Radio Recap: Eno Crime Clues

Eno Crime Clues was a mystery program that aired in the early years of old-time radio. It started out at CBS from February, 1931 to December 1932 under the title Eno Crime Club; it began as a daily show but towards the end of 1931 it switched to twice-per-week. The series then moved to NBC and changed its name to Eno Crime Clues and continued from January, 1933 to September, 1936; initially it aired twice a week but eventually became a weekly program.

We have only four examples of this series still known to be in existence, together representing two two-part programs from the Eno Crime Clues era - "The .32 Caliber Kiss" (January 10 and 11, 1933) and "The Talking Skull" (March 27 and 28, 1933). Only the first half of the 2nd part of "The Talking Skull" is available, the circulating copy ends before the mystery is solved.

Eno Crime Clues is one of the earliest surviving mystery programs in all of old-time radio and for that reason it's of historical interest to fans of mystery programs. If you check out the few remaining episodes I think you'll find them very simple - very talky, light on music and sound effects. The casts were not credited but I swear the "manhunter" detective in "The Talking Skull" sounds like Hanley Stafford.

The most interesting thing about Eno Crime Clues is that it aired its episodes multiple times per week and in a half-hour format rather than the 15-minute format other such programs used. The unusual format makes it a little interesting; "The .32 Caliber Kiss" definitely has a lot of room to breathe as the characters thoroughly air out the mystery across an hour's length.

There's a completely different radio program from Mutual called Crime Club (1946-1947) that you might have heard of - apparently it gets confused with Eno Crime Clues because it was first known as Eno Crime Club but apparently there's no link between them.

You can hear the remnants of Eno Crime Clues at the Old-Time Radio Researchers' Library.