A look at Crime Correspondent

The overwhelming success of Dragnet — surely the greatest police procedural on radio — predictably led to the creation of several similar programs. Dragnet’s network, NBC, offered several more twists on the genre. Perhaps the best was Tales of the Texas Rangers which sounds as if it might be a juvenile western but was actually an excellent Texas-set police (or Ranger) procedural. Confession, was a fascinating and too-short-lived criminal procedural that dramatized true crimes from the perspectives of the convicted.

NBC’s network CBS somewhat successfully countered with The Line Up (a procedural set in New York City), 21st Precinct (another New York procedural), and the absolutely fascinating Night Watch — one of the first unscripted “reality” shows in which a police recorder rode with Culver City PD to the scenes of actual crimes. Someone recently told me about another CBS crime drama of which I hadn’t heard, Crime Correspondent. I was intrigued.

Crime Correspondent was intended to be a vehicle for Paul Frees, an incredibly prodigious actor who here played a radio correspondent named Larry Mitchell who comes off a bit like Randy Stone on NBC’s NightBeat. On that program, “Lucky” Stone was a fictitious reporter/crusader who every episode found himself improbably drawn into various sordid nocturnal fiascos which always concluded in time for him to write a newspaper article about it. Mitchell signed off his radio broadcasts with the line “Remember — Truth, like the sun, submits to being obscured. But like the sun, only for a time.” However, Crime Correspondent went on the air the year before Night Beat.

The star, Paul Frees, was born Solomon Hersh in Chicago in 1920. He was one of several actors billed as the “Man of A Thousand Voices,” and got his start invaudeville as “Buddy Green.” Frees’s freely malleable voice was heard if not always recognized by listeners of The Black Book,The Adventures of Ellery Queen, Escape!,Family Theatre, Lux Radio Theatre, NBC University Theatre, Rogue’s Gallery,Suspense, The First Nighter Program, andThe Whistler. His first starring role was asThe Player (1948) on which he played every voice part.

Crime Correspondent‘s episodes were penned by “Adrian Gendot” — possibly the pen name of a blacklisted writer who was also credited on Dangerous Assignment, Perry Mason, Sky King, The Whistler, andYours Truly, Johnny Dollar — and William Fifield — a contributor to The Paris Review who was later renowned for his interviews with subjects like Jacques Cousteau. The show’s announcer was Paul Masterson (of The Adventures of Ellery Queen). It was produced and directed by Gordon T. Hughes (who also worked on Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and Way Down Home). The score was composed by Martin Skyles.

The series debuted on 4 November, 1949 with “The Chair for Dino.” It was followed by “Killer At Large,”“Firebug,” and “Squeeze Play,” which proved to be the series’ conclusion when it aired on 25 November, 1949. Of the just four episodes that aired, only the debut is currently in circulation. Since there is just one episode of Crime Correspondent in existence, it is sometimes included on OTR compilations which one can find in Amoeba‘s spoken word section when we have them in stock.
You can also listen to it here:

Listening to “The Chair for Dino” it becomes immediately clear isn’t a police procedural, as I’d hoped, but a detective show along the lines of Richard Diamond, Private Detective or Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. It’s tone strikes me as uneven — some of the humor is decidedly of the gallows variety yet the acting and writing more in line with comic strip series like The Blue Beetle or Dick Tracy. If it were better I’d compare it to The Spirit.