Radio Recap: Tales of Fatima

Tales of Fatima was a semi-notorious old time radio series starring Basil Rathbone that appeared on CBS radio in 1949 and was sponsored by Fatima cigarettes (who later sponsored Dragnet). It’s notorious because this was the show Rathbone starred in after leaving the role of Sherlock Holmes once and for all but it certainly did not attain the prestige of what remained Rathbone’s best-known role.

The series was lazy enough that actor Basil Rathbone portrayed the character of Basil Rathbone, actor. Each week Rathbone would find himself dragged into a mystery for some reason and the solution to the problem would be shared with him by the phantom voice of Fatima herself (Cathy Lewis) who would repeat a cryptic phrase at the start and climax of the drama to enable Rathbone’s success. Rathbone even had a friendly rivalry with a police detective, as so many famous actors do.

Tales of Fatima is trash, is what I’m trying to say. The production values were high with good music, foley effects and supporting actors. But to cast Rathbone as himself gives the series the poisonous air of a vanity project and to place the product promotion within the drama itself cheapens the drama. Yes, Jack Webb shilled Fatima cigarettes on Dragnet, but not as his character Joe Friday. Also, the writing just wasn’t up to par; in 1949 there were dozens of detective shows on the air and most had better writing. It’s especially glaring compared to the decent work Anthony Boucher had given Rathbone to perform on the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

We have only two circulating episodes at present: “A Much Expected Murder” (May 21, 1949) and “Time to Kill” (May 28, 1949). The latter episode is the better one in my opinion- it concerns an actor who had been impersonating Rathbone turning up dead.

There were apparently 39 episodes in total; to their credit, someone figured out that the show didn’t work as it was and it seems the last 2 months had a completely different format, more of an anthology program hosted by Rathbone and featuring familiar stories such as “The Most Dangerous Game.” Appropriately, when CBS cancelled the show in the fall of 1949 they replaced it in the schedule with Escape!