The Whistler 1947-03-17 "Mavis Cameron Disappears" / 1948-12-26 "Delayed Christmas Present" / 1951-12-23 "Christmas Gift"

The basic setup:  An office worker goes into hiding as a nightclub singer after becoming an unwilling accomplice in a fatal holdup.  This script was substantially improved when it was reworked as a Christmas episode the following year, and that episode was reused three Christmases later with further refinements.  Radio writers reusing their own ideas was sometimes a very good thing!

1947-03-17 "Mavis Cameron Disappears"
Produced by George W. Allen
Story by Edward Bloodworth, music by Wilbur Hatch
Announcer: Marvin Miller / Whistler:  Bill Forman
Cast (credited):  Isabel Jewell, Tony Barrett

script reworked as 1948-12-26 "Delayed Christmas Present"
Produced by George W. Allen, directed by Gordon Hughes
Story by Edward Bloodworth, music by Wilbur Hatch
Announcer: Marvin Miller / Whistler:  Bill Forman
Cast (credited):  Joan Banks, Jack Petruzzi
Cast (ear):  Bill Bouchey as Fontaine, Harry Bartell (?) as Spanish Pete and Bill the bartender

which was in turn reused as 1951-12-23 "Christmas Gift"
Produced and directed by George W. Allen 
Story by Ed Bloodworth, music by Wilbur Hatch
Announcer: Marvin Miller / Whistler:  Bill Forman
Cast: Betty Lou Gerson, Bill Conrad, Bill Bouchey, Marvin Miller, Britt Wood (harmonica)

The story (1947):  After bank worker Mavis Cameron sings a number on a night out with friends, gambler Dan Spinelli compliments her voice and talks her into going with him to a club where he can introduce her to some show people.  She's skeptical, but they have a good time, until Mavis hears a song that reminds her of her fiancé, a doctor who's still overseas.  On the way home, with Mavis at the wheel of Dan's car, Dan complains of a headache and asks her to stop at a sandwich shop so he can get some aspirin.  As she waits, she hears shots, and then Dan jumps back into the car with a gun in his hand and tells her to get going.

Mavis offers to trade Dan her silence for her life.  Dan says he doesn't want to kill her, he wants to marry her so she can't testify against him.  Mavis won't break her promise, and she knows her story would sound phony.  But she won't marry Dan, and she won't get her fiancé mixed up in this mess.  She decides the only thing to do is to to skip town.

Six months later Mavis is singing at a nightclub in Brooklyn under the name Doris Trent when Dan show up.  He accuses her of sending a note to the police about the holdup, and insists on marrying her tonight.  And in case she's thinking of a double-cross, there's a written confession in his pocket telling how she helped him pull the job.  Mavis calls the police, but Dan stops her before she can say anything.  As he prepares to kill her after all, Mavis's manager appears and offers to call the cops on this guy who's bothering her.  So that Dan won't shoot the manager, Mavis says no, he's just another wolf, and the manager tells Dan to beat it.  As Dan waits for her out front, Mavis slips out the back.

Five months later, Mavis is singing at a night spot south of the border under the name Lily Grey.  The proprietor tells her that an American gentleman wants to buy her some champagne.  The American says he's finally caught up with her... Mavis Cameron.

The twist (1947):  Mavis says her name is Lily Grey.  The man says his name is Detective Sergeant James Fontaine, and he knows the false names she's used.  Mavis says she used to work with Mavis Cameron, and the customers used to mix them up too.  She could tell Fontaine about her.

After hearing the story, Fontaine calls Mavis "Miss Grey" and asks if she thinks "Miss Cameron" will ever come back to clear things up.  Mavis thinks she will, some day.  Fontaine remarks that he always figured the confession they found on Spinelli was a phony.  Dan Spinelli died in a shootout with the Brooklyn police about five months ago, when the police came to investigate a mysterious phone call from a nightclub.

The story (1948/1951):  Mary Winslowe (Mary Winston in 1951) is a hostess at a night spot in Panama City under the name of Candy Porter, hiding from her past.  The proprietor tells her to let an American gentleman buy her some champagne.  The gentleman, Mr. Fontaine, says he came here after her... Mary Winslowe.

Mary insists that her name is Candy Porter, but she used to work with Mary Winslowe, the customers used to mix them up too.  She could tell Fontaine about her.

Mary begins her story, and the events play out as in 1947:  a year ago, Mary sang a number at a company Christmas party and then got picked up by a gambler named Joe Clarke (or Joe Collins).  They had a good time until the music reminded her of her absent doctor fiancé; as Mary drove home, Joe held up a drive-in and killed a man; Mary traded her silence for her life, and then skipped town.  This time, the car belonged to Mary's fiancé, increasing her concern about getting him involved; and Joe didn't propose marriage until he caught up with her in Brooklyn, saying at first only that she was guilty too and they were partners.  After the run-in in Brooklyn, Mary's manager helped Mary escape and got her a job in Denver.

"Candy Porter" finishes her story by telling Fontaine that that's where she met Mary Winslowe, in Denver, billed as Gladys James.  Mary left one day and she never saw her again.  Fontaine doesn't seem to believe her.

The twist (1948/1951):  Fontaine calls Mary "Miss Porter" and asks if she thinks "Mary Winslowe" will ever come back and clear things up.  Mary thinks she might, some day.  After Fontaine tells her of Joe Clarke's death, Mary says if she ever sees Mary Winslowe again, she'll tell her about the Christmas present she got from a swell cop named Fontaine.  Fontaine says he's not a cop.  He's a private investigator working for Mary's fiancé, who's in love with her and just wants her to come home.

 

Evolution of a Christmas Episode

The most significant improvement between "Mavis Cameron Disappears" and "Delayed Christmas Present" is the change to a flashback structure.  The last act of "Mavis Cameron" is pretty weak:  it's a little tedious listening to Mavis give a summary of a story we've just heard, and it's hard to buy that Fontaine would come around so quickly.  In the later two episodes, it makes for a better story to open with Mary in hiding, quickly get to the suspense of her being found out, and then learn her story as Fontaine learns it.

The Christmas angle also works well, adding poignancy to Mary's being lonely and far from home.  It's particularly effective in 1951, with the Whistler's opening narration about the Christmas spirit touching even a place like Pete's Cantina, and the addition of the character of Sailor Reynolds, who has no dialogue but plays "White Christmas" on the harmonica and brings back memories for Mary.

This latter change reflects how the song takes on a more important role in the story each time.  In "Mavis Cameron," we hear "You Belong to My Heart" on the piano in the last act while Mavis tells Fontaine her story; but the dialogue and narration don't mention her hearing the song after the night of the shooting.

In "Delayed Christmas Present," there are church bells playing "Adeste Fideles" during the opening narration.  We hear "White Christmas" on the piano under the beginning of Mary and Fontaine's dialogue at the beginning of the second act, without the song being mentioned; and then again at the beginning of the third act, as the Whistler says "And as the piano player across the floor plays the tune he's played a thousand times in the last two weeks..."  Both times, the piano plays only the second stanza, and in the last scene the song ends under the dialogue "Like it here?" / "No." / "That's what I figured."

In "Christmas Gift," we hear the harmonica playing both stanzas of "White Christmas" during the Whistler's opening narration, and the narration mentions the strolling soloist Sailor Reynolds playing a Christmas melody that brings back memories of happier Christmas Eves.  The harmonica comes in again under the opening narration of the last act, and the Whistler says:  "'White Christmas.'  If Sailor Reynolds knew what that song did to you, the memories it brings back, he'd play something else, wouldn't he, Mary?"  The solo harmonica rendition of the song is more plaintive and more present to the ear than the piano in the previous episode, and again Wood plays the whole song.  The penultimate line ending merry and bright is heard as Fontaine calls Mary "Miss Porter"; the song draws to a close and then ends with a flourish ascending two octaves—as Mary's voice rises in pitch on "And you... believe me?"

Another striking improvement between the two similar Christmas episodes is the ending of the second act.  In "Delayed Christmas Present," Fontaine ends the second act with "You know something, you ought to be writing stories for the movies."  This is a weirdly harsh thing to say when he's going to be on her side after the break!  The dialogue at the end of the second act in "Christmas Gift" still presents an apparent defeat, but leaves more room for Fontaine to go along with her story after all:  "You don't believe me, do you?" / "If you were in my position, would you believe a story like that?" / "No, I don't suppose I would."

The last words of "Mavis Cameron Disappears" are "Funny thing about it was they never did find out who put in that call to the police."  Again, this is weak, especially since we understood at the beginning of the line that it was Mavis's aborted phone call—Dan being dead is an okay twist, but this sentence doesn't make for a very dramatic ending.  The additional twist of Fontaine's being a private detective hired by Mary's fiancé is a definite improvement in the later episodes.

Some of the dialogue at the very end of "Delayed Christmas Present," though, is more effective than in the later "Christmas Gift," especially the very last line:  "But I think maybe, before next Christmas...  Well, I think I'll find Mary Winslowe again."  The 1951 episode ends on the less poignant and less interesting "Merry Christmas, Miss Porter.  Happy New Year."  And it's odd that the second time, she doesn't ask Fontaine to bring her back to the States, so we're left without a definite idea of how or when she's going to prepare herself to return home.

One more interesting change between the two flashback episodes.  The narration of both starts out following what I've spoken of as the general pattern for this era of The Whistler, speaking to the protagonist in second person present tense.  In "Delayed Christmas Present," the Whistler sets the scene of Mary's flashback in second person past tense and then shifts back into second person present tense, narrating most of the story in present tense as usual.  But in "Christmas Gift," he switches to past tense for the flashback and stays there until the action returns to the present, narrating all Mary's past actions in past tense as she remembers how she got to where she is today.

(Bloodworth's script for 1949-12-25 "Letter From Cynthia", reused as 1952-04-07 "Saturday Night", also has an extended flashback, which the Whistler opens in past tense and then narrates in present tense both times.)

Further comparison/notes:

• The "Mavis Cameron Disappears" script in the SPERDVAC library shows some interesting penciled changes, including deleted lines which did make their way into one or both of the later episodes!  In the opening narration, "annual bank party" is replaced with "night when Mavis and four of the girls at the bank had dinner"—and in the later episodes, it was a company Christmas party.  There's about a page of dialogue between Mavis and Dan at the cocktail bar which was cut from "Mavis Cameron"; most of that dialogue is used in "Delayed Christmas Present," and it's used again minus a couple lines in "Christmas Gift."

• In "Delayed Christmas Present," Mary suggests that the note to the police about the holdup might have been written by one of Joe's enemies trying to get him in trouble.  This is the only episode of the three that proposes any explanation for the note, since Mavis/Mary didn't write it and apparently nobody else could have.

• One point on which I prefer the 1947 episode to the later two is the casting of Tony Barrett as the gangster—mostly just because I think he's got the cutest voice, so it's easier for me to believe the heroine would let him pick her up!  The "Mavis Cameron" script introduces Dan as "(A GANGSTER..BUT A SUPER SMOOTHIE)", and later has the dialogue direction "(NOW THE DEFINITE GANGSTER)"; Barrett does well with that switch from friendly to deadly, whereas I feel like Petruzzi and Conrad come off as more tough from the beginning.

  

  Script page 2 / page 10.
  A "smoothie" is a guy who is smooth in the sense of being suave and a good talker.... although nowadays a "super smoothie" sounds like something that probably has açaí in it.

  
  

• In all three versions of this story, Mavis/Mary offers Fontaine a cigarette when they first meet, and he turns her down; then, just before he calls her by her assumed name, she offers again and he accepts.  It's a subtle accompaniment to his rejecting and then accepting her story, and in the two flashback episodes it works as a nice bit of bookending.

• The nostalgic song in "Mavis Cameron Disappears" was a popular hit in Mexico, written by Mexican composer Agustín Lara in 1941 as "Solamente una vez."  The Walt Disney studio had decided as early as May 1943 to use "Solamente una vez" in their second Latin-American film, and the song took off in the United States after it was heard in Disney's The Three Caballeros (Dec 1944, US premiere Feb 1945) with new English lyrics as "You Belong to My Heart."

• In 1947, Dr. Clint Rogers, M.D., is "still overseas."  In 1948, Dr. Frank Wilson, M.D., is "in the Philippines.  Research."  In 1951, Dr. Frank Wilson is "in Korea. ... Army doctor."

Personnel notes: 

Episode writer Ed Bloodworth was production supervisor of The Whistler for the Barton A. Stebbins Advertising Agency, which handled the Signal Oil radio account.  Bloodworth was instrumental in selecting scripts to be used on the program, so it makes sense that he would end up writing (and using!) some scripts of his own.  I haven't found any mention of Bloodworth's writing for programs other than The Whistler, but his script for 1950-04-02 "Lady with a Key" was reused for the first episode of the weekly Masters of Mystery program on Mystery Time, 1956-05-02.  (Radio Mirror of August 1956 says "the program highlights the best of crime fiction authored by America's foremost mystery writers:  George Fass, Edward Bloodworth, Jerry McGill, John Shaw and Louis Estes."  Really??)

Britt Wood, the harmonica player in "Christmas Gift," was born in 1893 and entered showbiz at the age of five.  Often billed as "The Boob and His Harmonica," Wood performed regularly as a vaudeville single from the early 1910s up through the late 1930s, and did some vaudeville as late as 1951.  He became a film actor in the late 1930s and primarily played supporting roles in Westerns, including comic sidekick Speedy McGinnis in five Hopalong Cassidy pictures.  Wood has few known surviving radio credits, but I'd be surprised if he didn't do additional radio acting (such as uncredited Whistler appearances which I didn't catch).  He starred in the musical variety radio program Rhythm Inn in 1944.

On The Whistler, Wood was sometimes heard in folksy-old-guy roles such as the lunch counter man in 1951-11-25 "The Clay Tree" and the bartender in 1952-01-06 "Episode at Thunder Mountain"—and, as a composer, he collaborated with Ed Bloodworth on the songs performed by Roberta Linn in 1952-11-30 "So Soon" and 1954-09-19 "Song Team".  (The song "So Soon" was, by some accounts, composed expressly for the sake of Bloodworth's story about a composer murdering a lyricist.  The song in "Song Team" was released as a record the same month the episode aired, and I expect Bloodworth reused the story for the sake of the new song.  After Signal Oil's sponsorship of The Whistler ended in October of '54, Bloodworth worked on Linn's new program.)  Wood and Bloodworth also wrote the song "Slade" for the 1953 Western movie Jack Slade, and that song was used in The Whistler 1953-11-15 "Fading Star".

The 1950 film Hollywood Varieties features a bit of vaudeville from "Mr. Show Business himself, Mr. Britt Wood!"  His act begins at about 35:49 in this YouTube video of the movie.

"Mavis Cameron Disappears" is the first known Whistler episode with Tony Barrett.  Born Martin Lefkowitz to theatrical parents in 1916, Barrett was a professional ballroom dancer before switching to acting sometime between 1942 and 1944.  He was a very busy New York radio actor (reported to have done as many as six shows in one day!) and was noted for his facility with different accents.  Barrett came to Hollywood in January 1946, where he became a contract player for RKO and continued as a prolific and versatile radio actor.  He also wrote some radio scripts, and later became successful as a television writer.  To my knowledge Barrett is in a total of seven surviving Whistler episodes, including 1955-06-23 "The Cliffs of Weyrum" (credits missing from surviving recording), and was likely also in the missing episodes of 1953-01-25 and 1953-04-05.

Before threatening her in "Mavis Cameron Disappears," Tony Barrett romanced Isabel Jewell in his second motion picture, Born to Kill (until both got murdered less than ten minutes in).  The movie was filmed in May–June 1946 but was released on 3 May 1947, a month and a half after the pair were heard on The Whistler.

Tony Barrett, Isabel Jewell, and Claire Trevor in Born to Kill (RKO, 1947)

A point of law:

After Dan proclaims his intent to marry Mavis in "Mavis Cameron Disappears," the Whistler's narration says:

Now you're beginning to see what you're up against, aren't you, Mavis?  Of course what Dan told you about wives not being permitted to testify against husbands isn't true.  Not when the action occurs before marriage.  But you don't know that, do you...and it wouldn't help much if you did.

It's unusual during this era of The Whistler for the Whistler to tell the protagonist information they don't know—and it's even more unusual for him to just go around imparting general knowledge!

The Whistler is correct here because the shooting took place in Chicago.  Spousal privilege in Illinois law is (and was in 1947) a confidential communications privilege, similar to attorney-client privilege.  It applies to confidential communications between spouses (which essentially includes any communication between spouses outside of certain narrow limits, and may also include acts performed in the spouse's presence).  The privilege applies only to communications made while the parties are formally married, and (as with the attorney-client relationship) continues to apply to those communications even if the marriage has since ended.  Even if Mavis married Dan, they were not married when she found out about the shooting, so she could be a witness against him in an Illinois court.

California law, on the other hand, has (and had) marital testimonial privilege, holding that "neither husband nor wife is a competent witness for or against the other in a criminal action or proceeding to which one or both are parties, except with the consent of both..."; exceptions include crimes by one spouse against the other or against their children.  This privilege applies based on whether the parties are married at the time of the criminal action or proceeding.  In "Delayed Christmas Present" and "Christmas Gift," the shooting took place in Los Angeles, which means that if Mary were married to Joe, she could not be a witness against him, even though they weren't married when the crime occurred.

The line quoted above does not occur in the two later scripts—but I expect this change wasn't so much because of the different setting, as because it just adds unnecessary confusion.  (And that's without even getting into the question of whether a marriage under coercion would be valid, or how readily one could get out of such a marriage!)  As the Whistler points out, when a murderer's trying to get you to marry him or else, the legal details don't make much difference.

Additional listening: 

There's another trio of surviving Whistler episodes with a similar pattern, fairly close to these three in time.  1947-03-31 "The Blank Wall" was significantly reworked (including an entirely different ending) as 1948-10-31 "Letter From Yesterday", and then that story was reused with smaller changes as 1951-09-09 "Guilty Conscience".  The two later episodes are credited to Edward Bloodworth.  Oddly, the credits in 1947-03-31 "The Blank Wall" do not list a writer; the 1955 Whistler TV episode "The Blank Wall" (which sounds like it was based on the 1947 radio episode, not the later two) is credited on IMDb to Joel Malone.

A selection of odd Whistler commercials from 1946

Signal Premium Motor Oil ad from the Pasadena Star-News, 31 May 1946

(The following is by no means a comprehensive treatment of noteworthy commercials on The Whistler, I just wanted to share some that struck me as particularly amusing! If the embedded audio does not work, the hyperlink at the start of each description should go to the same clip.)

1946-04-15 "Smart Boy"

First commercial:  An actress asks Marvin Miller about tonight's big news.  Miller tells her about new Signal Premium Motor Oil, and concludes by saying it's the oil that...  And Gerald Mohr's distinctive voice booms out with an echo effect:  "Keeps motors six times cleaner!  Reduces cylinder wear one-third!"

Second commercial:  A mostly normal commercial, but Mohr with the echo effect comes in again near the end to repeat "Keeps motors six times cleaner!  Reduces cylinder wear one-third!"

1946-04-22 "The Waterford Case"

First commercial:  Miller and several of the actors take turns repeating "Keeps motors six times cleaner!" / "Reduces cylinder wear one-third!"  After that, Miller goes into his spiel, and Mohr comes in with the echo again between segments of the spiel to deliver the words "Signal Premium Motor Oil!"

Second commercial: "The Whistler will return in just a moment with the strange ending of tonight's story.  But now, here's a little lady who seems to have a perplexed look on her face.  What's the question, Miss Margetts?"  Monty Margetts, the secondary female lead in the drama, asks Marvin Miller about the five compounds in Signal Premium Motor Oil.  At the end of his explanation, another of the actors comes in to say what so many drivers are saying:  "I'm making my next oil change a change to..." and Mohr with the echo finishes, "Signal Premium Motor Oil!"

This was before the program had any cast credits (the earliest surviving Whistler episode with "Featured in tonight's cast..." is 1946-06-03 "The Judas Face")—which means that "Miss Margetts" here is likely the first actor named in a Whistler broadcast!

(1946-04-29 "My Love Comes Home" is missing. Gerald Mohr is also in the cast of 1946-05-06 "Bright Horizon," but no network recording survives, so I don't know whether he continued to reverberantly advertise Signal Premium Motor Oil.)

1946-09-09 "Witness at the Fountain"

First commercial:  "With the prologue of 'The Witness at the Fountain,' the Signal Oil Company brings you another strange tale by The Whistler.  But now here's a question for you drivers to try your wits on.  What three things can your speedometer tell you?  Three, that is.  Now let's see, whom shall I ask?  Oh, here's Virginia Gregg, one of Hollywood's most charming radio actresses.  What would your answer be, Virginia?"

Virginia answers that your speedometer tells her how fast you're going and how far you've gone, and then Marvin talks her through why Signal says "look to your speedometer for the best proof of gasoline quality!"

Featured in the cast of this episode were Howard Duff and Margaret Brayton; Gregg presumably played the maid.

1946-10-14 "Weak Sister"

First commercial:  Peggy Webber, who has a leading role in the drama as a disturbed older woman, doubles in the commercial as an attractive young woman who flirts with Marvin Miller as she asks him to explain how her speedometer can show the quality of the gasoline she's using.  It's bizarre, but also really funny and charming??

The Whistler 1949-08-21 "Confession" / 1954-10-17 "Last Request"

The basic setup:  A wanted gangster, traveling on an ocean liner under an assumed name, blackmails a doctor into aiding with an unusual escape plan.

1949-08-21 "Confession"
Produced by George W. Allen, directed by Sterling Tracy
Story by Joel Malone and Adrian Gendot
Whistler: Bill Forman
Announcer:  Marvin Miller
Cast (credited): Ira Grossel [aka Jeff Chandler], Herb Butterfield
Cast (ear):  Larry Dobkin (as Saliti and James Rourke), Wilms Herbert (as McHale and the second steward)

story reused as 1954-10-17 "Last Request"
Produced by Joel Malone, directed by Sterling Tracy
Story by Brian Thorne
Whistler:  Bill Forman
Cast:  Lawrence Dobkin, Herb Butterfield, Jean Tatum, Jack Moyles, Paul Dubov

The story:  Old Dr. Rourke, lying on his deathbed, wants to be alone with his son, young Dr. James Rourke.  There's something he has to clear up.  It isn't really his own story, but that of one Tony Delgano, former Public Enemy Number One.

Tony Delgano embarks from San Francisco with a new passport under a new name.  He's ready to enjoy a new life free of the police as David Delmas, especially after he hits it off with fellow passenger Sharon Phillips at a cocktail party on board.  Sharon introduces "Mr. Delmas" to a friend of hers, Dr. Rourke.

Rourke recognizes Tony, but Tony reminds Rourke that he can mess up Rourke's life too.  Rourke once fixed up Tony's shoulder after a "hunting accident," and didn't find out until later that it had been a bank job.  Rourke's son is also a doctor.  How would young Dr. Rourke's associates feel if it came out that his father had helped a criminal and never said anything?  Tony is sure Rourke will keep his secret and do whatever he says.

Some days later, a ship's steward interrupts a romantic moment between Tony and Sharon.  The steward tells Tony he recognizes him, and hands him a radiogram addressed to David Delmas, warning that he's been betrayed and can expect a police reception in Australia.  But the steward has a plan.  He's seen Tony talking to Rourke, and he knows that Rourke is escorting a friend to his final resting place—said friend's body being in a casket in the hold.  Well, what's to stop Tony from taking the place of Rourke's quiet friend, and getting ashore that way?  And in exchange for the steward's help, Tony can smuggle some diamonds into the country for him.  After thinking it over, Tony agrees to the plan, and the steward brings him the package of diamonds.

Tony opens the package and finds a handful of dime-store glass.  The steward planned to hide Tony from the police only to lead them to him and collect the reward.  Tony throws the steward overboard.  He kind of hated to do it, he tells Rourke the next morning, especially after he gave him that bright idea.  Rourke is horrified at the plan, but Tony reminds him that he can make things difficult for Rourke's son.

The day before the ship is to dock, there's been a radiogram from the San Francisco police, and a ship's officer comes to arrest Tony.  Tony knocks the officer down, flees, and hides out in Dr. Rourke's room.  They've got to do it now, he tells Rourke.  Rourke tries to protest, but Tony insists, and Rourke gives in.

The twist:  As old Dr. Rourke's story draws to a close, young Dr. Rourke is shocked that his father let Tony Delgano get away.  But Tony Delgano didn't get away.  He took the place of Rourke's friend in the casket, but what he didn't know was that Rourke's friend had requested a burial at sea.

Personnel notes:  "Confession" is attributed to Joel Malone and Adrian Gendot, and "Last Request" is attributed to Brian Thorne.  The story was used again on the Whistler TV program in 1955 as "Favor for a Friend," which IMDb attributes to Joel Malone.  I don't find any mention in historical periodicals of a radio writer named Brian Thorne, and I assume it's a pseudonym—I'm not sure why Malone and his collaborators would use a pseudonym, or why only sometimes.  The Whistler story "A Woman's Privilege" was attributed to Brian Thorne on the 1947-02-17 Signal and 1947-03-12 HFC broadcasts, but to Joel Malone and Harold Swanton on the 1949-10-02 and 1955-06-09 broadcasts.  Brian Thorne is also given as the writer of the Whistler episodes 1947-02-10 "Safety in Numbers" and 1947-04-14 "Maid of Honor" (neither of which has any striking similarities to other surviving episodes); there are no other known radio credits associated with the name. 

The name "Brian Thorne," as spelled in the "Safety in Numbers" script 

Larry Dobkin, who plays Tony in "Last Request," can be heard as Saliti and young Dr. Rourke in "Confession"—his first of over 40 Whistler episodes.  His calling Herb Butterfield "Dad" in the last scene sounds just like old times:  Dobkin played the title role in Ellery Queen from February 1947 to April 1948, and Butterfield took over the role of Inspector Richard Queen when the show moved from New York to Hollywood in late November of '47.

Comparison:  There are only minor changes to the script between the two productions of this story.  Personally, I'm biased towards "Last Request" because I'm a huge Larry Dobkin fan—but I do think the Tony Delgano character is legitimately more interesting in the later episode!

For instance, the last scene of the second act has exactly the same narration and essentially the same dialogue in both episodes.  In "Confession," we know Tony's had a few—but in "Last Request" he actually sounds tipsy, and then he gets a little unhinged on his last line.  There's a sense of his anxiety at the prospect of being shut up in a casket in the hold, which doesn't seem to be there in "Confession."

Another improvement:  the script for "Last Request" adds some additional casual remarks to Tony's dialogue during the scene where he tells Rourke the plan over breakfast ("How do they keep the toast warm all the way to the cabin?"), really playing up the contrast between Rourke's agitation and Tony's cool assurance.

Other differences include:

• In "Confession," two of Tony's henchmen see him off at the dock.  McHale has fixed up the passport, and it's McHale who sends the radiogram warning about Saliti's singing.  In "Last Request," only Saliti sees him off, and McHale's lines explaining Tony's new name are given to Tony instead; we don't know who sends the warning.
• "Confession" ends with the line: "... That my friend had chosen as his final resting place a burial at sea, somewhere near Australia."  In "Last Request," the line ends with the words at sea.  It's more dramatic, although maybe less informative.

Narration and point of view:  The narration of "Confession"/"Last Request" is a little unusual, in an inconspicuous way.  By about 1946–47, the narration on the Signal Whistler program has found a fairly consistent pattern.  The Whistler opens a typical episode with narration in the third person past tense, the default for storytelling in English.  Before long he shifts into second person present tense and addresses his narration to one character throughout the episode; he may switch back to third person for the last act, if the main character has died.

In "Confession"/"Last Request", the Whistler opens the narrative in third person past tense as usual, and does not address any character in the first scene.  As Dr. Rourke begins his story, the Whistler sets the scene of the flashback in third person past tense, and then shifts to addressing Tony in the present tense.  If you think too hard about it, it's a little odd that, while Rourke is telling his story in the frame story, the Whistler narrates the same story from a different point of view, including information that Rourke had no way of knowing.

While I can't think of any other surviving Whistler episode with one character telling another character's story like in "Confession"/"Last Request", there are other flashback episodes where the Whistler's narration speaks in present tense to a character who is already dead at the time of the first scene.  1947-03-10/1951-06-24 "The Murder of Byron Blake" (Gene Fromherz) and 1948-10-24/1955-04-07 "Search for an Unknown" (Gendot) both have opening scenes with major supporting characters remembering how the main character met his doom.  1947-02-17/1949-10-02/1955-06-09 "A Woman's Privilege" (Malone/Swanton), 1950-03-12 "Strange Meeting" (Malone), and 1949-05-22/1954-01-10 "Fatal Fraud" (Gendot) all open in police stations, without any important characters heard, and flash back to the circumstances leading up to the crime.

(In the early years of The Whistler, the narration is much more varied, and occasionally downright strange—but that's a whole other discussion.)

Caveat:  1943-01-31 "The Confession" is a story by J. Donald Wilson about a lawyer's daughter getting involved with a bad guy;

1946-07-08 "Confession" is a story by Fred Hegelund and Harold Swanton about a terminally ill man falsely confessing to a murder;

and 1949-08-21 "Confession," also announced without the article, is this story by Malone and Gendot about a doctor and a gangster on a ship.

The Whistler 1950-10-22 "The Wall" / 1954-08-29 "Quadrangle"

The Whistler 1950-10-22 "The Wall" (story reused as 1954-08-29 "Quadrangle")

The basic setup:  A man is bound to his aunt's old house by the fear that her renovations will uncover the deadly secret hidden inside the stone wall.

Produced and directed by George W. Allen, story by Adrian Gendot
Whistler:  Bill Forman
Announcer:  Marvin Miller
Cast (credited):  Don Randolph, Jean Tatum, Norma Varden

The surviving recording of "Quadrangle" has no credits, but it sounds like John Dehner in the lead.

The story:  Channing House, on the edge of Cartertown, with its wide, high surrounding wall, is a popular subject for artists.  Hypatia Channing lives there alone with her nephew Geoffrey since Colonel Channing's death five years ago.  A caretaker, Sam Lewis, also lives on the property, and Hypatia is always having him renovate the house and grounds, claiming that the sound of the hammer and saw keeps her husband's memory alive.

Geoffrey Channing's friend Ned introduces him to Leah Munsen, an artist who has come to paint Channing House.  Their conversation turns to the wall.  Ned tells Leah the stone wall is hollow, and he wonders when the old lady is going to get around to tearing it down.  Geoffrey hopes she won't go that far.  Because Colonel Channing really didn't drown while on a fishing trip with Geoffrey.  Geoffrey killed him in a rage and hid his body inside the wall.  The wall has been on his mind these five years, and he stays close to home in fear that Aunt Hypatia will demolish it and reveal his lie.

As the weeks go by, Geoffrey has fallen in love with Leah.  He doesn't want her to leave Cartertown, but she wants to travel and pursue her artistic career.  She wants him to go with her... if he can.  Geoffrey decides he must free himself of Channing House.  That night, he learns that Aunt Hypatia plans to begin demolishing the wall in the morning.

Rainy weather sets in, delaying work on the wall, and Hypatia puts Sam to work on the staircase instead.  After days of rain, Geoffrey seizes an opportunity to poison his aunt's bedtime drink with her own sleeping powders, knowing her death will be taken for an accidental overdose.  Some time after bidding her good night, he hears her scream as she falls down the stairs.  She's dead, and Geoffrey didn't do it.

Or did he?  He rushes upstairs to make sure.  The poisoned drink is untouched.  As he moves to get rid of it, he's startled by the doorbell and spills the drink on Aunt Hypatia's pillow.  He quickly hides the stained pillow in his room and goes downstairs to answer the bell.  It's Judge Fuller, Hypatia's attorney, who had an appointment to see her on a financial matter.  They call the police, and the sheriff pronounces her death accidental.

The twist:  The sheriff returns after a talk with Sam, and tells Geoffrey that Sam thinks Hypatia was pushed down the stairs, and Geoffrey pushed her.  It turns out Colonel Channing hid a large sum of money in the house before he died, and never got around to telling his wife where.  That's why she's been having the house torn apart—and she was sure Geoffrey was only sticking so close to home in order to get his hands on the money.  Today Sam found $50,000 in the staircase and handed it over to her, and now it looks like Geoffrey killed his aunt for the money.

Geoffrey protests that he didn't know about any money.  But no jury will believe that:  the police found the whole $50,000 right where he put it, stuffed in a bureau drawer in his bedroom closet, hidden inside his aunt's pillow.

Some changes between "The Wall" and "Quadrangle": 

• The aunt's name is changed from Hypatia to Agnes.

• Some of Ned's gossip is removed from the first scene, including his speculation that the old lady was happy to be rid of her husband.

• In "The Wall," Geoffrey apparently fought with and killed his uncle because his uncle didn't approve of the woman Geoffrey wanted to marry—and then they married after his death and the marriage didn't last.  In "Quadrangle," the dialogue between Geoffrey and Leah that reveals this backstory is omitted, and the Whistler's narration just establishes right away that Geoffrey killed his uncle because he refused to lend him $5000.

• In "The Wall," Geoffrey puts his aunt's sleeping powders in a hot buttered rum; in "Quadrangle," it's hot chocolate.  Her line "Then I could throw away my sleeping powders" makes a little more sense the first time!

• "Quadrangle" omits some other lines of dialogue from "The Wall," including the information in this exchange (dialogue in italics is heard in "The Wall" only):

NED.
The wall's hollow, right Geoff?
 
GEOFFREY.
Yes.  It is.
 
NED.
I helped Geoff and the Colonel put it up.  Remember, Geoff?  Matter of fact you finished it up alone, didn't you?  Not long after the old fellow died.
 
GEOFFREY.
That's right.  I finished the wall alone.
 
WHISTLER.
You want to scream the words, don't you, Geoffrey?

• The Whistler's final narration in "The Wall" includes the sentence "An accidental death, and in the sheriff's own words, you had absolutely nothing to do with it."—which sounds odd, because the sheriff didn't specifically say Geoffrey had nothing to do with it.  The narration is rephrased to make more sense in "Quadrangle":  "Aunt Agnes' death was an accidental one in the sheriff's own words.  While you had planned to poison her with an overdose of sleeping powders, you had absolutely nothing to do with it." 

Connections:  Gendot's later script for 1951-07-01 "The House on Hainsley Boulevard" hearkens back to "The Wall."  That story also involves a young man living in an old family home with his aunt, his uncle having walked out and disappeared eight years ago.  In "The Wall," the protagonist is afraid to move away because he actually killed the Colonel and hid the body on the property; in "The House on Hainsley Boulevard," the protagonist suspects that his aunt is reluctant to move because she actually killed the Captain and hid the body on the property!  He's apparently mistaken; this uncle presumably really did disappear of his own accord.

For another Adrian Gendot Whistler story involving the idea of preserving a landmark in order to conceal murder evidence, see 1951-11-25 "The Clay Tree."

And, going off on a tangent from that episode, see 1951-02-18 "Man in the Storm" for another Gendot story in which a man tries desperately to protect a piece of real estate, apparently from noble motives but really in order to prevent his own crimes from coming to light.

Additional listening:  Other Whistler episodes in which the intended murder victim dies before consuming the poison given them by the protagonist include 1944-12-18 "Windfall" by Harold Swanton and 1951-09-16 "A Matter of Patience" by George Adrian and Carol Nicks.

See also 1950-04-16 "Murder in Mind" by Dick Anderson for another episode in which the intended murder victim dies accidentally and the protagonist fears being blamed.

A list of Signal Oil references in The Whistler

1945-10-08 Death Laughs Last (Harold Swanton)

 "Where'd you say the mailbox is?"
 "There's one down the road at the next corner.  Right by the Signal Oil station."

1945-04-02 The Return of the Innocent (J. Donald Wilson)

"Well, I gotta run along now.  If you want me, I'll be at my cabin a half-mile up the mountain.  Just up the main road, and turn off when you come to the big Signal Oil station."

1946-04-08 Terror Stricken (Walter Jensen)

"I'll pick you up in front of the Signal station at Runyon and Broadmoor tomorrow morning at eight, right?"

1946-07-15 Custom-Built Blonde (Will Pryor)

"Their car jumped a curb and crashed through a Signal Oil billboard about an hour ago.  Stafford was crumpled over the wheel with a couple of bullets in him, and Burton was sittin' next to him, dead from a couple of slugs."

1946-08-26 Brief Pause for Murder (Lou Houston and Bill Forman)

"Let's see, at 9:45 we've got the Signal Oil sports broadcast on the net from Hollywood, then we take Murder Manor from New York..."

(In the 1946-09-08 Chicago production and the 1949-09-11 Signal production of Brief Pause, they've "got a band on the net from Hollywood" instead.)

1947-02-24 Eight to Twelve (Joel Malone and Harold Swanton)

"And another thing, your gasoline gauge looks almost empty.  There's a Signal Oil station on the next corner, perhaps we'd better stop."

1948-09-15 Uncle Ben's Widow (Jim Lehner)

"It's a shortcut, Monnie.  When we reach the Signal Oil station at the bottom of the grade, we'll turn into the main highway."

1948-12-19 The Hangtree Affair (Joel Malone and Adrian Gendot)

"Look, how do you get out there to the cemetery?"
"Oh, easy, just go right down the end of C street here, and then turn left by the Signal oil station and go up the road...."

1949-03-13 Search for Maxine (Harold Swanton)

"Alvarado Street, Ted, that's where she was.  Probably in that big apartment house opposite the Signal Oil station on the corner."

(When this story was used as Four Hours to Kill on Phillip Morris Playhouse 1949-05-13, Suspense 1950-01-12, and Murder by Experts 1950-06-19, Ted deduces that the girl lives somewhere around 71st Street, "an apartment, maybe a residential hotel, facing Central Park.")

1949-07-24 The Hermit (Ben S. Hunter)

"Uncle Ben, this gentleman's car ran out of gas.  He wonders if he might use the phone."
"I wanna call the Signal station down the road."

1949-09-25 Incident at Arroyo Grande (David H. Ross)

"Finally, several miles down the road, you approach an intersection.  And there near the lights of a Signal Oil station, what you see helps to calm your nerves..."

1950-07-02 Quiet Sunday (Bernard Girard and Zane Mann)

"Well, I--I just don't want you to be late!  [Changing the tire]'ll only take a minute.  Besides, there's a Signal service station in the next block!"

(In the original 1946-06-10 production of Quiet Sunday, this line ends after "It'll only take me a minute.")

1951-11-04 Man on the Run (Adrian Gendot)

"Well, it shouldn't take you more than twenty minutes or so.  Just turn off the main highway three miles past Denton, at the Signal service station."

1952-03-09 Breakaway (Adrian Gendot)

"You the fellow that put in the call?"
"Yeah.  Me and my partner run the Signal gas station down the road."

1952-04-06 Element X (Adrian Gendot)

"My place is all by itself, just past that Signal Oil station, on the beachfront."

(In the 1955-02-13 production of Element X, his place is "all by itself, just past the Mar Vista turnoff on the beachfront...")

1954-02-28 Feature Story (no credits on surviving recording)

"Say tell me, where would be a good place for us to stay a day or so, huh?"
"Best place around here is the Desert Motel, just at the edge of town, right next to that big Signal station."

1954-08-01 Borrowed Future (Adrian Gendot)

"Oh, there's a Signal station up ahead.  You can call him from there."

1954-09-12 Landslide (story reused from 1952-03-09 Breakaway)

"You the fellow who put in the call to my office?"
"Yeah, I work at the Signal gas station down the road."

Bonus: an apparent slip of the tongue in 1949-04-03 The Rawhide Coffin.  Instead of "single room," it sounds like the hotel clerk says,

"We'll let you have the very next Signal room that's vacant!"

The Whister (vs. The Unexpected), 1946-08-19 "Delivery Guaranteed"

The Whistler 1946-08-19 "Delivery Guaranteed"  (listen here)

The basic setup:  A man kills his wife, hides her body in a trunk, and calls the express company to ship the trunk to where he can dispose of the body.  Things keep going wrong.  Elliott Lewis gives an entertaining performance as a character who spends much of the episode on the brink of hysterics!

Produced by George W. Allen, written by Robert Libbott and Frank C. Burt
Whistler:  Bill Forman
Announcer:  Marvin Miller
Cast (credited):  Elliott Lewis, Lurene Tuttle
Cast (ear):  Charles Calvert as the first express man

The story:  Phillip Linden is looking forward to two weeks in the high Sierras with his wife Cathy, hoping the trip will repair their failing romance.  He arrives home to find Cathy packing a large old wardroom trunk:  she's not going with him, she's going to Reno for a divorce.  He tries to stop her from leaving, and in the quarrel he impulsively strangles her to death.

Philip hides Cathy's body in her own trunk and calls the express company to have it shipped to the mountain cabin, figuring he can drop the body off a cliff and tell everyone she disappeared while hiking.  After the express men leave with the trunk, a policeman shows up!  It's their next-door neighbor Charlie, who's excited about his new job as a policeman and wanted to say goodbye to Philip and Cathy before their trip.  Phillip lies and fends him off, and as Charlie leaves, the express men come back with the trunk, saying it's not packed right and he'll have to repack it.

Phillip realizes the key is inside the trunk. As he prepares to force the lock, Charlie comes back for something he forgot.  Charlie insists on helping Phillip repack the trunk.  He gets it open, and it's the wrong trunk.  Phillip phones the express company about the mixup, and the clerk says they do have his trunk, but the label has come off and he'll have to verify the contents.  They'll just open it up....  Phillip hangs up the phone and tells Charlie all.

The twist:  Back at the express company, the man has found the shipping label on the bottom of the trunk and they don't need to open it after all.  What to do now?  Ship it to the address on the label.  That's their motto:  delivery guaranteed!

Miscellaneous notes:  Elliott Lewis plays a man who murders his wife Cathy.  Maybe it's for the best that Cathy Lewis didn't play the female lead this week!

Another version:  Libbott and Burt reused this story for the fifteen-minute program The Unexpected, 1948-11-07 "Handle With Care."  That episode is much weaker than the Whistler episode, and listening to both is an interesting study in pacing.

For "Handle With Care," the story is compressed so that there are fewer distinct events between the murder and the confession, which means we don't get the mounting tension that comes from things going wrong over and over again.  We also lose a lot of dialogue that wasn't strictly essential to the plot, but that helped build a sense of impatience--such as Phillip looking up and dialing the number for the express company, and a lot of his forced casual conversation with Charlie.

There's also less time to hear how Philip reacts emotionally to the murder and subsequent events, and less time to develop the relationship between him and Cathy in the first scene--for instance, she just says she never loved him, rather than explaining that "a woman will say a lot of things when she's twenty-five and starting to wonder if she's ever going to get a husband."  And while it's true Barry Sullivan had less to work with, his performance sounds downright sedate compared to Elliott Lewis's--which in itself makes the episode less interesting, since some of the best suspense in "Delivery Guaranteed" comes from the way Phillip sounds like he's about to fall apart and give himself away any second.

"Delivery Guaranteed" was the title of the Chicago Whistler broadcasts of 1946-08-18 and 1946-10-27; neither program is known to survive.

Additional listening:  See also 1946-08-21 "The Broken Chain" for another Whistler episode by Robert Libbott and Frank C. Burt in which Elliott Lewis kills his wife and then loses his grip...  and which was also reused for an episode of The Unexpected with Barry Sullivan (1947-07-11 "Mercy Killing").

Other Whistler episodes involving a body in a trunk:

• 1946-02-04 "Panic" by Harold Swanton (also featuring Elliott Lewis and Lurene Tuttle)
• 1949-04-03 "The Rawhide Coffin" by Robert Stephen Brode
• 1951-03-18 "The Jackson Street Affair" by Adrian Gendot
• 1954-07-18 "Mr. Pettibone's Last Journey" (no author credit on surviving recording)

And, for an unrelated story of a series of mishaps involving a wife in a trunk, see Suspense 1956-02-07 "Variations on a Theme" by Antony Ellis, which plays the subject for laughs!

Introduction

hi there!  You may have seen me in the Old Time Radio Lovers and The Old Time Radio Researchers groups on Facebook.  I've been listening to and studying The Whistler a lot this year, and I finally broke down and made a blog to post commentary and analysis.

I'll start off by just doing individual posts on particular Whistler episodes in no particular order, and I'll probably do other posts about that show and about other OTR and tangentially related topics--including reusing some content I've previously posted elsewhere.

I'm particularly interested in looking at connections between different stories--not only actual reused stories and recurring elements in the work of particular writers, but also tropes and themes that recur in otherwise unrelated episodes.  (I hope to keep track of oddly specific things like "episodes where the prospective murder victim dies of natural causes but the killer gets in trouble anyway," "episodes where the cops show up to arrest the person that the protagonist just murdered," "episodes where the protagonist is damned for the wrong murder," etc.)

Since the twist ending is so important to the formula of The Whistler, posts will contain spoilers!  I'll start each post with a little blurb about the basic premise of the episode, and you may want to listen to the episode before you read the whole post.