I Love a Mystery

"I Love A Mystery" was a radio drama series about three friends who ran a detective agency and traveled the world in search of adventure. Distinguished by the high octane scripting of Carlton E. Morse, the program was the polar opposite of Morse's other success, the long-running "One Man's Family"."

The central characters, Jack Packard, Doc Long and Reggie York, met as mercenary soldiers fighting the Japanese in China. Later, they met again in San Francisco, where they decided to form the A-1 Detective Agency. Their motto was "No job too tough, no adventure too baffling." The agency served as a plot device to involve the trio in a wide variety of stories. These straddled the genres of mystery, adventure and supernatural horror, and the plotlines often took them to exotic locales. Over the years, Jack was played by Michael Raffetto, Russell Thorson, Jay Novello and John McIntire. Doc was played by Barton Yarborough and Jim Boles. Reggie was portrayed by Walter Paterson and Tony Randall.

Chronology: 1939-44

Sponsored by Fleischmann's Yeast, "I Love a Mystery" first aired on the NBC West Coast network from January 16 to September 29 1939, weekdays at 3:15pm Pacific time, and then moved to the full NBC network from October 2 1939 to March 29 1940, airing weeknights at 7:15pm. In 1940, it expanded to 30-minute episodes from April 4 to June 27 on NBC Thursdays at 8:30pm. Continuing on the Blue Network from September 30 1940 to June 29 1942, it was heard Mondays and Wednesdays at 8pm. Procter & Gamble (for Oxydol and Ivory Soap) replaced Fleishmann's Yeast as the sponsor in the series broadcast by CBS from March 22 1943 to December 29 1944 with 15-minute episodes heard weeknights at 7pm.

Revivals

After a four-year lapse, Jack, Reggie and Doc returned in 1948 with a title change to "I Love Adventure", broadcast on ABC from from April 25 to July 18, 1948. It followed the post-war adventures of the trio who worked for the Twenty-One Old Men of Gramercy Park, an extra-governmental organization of some power. "I Love Adventure" ran for 13 episodes.

A year later, "I Love a Mystery" was revived on the Mutual Broadcasting System, and the production relocated from Hollywood to New York. This series began October 3 1949 and continued until December 26 1952 with 15-minute episodes heard weeknights at 7pm during 1949-50 and then 10:15pm from 1950 to 1952.

tory situations and characters

Tough, charismatic group leader Jack is usually the first to figure solutions to the mysteries. Jack has more of an edge than the typical radio hero of the period. He distrusts the attractive women who always seem to show up, and he professes to dislike women in general. The series' writer claimed that Jack's problems with women had to do with his youth. He had gotten a girl pregnant and had to leave his home town in shame. This was only a back story detail and was never made explicit on the show. Doc and Reggie are slightly less edgy characters. The Texas-born Doc is a hard-fighting, boastful, high-spirited character who provides comic relief. Reggie, an Englishman noted for his great strength, however, usually shied away from the fairer sex.

Morse, regarded as one of the best writers in radio, took delight in creating vividly imagined settings for the show and elaborate, often bizarre plots. In a medium whose heroes tended to be serious and strait-laced, he created three who were wonderfully reckless and exuberant. Jack, Doc and Reggie were more interested in the thrill of adventure than in righting wrongs. When they collected a fee, their only goal was to spend it as quickly as possible.

Actor Peter Lorre once sent Morse a letter threatening legal action because a character named Michael in two of the serials, sounded like Lorre. Morse dropped the character from the series days after. The serial "The Temple of the Vampires" was the first serial to cause concerned parents to write letters to the network. When Walter Patterson committed suicide, the character of Reggie was written out of the series, but he was mentioned by name two years later.

"Valse Triste" by Jean Sibelius was the program's theme music. There were several film adaptations of "I Love a Mystery" by Morse, but none had the success of the radio series. Surviving recordings of the show are rare.

urviving serials

Despite the popularity of the program, few series have survived in a listenable state. The few that have survived are "Bury Your Dead, Arizona", "Temple of Vampires", "Battle of the Century", "The Thing That Cries in the Night", "The Hermit of San Felipe Atabapo" and "The Million Dollar Curse". However, several episodes of these serials are missing, providing plot holes.

eries log

First Season

NBC Pacific Coast,Monday-Friday 15-minute episodes

1 "The Case of the Roxy Mob" (1/16-2/3 1939 15 episodes)

2 "Death Aboard the Lady Mary" (2/6-2/24 1939 15 episodes)

3 "The Case of the Nevada Cougar" (2/27-3/31 1939 25 episodes)

4 "Mystery of the Lady K Ranch" (4/3-4/28 1939 20 episodes)

5 "Strange Affair of Sandy Spring Sanatorium" (5/1-5/19 1939 15 episodes)

6 "The Texas Border Smugglers" (5/22-6/9 1939 15 episodes)

7 "The El Paso, Texas Murders" (6/12-12/30 1939 15 episodes)

8 "Flight to Death" (7/3-7/31 1939 15 episodes)

9 "Murder Hollywood Style" (7/27-8/11 1939 15 episodes)

10 "Incident Concerning Death" (8/14-9/1 1939 15 episodes)

11 "Yolo County/Battle of the Century" (9/7-9/29 1939 18 episodes)

12 "The Blue Phantom" (10/2-10/20 1939 15 episodes)

13 “Castle Island" (10/23-11/17 1939 20 episodes)

14 “Hollywood Cherry" (11/20-12/8 1939 15 episodes)

15 "Bury Your Dead, Arizona" (12/11-12/29 1939 15 episodes)

16 "San Diego Murders" (1/1-1/19 1940 15 episodes)

17 "Temple of Vampires" (1/22-2/16 1940 20 episodes)

18 "The Brooks Kidnapping" (2/19-3/8 1940 15 episodes)

19 "Murder in Turquoise Pass" (3/11-3/29 1940 15 episodes)

(NBC Red Network, Thursdays as 30-minute episodes.)

20 "The Snake with the Diamond Eyes" (4/4-6/27 1940 13 episodes)

Second Season

(Mondays as 30-minute episodes on NBC Blue Network)

21 "The Tropics Don't Call It Murder" (9/30-12/30 1940 13 episodes)

22 "The Case of the Transplanted Castle" (1/6-3/3 1941 9 episodes)

23 "Murder on February Island" (3/10-5/5 1941 9 episodes)

24 "Eight Kinds of Murder" (5/12-6/30 1941 8 episodes)

Third Season

25 "The Monster in the Mansion" (10/6-11-24 1941 8 episodes)

26 "Secret Passage to Death" (12/1/41-02/02/42 10 episodes)

27 "Terror of Frozen Corpse Lodge" (2/9-4/4 1942 9 episodes)

28 "Pirate Loot of the Island of Skulls" (4/13-6/29 1942 12 episodes)

Fourth Season

(CBS as 15-minute, M-F )

29 "The Girl in the Gilded Cage" (3/22-/4/9 1943 15 episodes)

30 "Blood on the Cat" (4/12-5/7 1943 20 episodes)

31 "The Killer of Circle M" (5/10-6/4 1943 20 episodes

32 "Stairway to the Sun" (6/7-7/16 1943 30 episodes)

33 "The Graves of Whamperjaw, Texas" (7/19-8/6 1943 15 episodes)

34 "Murder Is the Word for It" (8/9-8/27 1943 15 episodes)

35 "The Decapitation of Jefferson Monk" (8/30-10/1 1943 25 episodes)

36 "My Beloved Is a Vampire" (10/4-11/5 1943 25 episodes)

37 "The Hermit of San Felipe Atabapo" (11/8-12/3 1943 20 episodes)

38 "The Deadly Sin of Richard Coyle" (12/6-12/24 1943 15 episodes)

39 "The Twenty Traitors of Timbuktu" (12/27/43-02/24/44 44 episodes)

40 "The African Jungle Mystery" (2/28-3/24 1944 20 episodes)

41 "The Widow with the Amputation" (3/27-4/21 1944 20 episodes)

42 "I Am the Destroyer of Women" (4/24-5/12 1944 15 episodes)

43 "You Can't Pin a Murder on Nevada" (5/15-6/2 1944 15 episodes)

44 "The Corpse in Compartment C, Car 75" (6/5-6/9 1944 5 episodes)

45 "The Thing Wouldn't Die" (6/13-7/7 1944 20 episodes)

46 "The Case of the Terrified Comedian" (7/10-8/7 1944 21 episodes)

47 "The Man Who Hated to Shave" (8/8-8/21 1944 10 episodes)

48 "Temple of Vampires" (8/22-9/18 1944 20 episodes)

49 "The Bride of the Werewolf" (9/19-10/9 1944 15 episodes)

50 "The Monster in the Mansion" (10/10-11/09 1944 23 episodes)

51 "Portrait of a Murderess" (11/10-12/7 1944 20 episodes)

52 "Find Elsa Holberg, Dead or Alive" (12/8-12/29 1944 16 episodes)

Listen to

* [http://www.otr.net/?p=ilam OTR Network Library: "I Love a Mystery" (57 episodes)]
* [http://TheaterOfTheEars.com/ Theater of the Ears: "I Love a Mystery"]

External links

* [http://www.angelfire.com/on/ilam/FAQ.html "I Love a Mystery" FAQ]
* [http://www.otrsite.com/logs/logi1006.htm Jerry Haendiges Vintage Radio Logs: "I Love a Mystery"]