Radio Recap: Out of the Deep

According to John Dunning, Out of the Deep was an NBC adventure program for only about one month, from December 1, 1945 to January 5, 1946. However, the Radio Goldindex dates two surviving episodes as being from February, 1946, so who knows?

Out of the Deep starred Ted Maxwell as Gunnar Carlyle, captain of the Blue Falcon, a salvage vessel. Each week the Blue Falcon would set out to recover cargo from sunken ships and encounter adventure along the way. Although it seems this was an evening program, the three surviving episodes from 1946 could have easily been released to a juvenile audience, especially with the presence of Gary, a precocious teenager who stows aboard the Blue Falcon and soon becomes indispensable at saving the ship each and every week.

Apparently the series attempted a comeback in 1951: The Old-Time Radio Researchers' Library has an Out of the Deep program dated January 10, 1951. It uses the character of Gunnar Carlyle (now portrayed by Wally Maher) aboard the Blue Falcon but the tone is a bit more grim and mature than the earlier series. It's credited to NBC and in the absence of more information, I'm assuming it's an audition for a new series. It's a pretty good adventure program, more-or-less like an average episode of Escape.

You can hear four episodes of Out of the Deep at the Old-Time Radio Researchers' Library.