programming syndicators of the era, such as Frederic Ziv, M-G-M Radio Transcriptions, and Alan Ladd's own Mayfair Productions. More like the M-G-M Radio Transcriptions packages, Eells devised a cooperative concept for distributing his programming, encouraging subscribers to purchase not ala carte from its offerings but to purchase an entire package.

The first Broadcasters Program Syndicate package was comprised of one quarter-hour feature and two half-hour features:

• Series 1: Pat O'Brien from Hollywood
• Series 2: Frontier Town
• Series 3: The Adventures of Frank Race

An admittedly humble first offering, the three-feature series' offered name actors, top-notch writing and high production values. The syndicate offered the following to describe its concept:

"Since its organization less than a year ago, the Broadcasters Program Syndicate has built a success story unparalleled in the history of radio.
Operating on a subscription basis exclusively, the Broadcasters Program Syndicate is essentially of, by, and for station subscriber-members.
A single weekly fee equal to the subscribing station's national one-time class A quarter-hour rate entitles the station to the Syndicate's entire output of network-calibre programs. All current programs--plus every additional series produced by the Syndicate in the future.
Currently, for a single weekly fee "PAT O'BRIEN FROM HOLLYWOOD," "FRONTIER TOWN," and "ADVENTURES OF FRANK RACE" all go to the following members of the Broadcasters Program Syndicate:"

[The copy then lists some 120 subscriber stations as of April 1949, among which all four major networks were represented]

The three-series package was shotgunned to all subscriber stations for intial broadcast beginning March 5, 1949 with several independent stations beginning their runs as early as March 3, 1949.

The Adventures of Frank Race is offered to subscriber stations

Note that the package was initially shotgunned to every major network affiliation in America. It was heard over all four networks over the following four years in initial syndication and rebroadcast. Given one's geographical location, a listener might well have been able to hear as many as three or four weekly airings of The Adventures of Frank Race.

Seasoned writer Joel Murcott joined Broadcasters Program Syndicate for the express purpose of writing and supervising Bruce Eells' first two dramatic offerings, Frontier Town, starring Jeff Chandler under the tongue in cheek performing name 'Tex Chandler' and The Adventures of Frank Race initially starring durable and versatile character actor Tom Collins. Legendary composer Ivan Ditmars scored both the audition and production series.

The audition for the series was recorded during February 1949. The audition featured Tom Collins as former attorney and O.S.S. officer, Frank Race. Race is aided by his associate, former cab driver, Marcus 'Marc' Donovan portrayed by Tony Barrett. Lurene Tuttle is also featured in the audition. The audition lays out the premise for the contemplated series. Frank Race has returned to civilian life after a wartime stint as an operative for the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) the progenitor of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). Somewhat disenchanted with the prospect of returning to practice Law, Race forms his own investigations firm, specializing in industrial, State, and international crimes of fraud and espionage.

The premise was not new to 1949 Radio. Ned Jordan (Secret Agent) had aired over Mutual from 1938 and iniitally dealt with railroad espionage. Secret Agent K-7 had aired from 1939. The Man Called X had been successfully airing over CBS for almost six years. Dangerous Assignment began airing the same year as The Adventures of Frank Race. NBC also launched Richard Diamond, Private Detective in April 1949, its premise establishing detective Richard Diamond as having an O.S.S. background as well. Let George Do It's (1946) George Valentine is also hinted at having connections with the O.S.S. during his war service.

The O.S.S. patina leant Frank Race instant credibility as a serious, versatile--and potentially deadly--operator and his operations training comes into use in virtually every episode of the series. The audition episode deals with industrial fraud involving two of the thousands of double-hulled 'Victory Ships' which helped turn the tide of merchant ship carnage in the North Atlantic during World War II. Race's extensive knowledge of some of the secret technologies employed in building the Victory Ships helps solve the insurance fraud.

The series was well written, produced, directed, nicely scored and well performed. A west coast production, the series featured some of the west coast's finest acting talent. Tom Collins relinquished the role of Frank Race to Paul Dubov at Episode No. 23. Dubov was one of Radio's most versatile and talented writers and actors. Tony Barrett, also one of Radio and Television's most durable, versatile character actors, writers and producers remained in the role of Marc Donovan for the run of the series. But Barrett is also heard in at least one or two other roles in almost every episode.

Frank Race's scripts were adventures, as distinquished from 'cases' one might normally ascribe to detective or crime dramas. As such the overwhelming titles for the series are one form of adventure or another. There was no distinct contrast between Tom Collins' portrayals and those of Paul Dubov. Both of their voices were in about the same register, the scripts continued to be written by Buckley Angell and Joel Murcott and both actors' delivery was comparable to the other's.

The supporting casts were superb from start to finish with such west coast stand outs as Gerald Mohr, Charlie Lung, Frank Lovejoy, Parley Baer, Jeanne Bates, Ted Von Eltz, Virginia Gregg, Jack Kruschen, Harry Lang, Herb Butterfield, Gloria Blondell, William Johnstone, Barney Phillips, Lurene Tuttle, Peter Leeds, Betty Lou Gerson, Bill Conrad and Lawrence Dobkin returning again and again throughout the series.

Paul Dubov and Tony Barrett, in particular, forged a relationship during The Adventures of Frank Race that continued throughout both great character actors' careers when the two began prolific careers as writers and developers of Television features together and separately. Indeed, their writing and developing credits in Television eventually eclipsed both great actors' body of work in Radio. Tom Collins, having recently completed his leading role as Chandu in the 1948 run of Chandu The Magician, returned to One Man's Family after The Adventures of Frank Race and almost got a bid to portray his Nick Lacey character from One Man's Family for the Television version of the series in 1949. Never quite attaining the heights of either Tony Barrett or Paul Dubov, Tom Collins' staunchest fans remember him for his roles as Reggie Yorke in I Love Adventure, Chandu in Chandu the Magician, and Frank Race in The Adventures of Frank Race with equal zeal.

Spot ad from the 1953 run of The Adventures of Frank Race, here sponsored regionally by Curtis Furniture Company

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were newspaper listings.

We've corrected the numerous misspellings of the titles in the canon in the process of preparing the two logs below. It's become apparent to us that the audition for the series is being simply relabeled as Episode No. 1 of the canon in the overwhelming number of sites and dealers we consulted in attempting to prepare this log. If anyone is in the possession of a genuine Episode No. 1, we'd love to hear it simply to complete our log. The audition appears to be narrated and announced by Joel Murcott, one of the directors and writers for the series. We would expect that the actual Epsiode No. 1 would have Art Gilmore announcing the episode. We may be wrong. We're often wrong. But we always ask to be corrected when we are.

This was a transcribed, syndicated series produced by an independent programming syndicator, Bruce Eells' Broadcasters Program Syndicate, the third in a series of three initial offerings from Broadcasters Program Syndicate. "Syndicated". That means, particularly in the case of Broadcasters Program Syndicate, that it was immediately in the hands of at least 120 subscriber-member stations on or about March 5, 1949. Any or all of those outlets were free to air the series at their convenience from that point forward.

OTRisms:

All the above having been said, let's dispel forever the misinformation that's been systematically disseminated over the past forty years by the self-serving commercial OTR community, simply to sell duplicate copies of the exact same transcribed recordings within a canon:

• The Adventures of Frank Race most certainly did not first air on May 1, 1949. The innumerable inaccurate logs giving that date have been, and continue to be, disseminated by major commercial OTR concerns and promoted by co-opted, well-compensated devotees--and paying advertisers.
• There weren't two distinct run periods of The Adventures of Frank Race for 1949. The program aired almost continuously somewhere in America and Canada for almost five years after it was recorded. You could literally put on a blindfold, throw a dart at a map of North America, and hit a broadcast location that was airing The Adventures of Frank Race anytime between January 1949 and December 1958. See the proof in the sidebar to the left. Thirty-six states in the U.S. and six territories of Canada are represented as subscribers--within a week of issuing the package.
• There absolutely were not separate 'east coast' and 'west coast' recordings of The Adventures of Frank Race. There were simultaneous, overlapping, regional broadcasts throughout the U.S. and Canada.
• Nor was the 1949 run an 'east coast' run and the 1951 run a 'west coast' run. That also is a fabrication.
• There is not one word, one phrase, one passage, or one script different in any of the sets of the forty-three episodes of The Adventures of Frank Race that were broadcast between January 1949 and December 1958. Why? They were recorded one time and one time only in 1949 and were never added to, altered or modified after that first forty-three recorded programs.
• There are no distinctions whatsoever between a 1949 airing of any of the forty-three episodes of The Adventures of Frank Race and any or all of those episodes rebroadcast in 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953 . . . or 2010 for that matter. Some circulating recordings may sound inferior, to be sure, but that does not in any way alter the content etched into those initial sets of Broadcasters Program Syndicate transcription discs.
• The overwhelming number of titles in The Adventures of Frank Race canon are adventures, as in, "The Adventure of the," etc., NOT 'The Case of The', or the infamous "TCOT".
• A prominent OTR author cites several nuggets of OTR lore regarding The Adventures of Frank Race, the most outrageous of which suggests that Broadcasters Program Syndicate was infamous for baiting and switching its subscribers with 'name' talent in their packages then substituting "smaller named" 'radio' talent halfway through the run. This one is also inaccurate. Yes, Reed Hadley replaced Jeff Chandler halfway through Frontier Town. But at that point in both actors' careers, Reed Hadley had been in Film when Jeff Chandler was still in high school. And to insinuate that distinquished actor, author, director and producer Paul Dubov was low-rent in comparison to Tom Collins is absurd. We loved Tom Collins' performances a great deal, but Tom Collins was no Paul Dubov, not by any stretch of anyone's imagination.
• The same author also passes along the business about two separate runs of The Adventures of Frank Race. Had this author done even 35 minutes of original research he'd have turned up precisely what we have.

Did they not know that Bruce Eells' last name is spelled 'Eells', not Ellis, Eels, nor Ells? The name is right on every Broadcasters Program Syndicate transcription label that was ever issued. Did they not know that many of the transcribed features they were handling every day were being handled simultaneously by thousands of other broadcast engineers across America and Canada? The answers are obvious. What possible rationale would they all have to continue to disseminate the precise, exactly worded and dated misinformation back and forth between each other?

To prop up the entire, very profitable, multi-million dollar house of cards that is the commercial OTR industry.

If you're one one of those whose bought into the rubbish about two entirely separate sets of The Adventures of Frank Race and you actually paid for duplicate versions of the exact same recordings but with later-dated labels. . . oops!

The Adventures of Frank Race is by no means an isolated example of these exploitative and intentional misrepresentations. We've seen it in virtually every transcribed, syndicated program we've researched over the past three years. Every single one of the over fifty transcribed syndicated program articles we've researched thus far has revealed some variant of shabby practices throughout the commercial OTR community. If they're not claiming some elaborate hoax about multiple--highly collectable--runs of the same transcribed, syndicated canon, they're mixing and matching denatured AFRS and AFRTS versions of recordings with their commercial, as broadcast recordings to pronounce their's 'complete.'

Does any of this matter to you, the vintage Radio fan?

• Do you enjoy buying or downloading an alleged 'complete' set of your favorite series only to discover, upon actually listening to them, that there were between two and five duplicates in the canon you downloaded or purchased? Or perhaps several episodes missing in the process?
• Do you enjoy being misled as to the content of the selections you've loaded into your iPod, mp3 player or PDA simply because they were inaccurately labeled or named?
• Do you enjoy being systematically misled about all manner of 'OTR lore' just because some 'credentialed expert' writes or says that a program ran when they say it ran?
• Do you enjoy paying $25-$90 a pop for all manner of OTR books that contain the exact same recycled misinformation, just in a different wrapper?

If you enjoy all or part of the above, boy oh boy are you gonna be loved by the commercial OTR community!

There remains a question as to an alleged audition for the series. We have no reason to doubt that a test recording or teaser may have been cut for potential subscribers, but as with many transcribed packages, it would have been just as effective to send interested subscribers the first episode. The trade papers and magazines of the era hint at such a trial or test recording, but Frontier Town, issued in the same package didn't have an audition or test espisode either. Any test or audition would have been recorded sometime in February 1949. The question remains whether the circulating Epsiode No. 1, referred to as The Adventure of The Hackensack Victory is the first production episode or the audition. In every rendition we auditioned, the alleged audition and the cited Episode No. 1 recording were identical in every respect--same casts, announcer and lack of final production 'polish' as those of the remainder of the canon. Art Gilmore does not announce either the circulating 'audition' or the circulating Episode No. 1. Transcription No. 1 shows no 'as broadcast' stamps or annotations whatsoever, which lends even more credence to our belief that the circulating Episode No. 1 and its accompanying transcription label are actually either/both a test recording or the elusive, alleged audition. For now, we're citing our Episode No. 1 as unavailable in our own collection and we're referring to the digitally transcribed BPS No. 1 as an audition. We may be wrong. We often are. For now, we don't know the answer. When we learn more we'll add it here. When we're wrong, we own up to it--and correct it.

What you see here, is what you get. Complete transparency. We have no 'credentials' whatsoever--in any way, shape, or form--in the 'otr community'--none. But here's how we did it--for better or worse. Here's how you can build on it yourselves--hopefully for the better. Here are the breadcrumbs--just follow the trail a bit further if you wish. No hobbled downloads. No misdirection. No posturing about our 'credentials.' No misrepresentations. No strings attached. We point you in the right direction and you're free to expand on it, extend it, use it however it best advances your efforts.

We ask one thing and one thing only--if you employ what we publish, attribute it, before we cite you on it.

We continue to provide honest research into these wonderful Golden Age Radio programs simply because we love to do it. If you feel that we've provided you with useful information or saved you some valuable time regarding this log--and you'd like to help us even further--you can help us keep going. Please consider a small donation here:

We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

All rights reserved by their respective sources. Article and log copyright 2009 The Digital Deli Online--all rights reserved. Any failure to attribute the results of this copywritten work will be rigorously pursued. O.S.S. and O.S.S. logos are registered trademarks of the O.S.S. Society, all rights reserved.

[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]