The Boston Blackie Radio Program

Background

The Boston Blackie franchise began with author Jack Boyle's first story about his modern Robin Hood-like character, Horatio Black, known to friend and foe as "Boston Blackie." A former safe-cracker and confidence man, Blackie eventually reformed and became "an enemy to those who make him an enemy, a friend to those who have no friend." First printed in The American Magazine in 1914, Boyle's character also appeared in Red Book and Cosmopolitan magazines prior to 1920.

Boyle's Blackie first came to the big screen in a series of silent features between 1919 and 1927. Boston Blackie languished for another fourteen years until Columbia launched a highly successful series of 'B' features in 1941, starring Chester Morris as Boston Blackie. Morris went on to star in a total of fourteen Boston Blackie features between 1941 and 1949:

• Meet Boston Blackie (1941)
• Confessions of Boston Blackie (1941)
• Alias Boston Blackie (1942)
• Boston Blackie Goes Hollywood (1942)
• After Midnight with Boston Blackie (1943)
• The Chance of a Lifetime (1943)
• One Mysterious Night (1944)
• Boston Blackie Booked on Suspicion (1945)
• Boston Blackie's Rendezvous (1945)
• A Close Call for Boston Blackie (1946)
• The Phantom Thief (1946)
• Boston Blackie and the Law (1946)
• Trapped by Boston Blackie (1948)
• Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture (1949)

The franchise expanded to feature Dick Lane in recurring appearances as Inspector Farraday, George E. Stone as 'Runt', Blackie's chauffer - accomplice - valet and all around 'fixer,' and Lloyd Corrigan as Blackie's benefactor, Arthur Manleder. Boston Blackie's world was filled with combination of Runyonesque characters and society matrons and benefactors, in about equal measure.

The growing success of the franchise prompted NBC-Red keystation WEAF to air a series of thirteen Radio episodes of Boston Blackie as a summer replacement for their Rinso-sponsored Amos 'n' Andy franchise. Chester Morris also starred in this first Radio series of Boston Blackie, bringing Dick Lane with him as Inspector Farraday, Blackie's nemesis with the local constabulary. Though NBC didn't extend the series beyond the Summer of 1944, the series eventually made its way back onto the airwaves in the Spring of 1945, beginning a run of almost six more years over Radio.

Chester Morris' portrayal of Boston Blackie was understandably the most fully formed of the Radio portrayals. Morris' Film commitments foreclosed any possibility of continuing his portrayal of Blackie beyond the Summer of 1944. During the ensuing year, Morris and Columbia cranked out another two Blackie features--just in time to fuel a return bid to Radio. The films were so popular by the mid-1940s that they were being screened and re-screened throughout North America until the mid-1950s. Riding the crest of the popularity of the character, the Radio rendition of Boston Blackie passed from Mutual to the Blue Network, back to Mutual and ultimately aired over CBS before the Radio franchise ran its course.

Frederick Ziv was instrumental in perpetuating the Boston Blackie franchise into the mid-1950s. He syndicated the Radio franchise from 1945 through 1951, then spun off the character into syndication over Television.

1951 Broadcasting Magazine broadside for Ziv's Boston Blackie franchises over both Radio and Television

It goes without saying that once Frederick Ziv took over the production, the success of the franchise was virtually assured--even over networks like Mutual and ABC's Blue Network. Ziv handled most of the promotion for the syndication. The networks themselves rarely promoted the series in the print media of the era. The Blue Network was still taking baby steps on its way to become the American Broadcasting Company and Mutual rarely ever promoted their cash cows in the newspapers of the era.

Boston Blackie production, themes and details

Blackie's specialty was fine jewelry. As was often pointed out in books and films, Boston Blackie was a self-taught world expert in fine gems. As such, the overwhelming majority of the scripts revolve around valuable jewelry or gems of one sort or another. The series' are also littered with murders of one type or another. Another Blackie specialty was being suspected of murder, jewelry thefts, and shakedowns. This, in spite of an extraordinary record of success breaking most such cases for New York's finest. But as unlikely as it should have been, Inspector Farraday continued to suspect or accuse Blackie of most of New York's most notorious crimes--for almost six years.

The format for the NBC Chester Morris run was typical network fare: teaser, commercial announcement, story, commercial close, program close. The Ziv syndicated series evolved slightly over its run. Richard Kollmar portrayed Boston Blackie for all of the Ziv syndicated programs. The earlier recordings went right into the script, provided little in the way of exposition, and left room for sponsors' messages. After the first year of syndication, the announcers played more of a part in the exposition after sponsor breaks. After the Ziv-syndicated series returned to Mutual in 1947, the recordings also teased some of the plot--either a prologue to the story, a snippet from a key element of the script or, at the end, a teaser of the episode to come next.

An oft featured plot of many of the Richard Kollmar run of Ziv scripts finds no less than five separate prison escapees breaking out for the express purpose of killing Boston Blackie. In one instance an entire gang breaks out for that purpose. Frame-ups are also prominently featured. Blackie himself is framed for at least thirteen murders or thefts in the course of the Ziv run. Arsons, confidence scams, and mortal family feuds are also repeated in about equal measure.

Our most prized recordings are those with the sponsor spots intact. The predominant sponsors in circulation for the Ziv run are Beneficial Finance, R and H Beer, and Champagne Velvet Beer--the 'Smeeeeoooth Beer.' The other recordings of note within the Ziv canon are those containing 'celebrity' guest spots, such as Jack Lescoulie, Guy Lombardo, and Dorothy Kilgallen (real life wife of Richard Kollmar). Earl Wilson was apparently also featured in a Boston Blackie episode from December 1949.

The cast of the Chester Morris run comprised some of the West Coast's finest voice actors. When Ziv syndicated the series in 1945 it would appear that it was produced and recorded on the East Coast as most of the voice talent employed throughout the Ziv run were predominately New York and Connecticut performers--perhaps in an effort to better accomodate Richard Kollmar.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were newspaper listings.

OTRisms:

Certain sources assert that the papers of the writing team of Milton and Barbara Merlin cite the title "06/30/44-02 THE MANLETTER BANK CASE" among their papers. This would seem highly implausible for a writing team so steeped in the history of the Boston Blackie franchise. The fictional Arthur Manleder is Horatio "Boston Blackie" Black's benefactor in many of the Boston Blackie feature films. To complicate matters, Arthur Manleder's neice, Alice, is also featured in the Chester Morris canon of the first thirteen Boston Blackie's to air over Radio. Either the Merlins made a typo, or whoever transcribed their notes made a typo. In our own, clearer, first generation recordings of Episode No. 2, it's quite clear that the name is Manleder rather than Manletter. Most of the other characters (with the exception of 'Runt') transitioned from the films to the Radio programs. By Episode No. 7, the surname Manletter is heard, the neice of Arthur Manleder. Both characters are quite similar with their Film characters.

In the Radio rendition of Boston Blackie, Charlie Kingston assumed the role of Blackie's benefactor, much like Lloyd Corrigan's Arthur Manleder had in the films. George E. Stone's 'Runt' character is assumed by Tony Barrett as 'Shorty', followed by John Gibson in the Ziv run.

The same sources cite the title of Episode No. 6 as "THE DAVON CARETAKER," again a highly implausible title from the writers for the series. In our own first generation transcription of Episode No. 6, the estate referred to is quite clearly the Devon Estate. Either the script was changed before it was recorded or the script notes were inaccurately transcribed.

Nor is there any fathomable justification, however tortured, to continue the Episode numbering from the Chester Morris canon on through the Ziv canon--for several practical [and quite obvious] reasons:

• The Chester Morris canon aired over NBC-Red, the Ziv canon over vitually every other network of the era but NBC.
• The Chester Morris canon was NBC-originated. The Richard Kollmar canon was a ZIV-transcribed syndication.
• The two runs aired almost a year apart
• The Chester Morris canon was produced and recorded in Hollywood. The Ziv-syndicated canon was produced and recorded in New York.
• The writers were different
• The format was completely different for the ZIV canon.

It's simply disingenuous to lump all Boston Blackie exemplars into the same, continguous run. The two runs are as different as night and day. The only uniting element is the title of the franchise, Q.E.D. Indeed, Frederick Ziv himself would have unquestionably taken exception to having his syndicated production conflated with the NBC-originating run. Should you be forced to inaccurately number your collection for the convenience of lazy, sloppy commercial otr dealers? We don't think so. Even more to the point: why would anyone continue to patronize an otr dealer that doesn't care about accuracy?

While the collecting community is forced to contend with the OTR's slavish--and self-serving--devotion to the wildly inaccurate commercial otr sources that they endorse for a consideration, the practice doesn't further accuracy in the hobby. It's both a disservice to the greater vintage collecting community, as much a disservice to the memory and history of these great Golden Age Radio recordings and the brilliant artists and technicians who created them. We regret the inconvenience it would be to ask the thousands of inaccurate commerical otr sellers to renumber and correct their various collections, but the fact that they steadfastly refuse to, speaks more to their profit motive than to their concern for an accurate product, or as the OTRR refers to them--'materials.'

With most things in the idiosyncratic world of 'otr', historical accuracy ironically takes a back seat to commerical expediency--a regrettable disservice to vintage Radio preservation.

While virtually everyone collects Boston Blackie, precious few actually listen to the canon. We have, and we've listened to all of the circulating exemplars in preparing our log. The overwhelming majority of the titles anecdotally assigned to episodes employed the 'two-minute' rule--the method employed by virtually all commercial otr dealers and large collecting groups. Had anyone actually listened to all of the canon, they'd have arrived at far different titles. We've corrected the most misleading titles in our updated log.

An example of the above, Episode No. 89, The Harry Perkins Murder, has for years been mistitled, The Derailed Gold Train. No train was derailed anywhere in the script. That would be the most glaring shortcoming of the title. But indeed, it's Harry Perkins' murder that's the focus of the epsiode.

RE: 'Cases.' 'Cases' are generally referred to in either police dramas or detective dramas. Boston Blackie wasn't a detective--neither a 'gentleman detective' or by profession. He didn't keep track of his activities as 'cases.' The only 'cases' appropriate in a title would therefore be a Police case that Blackie might be working on either for Inspector Farraday or independently. The distinction is important in this canon, as Boston Blackie is a markedly different crime or detective genre character than almost all other characters of the era.

Sadly, as always, the overwhelming majority of otr dealers don't care to listen to the vast majority of what they sell. For that matter, the largest otr groups rarely ever listen to what they accumulate, hence the inaccurate logs and plaigerized research. Commercial otr dealers and book vendors care about one thing and one thing only--moving inventory as fast and profitably as possible. Anyone foolish enough to consult a commercial otr dealer or 'otr' author for titles, dates, or episode sequence deserves what they do to their collection. It's that simple. You cannot collect, log, or expand a quality vintage radio collection without actually listening to the recordings. Period.

In the process of logging Boston Blackie we encoded nineteen of our own first generation transcriptions to update the circulating recordings.

There are two other titles known, but as yet unaccounted for. One is in circulation and one is teased by the circulating recording:

• 4x-xx-xx xxx John Davis is Murdered . . . Twice
• 4x-xx-xx xxx The John Sawyer Murder Trial

Dating the two above titles can only be approximated as of this cataloging effort. Neither title should be from the 1945 or 1946 runs. The Ziv runs began teasing the following episodes after the series moved back to the Mutual Network on May 7, 1947. The two above titles would therefore likely have aired after Boston Blackie returned to Mutual, dating them between May 1947 and October 1950. Extending the working hypothesis further, it would seem likely that the above two episodes appeared after May 5, 1948, since every other intervening block of two episodes can be accounted for. We're therefore inclined to date the above two episodes between May 1948 and October 1950.

OTR Errors Site errors. Apart from the aforementioned inaccurate episode numbers, the site misses the mark in a few instances:

• Both The Murdock Gang Gang Strikes and The Murdock Gang Strikes should be Episode No. 137, Blackie Breaks Up The Murdoch Gang
• Ep112 Larry The Kid vs Savinni should be 'The Kid' vs Savini or more correctly, The Fight-fixing Ring
• 173 Jackie Meers Prison Break should be 160, The Bolo Gang Prison Break. There is no character named "Meers" anywhere in either Boston Blackie canon. Nor did Jackie Meyer break out of prison alone. He broke out with other members of the Bolo Gang, hence, The Bolo Gang Prison Break.
• 47/10/29 146 Framed By a Film should be 47-10-29 133 Blackie Framed On Film. It wasn't a single motion picture film that framed him. It was several bits of film according to the spoken script. Indeed, the announcer reiterates that Farraday "thinks the films are faked."

The OTR Errors Site also omits mentioning the myriad other errors in the OTRR distribution. This is understandable, since the author of the OTR Errors Site is cited as responsible for the title and dating accuracy of the still error-plagued OTRR distributions of Boston Blackie.

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[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.]