The Dangerous Assignment Radio Program

Background and Introduction

Dangerous Assignment stands as one of the most durable programs of its genre and era in the waning days of The Golden Age of Radio. Espionage or foreign intrigue dramas weren't particularly groundbreaking undertakings by the 1950s. Bulldog Drummond was the first of the more successful exemplars of Radio espionage and intrigue, running from 1941 to 1954, most often under the lead of the gifted character actor, George Coulouris. The Counterspy series had been well underway since 1942 and ran in one incarnation or another through 1954. The Man Called X had already aired--to great popular and critical acclaim--for almost five years prior to 1949. Indeed, within a year of airing Dangerous Assignment's Summer 1949 season, The Man Called X returned to the air for another two years. For one of those years, Dangerous Assignment and The Man Called X ran back to back in the NBC line-up.

Of the two foreign intrigue anthologies, NBC seemed to continue to favor the Herbert Marshall drama, The Man Called X. Whether in deference to Marshall's seniority, its former high ratings between 1944 and 1948, or simply out of perceived popularity, Dangerous Assignment, while airing ahead of The Man Called X, never seemed to get the buildup that The Man Called X invariably received.

It may well have been as simple as a lack of sponsorship. For much of 1950 and 1951, both Dangerous Assignment and The Man Called X remained either network sustained or shared the sponsorship of Ford, Anacin, Chesterfield, and RCA Victor. Wheaties sponsored virtually the entire weekday, nighttime NBC line-up for three months, but Dangerous Assignment ran for the most part, network sustained for over half of its entire run.

NBC transcribed Dangerous Assignment for syndication via its NBC Orthacoustic Transcription Series. NBC's Orthacoustic transcriptions are the source of most of the surviving recordings.

Dangerous Assignment Summer run of 1949

The first airing of Dangerous Assignment arrived with a short, Summer replacement run in 1949, , Saturdays, at 8:30 p.m., beginning on July 9, 1949. NBC's The Man Called X had left the airwaves during the Fall of 1948 after four highly successful years. Dangerous Assignment was reportedly shopped to NBC by Brian Donlevy himself during the Summer of 1948.

NBC's listening audience was clearly still quite receptive to a foreign intrigue anthology. With the memory of The Man Called X still fresh in the public memory it was a perfect time to resurrect the genre--for a short, Summer run at least, with the summer hiatus of the Judy Canova Show:

From the July 9, 1949 Daily Mail

''New York, July 9 (AP).—More summer scheduling, along with other changes, are being set up for the week-end. Included is a Norman Corwin CBS documentary, his first radio script in a couple of years. The list contains: summer shows—on NBC at 9:30 tonight Brian Donlevy in Dangerous Assignment instead of Judy Canova;''

Airing for only seven episodes, the inaugural run of Dangerous Assignment very much set the tone for the full series that followed in February 1950. The basic format of the 1949 Summer Run teased each introduction with a build-up emphasizing the international, globe-trotting nature of the adventure to follow. The numerous obvious comparisons to Herbert Marshall's The Man Called X can be excused by the facts that they were both NBC-produced, the format was time-proven, and the public was already conditioned to the format.

The Summer 1949 run is also characterized by the nature of the prologue to each episode. The prologue opens with a brief teaser scene from the episode to follow. Following the intro, Brian Donlevy, as Steve Mitchell, is summoned to the office of 'The Commissioner', portrayed by veteran character actor, Herb Butterfield. The Commissioner is the regional head of an intentionally vague State Department agency tasked with addressing international unrest as it affects U.S. Diplomacy. The Commissioner's secretary for the Summer 1949 run is referred to as 'Ruthie.' During at least the Summer 1949 run, one is left with the impression that there's some history between Ruthie and Steve Mitchell. In this, and many other respects, the similarities between the Dangerous Assignment format and that employed in the highly successful James Bond film franchise that succeeded it fifteen years hence, are unmistakable.

Steve Mitchell's cover, in the overwhelming majority of adventures, is that of a foreign correspondent for an unnamed print publication. Clearly, both the brief summer run and the full series that followed invite obvious comparisons between Dangerous Assignement and The Man Called X, as well as between their lead actors. Herb Butterfield, as The Commissioner, wasn't quite as juicy a role as that of Ken Thurston's thorn-in-the-sidekick, Pegon Zeldschmidt, but Butterfield is tasked with the vast majority of the often complicated exposition that takes place in framing and introducing almost all of the scripted adventures. In this respect in particular, Herb Butterfield was a stand-out in the supporting role.

The other aspects of the production side of the Summer 1949 run that bear comparison to the longer run that followed were the theme music. The brief introductory music to each of the Summer 1949 run broadcasts was ultimately dropped in favor of the main, driving Bruce Ashley theme music adopted for the remainder of the series.

The Summer Run of 1949 ends with the August 20 broadcast. The Dennis Day Show replaces Dangerous Assignment in the NBC lineup for the remainder of 1949. Judy Canova returned to the air on Sundays in the NBC lineup on August 28.

Dangerous Assignment 1950-1953 NBC Run

Given the poplular reception of the Summer 1949 run, NBC was anxious to return it to the line-up as soon as possible, but its Fall line-up of returning programs was already committed for the remainder of the year. NBC's first window of opportunity came in February of 1950.

From the February 5, 1950 Kingsport Times-News:

''THE EXCITING adventures of a soldier of fortune in a series of radio programs titled "Dangerous Assignment," starring actor Brian Donlevy, will return to the NBC network Monday night at 10:30. Donlevy will play the adventurer whose unusual experiences in strange lands provide the theme for the program. He will be supported by well known actors of stage and screen.''

So it was that Dangerous Assignment returned to the NBC airwaves on February 6, 1950, Mondays, in the 10:30 p.m. timeslot formerly occupied by The Dave Garroway Show, a variety show at the time. The Garroway show moved to 11:30 p.m, on Monday nights. NBC characterized Dangerous Assignment's return to the line-up as a ''second-half revival'' of the Summer 1949 run--an admittedly obtuse rational for the continuation of the series.

During the hiatus between August 1949 and February 1950, NBC tightened up the format, streamlined the introduction, and rightly emphasized Bruce Ashley's driving, highly effective Dangerous Assignment Theme. The basic core cast remains the same as the Summer 1949 run, with Brian Donlevy as Steve Mitchell, Herb Butterfield as The Commissioner and retained Ruthie, the Commissioner's private secretary. Again produced in Hollywood, as was the Summer 1949 run, the casts are filled with the finest West Coast Radio talent available for the era.

With the exception of a handful of Sherman Marks-directed episodes, Bill Karn continued to direct the overwhelming majority of the remaining radioplays. Bruce Ashley returned as the music composer and Don Diamond continued as the producer of the series.

The program aired sustained until Wheaties picked up sponsorship of Dangerous Assignment as part of a block of the NBC weeknight line-up between May and September of 1950. The Man Called X returned to the NBC Fall line-up, airing immediately following Dangerous Assignment for almost a year. Foreign intrigue fans were treated to a full hour of globe-trotting adventures, headlined by two of the big screen's most identifiable character actors. Though seemingly counter-intuitive, it seems a brilliant programming move in retrospect.

There were undoubtedly many economies of production to be realized by producing and airing the two series' back to back. While Dangerous Assignment was always a transcribed, syndicated production, The Man Called X, during the 1944-1948 run, had been performed before a live audience. With the reintroduction of The Man Called X in 1950, the production also became a transcribed, syndicated production. This had to have been a far more economical solution for NBC.

In the grander pecking order of things, NBC appeared to continue to favor The Man Called X, of the two back-to-back foreign adventure dramas. As evidence of this conclusion, the newspaper listings of the era continued to list and promote The Man Called X installments with often highly detailed spot ads, promotional teasers and program descriptions. By contrast, Dangerous Assignment was invariably portrayed in the print media as little more than a 'lead-act' for The Man Called X. It's also apparent from most intact recordings that Dangerous Assignment was being employed primarily as a promotional vehicle for the remainder of NBC's weeknight line-up. Given the network-sustained nature of the bulk of Dangerous Assignment broadcasts, NBC's use of Dangerous Assignment as a promotional vehicle makes excellent business sense. The program was clearly well received, was building a loyal audience for the full-hour block of foreign adventure drama it presented, and most of its productions were approximately 24.5 to 25 minutes in length.

In spite of the advance promotion of Dangerous Assignment--while continually promoting virtually the entire NBC evening line-up during the broadcasts--the Brian Donlevy vehicle continued to acquit itself well for two years. Brian Donlevy wasn't letting any grass grow under his feet in the process. When NBC gave the green light for a Television incarnation of Dangerous Assignment in 1952, it was Donlevy himself who bankrolled 50% of the production commitment to two, 39-episode seasons of Dangerous Assignment. This was a clever move for Donlevy. And as Donlevy, himself, caustically observed, "Unless you have a staff of bookkeepers with guns you don't get a square deal," referring to any possibility of an independent Film spin-off of Dangerous Assignment.

Donlevy's gamble paid off. Dangerous Assignment over Television aired for two successful years--respectable longevity during one of the hottest eras of The Golden Age of Television. But it was the very success of the TV version of Dangerous Assignment that made it all the more difficult to reconstruct the last year of Radio's version of Dangerous Assignment. We've already addressed the sad state of NBC's promotion of the Radio version. Add to that a bewildering schedule of varying dates and times for the syndicated run of the Television version and you have a nightmare of due diligence in researching the last year of the Radio run.

To the production's credit, the quality of the Dangerous Assignment radioplays was consistent from beginning to end. The core cast had the production down pat, the pacing remained both taut and clever, the writing was well above par for the genre, and much of the West Coast's finest voice talent continued to contribute to the production.

By the time the Radio incarnation of Dangerous Assignment was winding down, the Television version was under a full head of steam, and Grace Gibson Transcriptions in Australia had begun production of their own licensed version of Dangerous Assignment, starring Lloyd Berrell as Steve Mitchell, and directed by Laurence H. Cecil. Of the circulating Australian episodes, it's apparent that the production employed the scripts from the American Run, almost verbatim. One can only surmise how well the Australian run was received in Australian. By American standards of the era, the Grace Gibson run was well below par. Australian productions of the era were generally overly melodramatic. Perhaps that was precisely what appealed to Australian audiences of the day. Australian listeners clearly loved a great deal of reverb in their radioplays at the very least. In any case, even though the Australian incarnation of Dangerous Assignment was markedly inferior, many of the Grace Gibson canon of Dangerous Assignment have apparently passed for American renditions by less sophisticated otr sellers and collectors. We've attempted to reconstruct the few in our own collection in the log below for comparison and contrast to the American run.

The Grace Gibson run appears to have aired during 1955. It's likely that the run comprised at least 52 episodes from the original U.S. script canon of 160+ unique scripts. Indeed, for the most avid Dangerous Assignment fan, we're certain the Grace Gibson run holds up quite well. Certainly the scripts are of the same quality, in any case. A true fan will overlook a bit of melodrama and somewhat more amateurish production values just to hear yet another rendition of one of their favorite episodes.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

OTRisms:

As with most vintage radio recordings that have been touched by the otr community, Dangerous Assignment has, for 35 years, been one of the vintage radio community's most adulterated, misrepresented, and misidentified programs. The list of adulterations and misrepresentations affect virtually the entire run currently in circulation:

• MP3 CD sellers especially, have, in the majority of cases, padded out each episode of the entire run with as much as eight minutes of dead air, so as to disguise both the quality and origination of the recordings they've butchered. Here's how to identify the bogus recordings:
  • If your Dangerous Assignment recordings are precisely 32:00 minutes in length . . .
  • If your Dangerous Assignment recordings are precisely either 13,127KB in size or 7,503KB . . .
  • If your Dangerous Assignment recordings are encoded at 56Kbps/22050Hz/Mono (6.3:1) . . .
  • . . . you got bamboozled by otr sellers--again.
• This presents an obvious limitation for those of us who keep our favorite recordings on iPods or similar portable devices. That dead air for a collection the size of Dangerous Assignment, takes up the space that as many as ten to fifteen other unadulterated recordings could occupy. Not to mention the inherent deceit involved while they waste countless hours of their customers' time with their dead air ploy.
• The above scam (and it is a scam, no two ways about it) reveals two other ploys. The scammers take a nominal, 32Kbps/22050Hz/Mono (11.0:1) recording and encode it to 56Kbps/22050Hz/Mono (6.3:1) to give the impression of a higher encode than the recording actually is. The combination of the bogus 'higher encode' combined with a file size commensurate with a genuinely higher encode, gives the impression to targets of the scammers that they're purchasing (or downloading) something far better than they're getting.
• Program titles for virtually the entire run of Dangerous Assignment are absurdly and inaccurately titled. In the early days of 'otr,' file naming conventions were more restrictive prior to the advent of an identification standard for digital recordings. The earliest file tagging systems restricted most internal fields to 30 characters or less. With the advent of the later ID3 standards, internal tagging has become a far more useful and comprehensive archive aid. But since the highly commercialized otr community has only a profit-motivated stake in maintaining the status quo, they've simply perpetuated their shabby, inaccurate practices. The lengths they've gone to, to maintain the status quo have been directly responsible for the poor state of documentation for this otherwise fine espionage drama anthology--to the detriment of all Golden Age Radio archivers and collectors.

As with all things tainted by otr, Buyer Beware.

With the exception of about fourteen titles we found published in newspaper listings, the vast majority of the titles for this series were purely anecdotal and, in almost every instance, bore no resemblance to the actual 'assignment' for that episode. The entire point of this series was the assignment, not a snippet or quip from the first 35 seconds of each broadcast. Granted, it's far easier to log a series by only listening to 45 seconds of it, but we feel that practice does a disservice to the entire vintage Radio collecting community. Those snippets were simply teasers. Nothing more, nothing less. We have therefore corrected virtually all of the titles of the circulating canon of Dangerous Assignment episodes to more precisely reflect their actual assignment. This will, no doubt, create considerable consternation from otr sellers. If that be the case, we can only respond that anecdotal accuracy clearly means two extremely different things to the Golden Age Radio preservation community and the commercial otr community. We've chosen to err on the side of fidelity to the actual script. Otr sellers are more than welcome to continue naming their episodes with rubbish. It seems clear that the otr public at large has acquired something of a taste for rubbish over the 35 years that it's been systematically fed to them by the commercial group of sellers that invented 'otr' out of whole cloth. We don't see those tastes changing anytime soon--more's the pity.

The first run of Dangerous Assignment was an isolated summer run only. The period of time that elapsed between that isolated Summer 1949 run and the subsequent runs of Dangerous Assignment spanned six and a half months. We've therefore numbered the isolated run separately, as is appropriate. Any issues that may raise in comparisons between the circulating Dangerous Assignment OTTER log and our 'Definitive Series' Dangerous Assignment log are moot. The circulating OTTER log is virtually useless to any conscientious collector in its present state. Frivolous or exploitative collectors (e.g., accumulators, hoarders or otr sellers) will pay as much attention to accuracy as they have for the past 35 years in any case, Q.E.D.

It's entirely understandable why the vast majority of titles, sequences and dates for circulating logs are inaccurate. As any researcher who's actually listened to the entire surviving canon of Dangerous Assignment would attest, Dangerous Assignment, along with The Man Called X and Night Beat, were part of an effort by NBC to promote their other programming through most of these programs' runs. Given the announcements NBC makes at the end of these programs, it's often childishly simple to provenance the date for them by cross-referencing the specific programs NBC is promoting at the end of those episodes. A little simple actual research, can generally tie down the provenance for the vast majority of dates for the episodes in circulation: the very reason that many early 'otr' sellers manipulated or simply clipped those important provenances from the recordings they were selling so as to give the appearance of a more 'authentic' set of Dangerous Assignment.

We stand by our original Dangerous Assignment research as accurate. Imperfect, yes. Incomplete, absolutely. But as accurate as is humanly possible to reconstruct as of this writing.

What you see here, is what you get. Complete transparency. Here's how we did it--for better or worse. Here's how you can build on it yourselves--hopefully for the better. Here's the breadcrumbs--just follow the trail a bit further if you wish. No hobbled downloads. No misdirection. 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.

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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.

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