Radio Recap: The Black Flame of the Amazon

The Black Flame of the Amazon was a 15-minute syndicated radio adventure serial from 1938 starring real-life explorer Harold Noice, who portrayed a fictionalized version of himself on the series. In the series, Harold went on adventures in the Amazon jungles of Brazil alongside his Portuguese friend Pedro and a pair of precocious kids named Jimmy and Jean.

Initially this is a pretty standard juvenile adventure serial, complete with the villains Butch Grogan and Limey Scroggins who want a map to the treasure of the Incas. But about half-way through the series, the heroes escape from the villains and spend quite a lot of episodes just bumming around the jungle, talking to each other. It becomes something of a slice-of-life domestic soap opera instead of an adventure serial! In fact, there's a span of about 5 episodes where the kids are going to be left behind by Noice and so they plan to play a prank on him. Mostly, they talk about their plan, over and over; then Noice figures our the kids are planning something; then, back to the kids, still planning. An adventure serial that just might lull you to sleep.

The Black Flame of the Amazon has many of the problems found in "jungle adventure" tales of its era; to be generous, such stories are very patronizing towards indigenous peoples; or, put bluntly, they get racist. Such as when Harold Noice lectures the kids as to why they need to investigate the absence of a white man from his trading post:

Harold: "This is now a part of our business. We whites, no matter what part of the world, we're in, must never forget that we are white."
Jimmy: "You mean there's been a crime committed here?"
Harold: "Yes, Jimmy, against a white man."
Jimmy: "Then there's got to be punishment of some kind!"
Harold: "That's secondary, Jimmy. A white man made his residence here. We have to find out what happened-- find that white man. That's the white man's law in the jungle."
Jimmy: "Swell, Mr. Noice, that's swell! And we're white!"

Harold Noice's acting is stiff, but acceptable; Pedro sounds like Alan Reed, but I'm not positive it's him; the actors playing Jimmy and Jean are frequently terrible, often delivering their dialogue with a woodness that sounds like no child I ever met.

You can hear all the surviving episodes of the Black Flame of the Amazon in this YouTube playlist created by the Old Time Radio Researchers.