The most important factoid about the Black Book is that it starred Paul Frees. Frees was simply one of the best voices on radio; he was sometimes an announcer on Suspense, sometimes the announcer and/or lead role on Escape. He was adept at drama and comedy, could speak with the neat mannerisms of Orson Welles, the rough voice of a butcher or the twang of a southerner.
The Black Book, then, was a vehicle for Frees to show off his abilities. The Old-Time Radio Researchers Library has a recording from 1951 called "Different Readings" which is apparently the Black Book's pilot. Frees is presented as "the Man in Black," who had been the host of Suspense in its earliest days (I'm pretty sure John Dickson Carr owned the character which is why he disappeared from Suspense with Carr). "Different Readings" is basically a five-minute "perfect crime" story told by Frees - and then re-told. You get to hear different takes on Frees trying out the story. This alone is pretty fascinating as we have all-too-few examples of multiple takes on the same works by the same creators. At first, Frees is simply narrating a story; in other takes, he adopts different voices; conversations are played out in full instead of being alluded to. You get the sense that someone thought it wasn't quite gelling and wanted a different approach. In one version Frees gets a bit tongue-tied and has to take a section over again. "Different Readings" was never meant for public consumption but it's a neat peek behind the curtain.
A year later it seems they tried another pilot for the Black Book. This time it was the story "The Price of the Head" by John Russell, which was also dramatized on Escape. The Escape version has some patchy audio so it's nice that the Black Book version is so crisp. This time instead of a five-minute narrated drama, the Black Book is a 15-minute program; instead of Frees running the show solo, he's joined by actor John Dehner. Between Frees, Dehner and the source material it sounds pretty much like a lost episode of Escape and small wonder - pretty much everyone working on it was an Escape alumni, from director Norman Macdonnell to composer Leith Stevens.
So I guess this 2nd pilot impressed CBS enough to grant the Black Book a spot in the schedule, but maybe they changed their minds because we only received 3 actual programs: "On Schedule," "My Favorite Corpse," and "Vagabond Murder." The casts in these shows are minimal but very strong, with Frees joined primarily with John Dehner (again). "On Schedule" is also interesting as it's a crime story by Nelson S. Bond, who was better-known as a science fiction author.
The Black Book would have been a crime show, based on the three episodes that actually aired. With all the talented people from Escape working on it, it could've become a classic of old-time radio. But, sadly, for whatever reason, it didn't pan out.
You can hear the three broadcast episodes on the Internet Archive, here. I've only seen the other two at the Old-Time Radio Researchers Library.
3 comments:
Thanks for this. I keep looking for worthy stuff that I missed that doesn't have weird voices and nothing like Lum and Abner which is pathetic. It was on ABC so makes sense. You might try Theater 5 although the stories are a bit of a jumble and hard to follow but they did do science fiction.
If you have any favorite episodes of the Whistler, it would be appreciated. Half the time I really enjoy the Whistler but then I don't really get the endings. Some are twists but some of them were kind of already spelled out. Mysterious Traveler is another that I like but the organ drives me nuts some times. Who started the organ thing in OTR and baseball, sigh.
Every single episode more or less of X-Minus One and Dimension X is top tier in terms of story, writing, performance, sounds and famous authors and stories. These shows maybe together lasted five years and I haven't found anything in any genre as good except Gunsmoke and Have Gun Will Travel. As you note, Dehner, Conrad, Frees and others are names you hear over and over on Escape, Suspense and Ft. Laramie, etc. I remember that William Conrad didn't get the tv role on Gunsmoke but he was on other detective shows and had one of his own. Great insights and writing by you. Gosto Quito do see blog.
Spell check destroyed my Brazilian Portuguese phrase but Quito is Quito but with an "M".
Hello Jane!
Organ music does get tiring at times, although some shows - like Quiet Please - try to be inventive in how they use it. The organ was simply the cheapest instrument with the widest range.
I can certainly recommend some great episodes of the Whistler! My favourite, off the top of my head, is "Letter from Cynthia." It has a twist ending that is atypical for the program, but very, very good. "Trigger Man" is another one with an ending that is genuinely surprising. I also like "The Big Prison."
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