"Ladies and gentlemen: To depend upon your judgment and to fulfill mine own obligation, I submit the facts, fully aware of my responsibility to my client and to you, as defense attorney."
Defense Attorney was a half-hour dramatic program about attorney Martha Ellis Bryant (Mercedes McCambridge) that aired on ABC from August 31, 1951 to December 30, 1952. It was originally sponsored by Clorets, later by Goodyear. The series' other regular was the character of Jud Barnes (Howard Culver), a newspaper reporter who would assist Martha on her cases and try to date her (but she always put her career first).
I'm a little surprised there's so little about Defense Attorney out there, considering in 1952 Mercedes McCambridge won the Radio/TV Mirror magazine award for "favourite dramatic actress." It certainly doesn't help that it aired on ABC, whose old-time radio archives are quite possibly the poorest of all the major networks.
The audition program (at which time the series was called the Defense Rests) lifted its plot (and lot of dialogue) directly from the 1948 movie Call Northside 777, only with attorney Martha replacing the film's reporter protagonist.
I find Defense Attorney to be an interesting program but it's not quite my speed; I think Mercedes McCamrbidge was one of radio's most talented performers but along a narrow range. Her voice was so bright and youthful I find she lacked the toughness that would have made the character of Martha a credible lawyer. Too often when Martha launched into impassioned courtroom speeches I found her delivery too gentle.
You can hear the 13 surviving episodes of Defense Attorney at the Old Time Radio Researchers Library at this link.
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