"Adventure, intrigue, mystery, romance, starring: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall together in the sultry setting of tropical Havana and the mysterious islands of the Caribbean! Bold Venture!"
Bold Venture was a syndicated radio adventure series produced by Ziv that appeared from 1951-1952. The series starred the Hollywood couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, which was a pretty big deal. Bogart had tried to create his own radio series in 1949, resulting in an audition recording of him in "Dead Man" but it didn't result in a series. I blogged about "Dead Man" last Halloween.
The successful launch of Bold Venture with Bogart and Bacall demonstrated how syndicated radio was reliable enough that two major Hollywood stars could record more than a year's worth of programs while continuing their film careers. It used to be that Hollywood stars had to scramble to fit in live radio appearances and struggle to show up for the rehearsals.
In the series, Bold Venture was the name of the boat owned by Bogart's character, Slate Shannon. Shannon also ran the hotel Shannon's Place and was aided by Sailor Duval (Bacall), a young woman who was the daughter of an old friend. Slate was supposed to be looking out for her even though, as the series would demonstrate time and again, Duval was perfectly capable of taking care of herself (even when Duval would occasionally be held at gunpoint her voice never changed register; she and Shannon were perpetually sober and sardonic regardless of circumstances).
The series was definitely drawing from Bogart and Bacall's first film together - Howard Hawks' To Have and Have Not (1944), which was also set in the Caribbean and in which Bogart was also a chartered boat owner who engaged in romantic banter with Bacall. To Have and Have Not was not really a very good movie but Bogart and Bacall's chemistry in the film is so good that I've watched it many, many times. Similarly, Bold Venture is a pretty average adventure series but the banter Bogart and Bacall indulged in keeps renders it very pleasant to listen to.
I recall when I worked for my hometown newspaper (the Mountaineer) and accompanied another (much older) employee in delivering the paper to all the local shops and post office, that one day the two of were discussing old movies because I'd mentioned to him that I was becoming a classic film buff. For some reason he took a moment to complain about "all those movies" Bogart and Bacall made together. It was only later that I looked it up and saw they only really made four films together: To Have and Have Not may not have been that great, but two of the others - the Big Sleep (1946) and Key Largo (1948) are still considered all-time great films. I'm very fond of Dark Passage (1947) too (it's the one where the opening scenes are shot from Bogart's POV). But consider this: Bogart and Bacall's 26+ hours worth of Bold Venture episodes is considerably greater than the runtime of those four films!
The duo of Slate and Sailor were joined by King Moses, portrayed by Jester Hairston. King Moses would engage in calypso music on the guitar, sometimes to open an episode but frequently he would drop in on the middle of the episode, recapping the plot of the first half of the story through song - he seldom had much to do with the actual plots on Bold Venture other than comment on what Slate and Sailor were doing.
The series was written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin. Fine and Friedkin had a long association together as writers, including scripts for the Philip Morris Playhouse, Gunsmoke, the Line-Up, Suspense, Crime Classics and Escape. Aside from Bold Venture, their other great long run together was writing Elliott Lewis' police program Broadway Is My Beat - in fact their writing for those two shows overlaps. The series was directed by Henry Hayward, who also directed the Ziv syndicated program I Was a Communist for the FBI.
Fine and Friedkin were great radio writers, but I do wonder if Bold Venture pushed their faculties a little too far; so many episodes of Bold Venture sound alike. In fact, I don't recommend Bold Venture so much as a series as to say it's worth hearing a few episodes of the program - they're pretty much the same quality but none are above average.
Maybe the most unusual episode is titled "Russian Roulette." It opens with Slate and Sailor taking care of a wandering heiress; there are two criminals trying to cheat her out of her family fortune, so Slate and Sailor take her out aboard the Bold Venture to avoid them. The two criminals pursue them; so far, a very familiar premise for a radio adventure drama. Then, about halfway through the premise changes entirely; they run aground on a reef and find themselves on the island of a man who is basically running a version of "the Most Dangerous Game" and forces them to participate in a game of Russian Roulette with him each day. The sudden shift feels so bizarre - like Fine and Friedkin were each working independently on two different scripts then somehow wrote them into a single production.
There are 57 episodes of Bold Venture currently circulating and you can hear them all in this YouTube playlist! The other 21 episodes should appear sometime later this year.
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