Before there was Dragnet, there was Calling All Cars, a crime drama focusing on "true" cases from the Los Angeles Police Department. It aired first on the CBS West Coast Network and later on the Mutual-Don Lee Network. It was sponsored by the Rio Grande Oil Company, which had dealers in California, and Nevada, and Arizona. The company also issued a monthly Calling All Cars News, available free from its service stati9ons, which included articles relating to upcoming episodes; circulation of this bulletin eventually reached 400,000. Outside of the Southwest, the program was carried by transcription in other area of the country, including Detroit, St. Louis. Syracuse, and Des Moines; eventually individual sponsors brought the show to various areas of the East Coast and the Midwest.
The program was hosted by Los Angeles Police Chief James E. Davis. Charles Frederick Lindsey, a professor of speech education, was the narrator. The actors were not credited.
Calling All Cars was produced and mostly written by William N. Robson, with Mel Williamson and Sam Pierce writing some of the episodes. The show's director was Robert Hixon.
As one of the first police dramas on radio, many people were willing to overlook the crude and lackluster presentation of the program with its tedious recounting of efforts to catch killers and robbers. Naytheless, justice was always served, and that counted a lot with its audience.
"The Laughing Killer" starts out on March 7, 1936 (hey, that's my wife's birthday; should would have been minus thirteen years old!) when, at a San Mateo gas station, some "mugs with big guns walked in and took thirteen bucks out of the cash register." Well, this will not stand and the police are called out. It turns out it wasn't a robbery; the clerk wanted some cash and concocted a story about being held up. the gas station guy gets 30 days for that. While in jail, he begins to tell some strange stories to other inmates. He claimed he swapped an old car and some lots for a house in Woodside and that the woman who had owned the house ran off with a Bulgarian officer. This got Deputy Sheriff interested an he began to investigate. The case goes on from there and you would not be surprised to learn that crooks are dumb and the police are not.
Interesting in its rambling way for what it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkruQEomZwM
This, Dragnet, and several others were broadcast here in the late 60s and early 70s when I was a kid. I used to listen to the radio in my bedroom and hear them. Don't know now if I heard this particular episode or not, but do no the show was aired here.
ReplyDeleteArt Scott is a big listener to those early radio serials. I'm sure he's familiar with this. I listen to audio books, but I haven't gotten into listening to old radio programs...yet.
ReplyDelete