The Green Hornet: "Invasion Plans" 5/19/42
In order to flush out a Nazi spy ring, the Green Hornet frames himself for murder.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Showing posts with label Green Hornet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green Hornet. Show all posts
Friday, December 10, 2021
Friday, February 24, 2017
Friday's Favority OTR
The Green Hornet: “Underwater Adventure” 9/25/46
Often, I’ll pick a particular episode to listen to based on its title. The Green Hornet normally centers around an urban crime adventure, so a title like “Underwater Adventure” stands out.
Well, it was still an urban crime adventure, but it was a gosh darn good one. The Hornet suspects that a salvage scow working out in the bay is up to no good. He’s right—the thugs on board are attempting to find a quarter million dollars in bank loot.
The Hornet, posing as he always does as yet another bad guy, forces himself into the deal. When the diving suit being used is damaged, it becomes the Hornet’s job to steal another one. This gives him an opportunity to lead the police right to the bad guys—providing he and Kato don’t get caught first.
It’s a straightforward, entertaining episode, with the high production values typical of the shows produced at WXYZ in Detroit. (The station that also produced The Lone Ranger and Sgt. Preston of the Yukon.) The title’s a bit misleading—the Hornet actually only spends a few minutes underwater. But the story is a good one anyways, so we’ll forgive this.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Well, it was still an urban crime adventure, but it was a gosh darn good one. The Hornet suspects that a salvage scow working out in the bay is up to no good. He’s right—the thugs on board are attempting to find a quarter million dollars in bank loot.
The Hornet, posing as he always does as yet another bad guy, forces himself into the deal. When the diving suit being used is damaged, it becomes the Hornet’s job to steal another one. This gives him an opportunity to lead the police right to the bad guys—providing he and Kato don’t get caught first.
It’s a straightforward, entertaining episode, with the high production values typical of the shows produced at WXYZ in Detroit. (The station that also produced The Lone Ranger and Sgt. Preston of the Yukon.) The title’s a bit misleading—the Hornet actually only spends a few minutes underwater. But the story is a good one anyways, so we’ll forgive this.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Friday's Favorite OTR
The Green Hornet: "Poor Substitutes for a Prison" 2/1/49
Poor women--each of whom has a husband in prison--suddenly have money. It doesn't take long for the Hornet to figure out that there's something fishy going on. Proving it, though, is another matter.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Friday's Favorite OTR
The Green Hornet: "Political Racket" 5/5/38
The Hornet frames himself for murder. Not something that's generally a good idea, but it's all part of a clever plan to take down a corrupt politician.
Click HERE to listen or download.
The Hornet frames himself for murder. Not something that's generally a good idea, but it's all part of a clever plan to take down a corrupt politician.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Friday's Favorite OTR
Green Hornet: “A
Pair of Nylons” 3/19/46
A gang of con artists are setting up in small store fronts
for one day per store, selling stockings to women and falsely claiming that
they are real nylon.
This particular Macguffin isn’t the most exciting hook in
the history of mystery fiction, but it leads into a strong story. Daily
Sentinel reporter Mike Axeford looks into the racket and ends up getting
captured. The police then do some sharp detective work and are soon raiding the
gang’s storehouse, capturing several henchmen. But the gang leader and Axeford
are nowhere to be found. So it’s up to the Green Hornet to “rescue” one of the
henchmen and trick him into revealing the location of the boss’s hideout.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Friday's Favorite OTR
The Green Hornet: “A Question of Time” 3/5/46
Spies commit a murder, steal a secret formula and frame the Green Hornet for the crimes. But the Hornet picks up on a subtle clue pointing to the real killer. As Britt Reid, he uses his position as a newspaperman to set up a trap that forces the villains to give themselves away.
That’s one thing I’ve always liked about Green Hornet episodes. The writers never forgot that Reid owned a newspaper as well as worked as a masked vigilante. He always made good use of all the resources he had in both his identities.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Friday's Favorite OTR
The Green Hornet: “Too Hot to Handle”—11/11/47
A lot of the most joyful listening experiences of old-time radio originated in the same place—radio station WXYZ in Detroit.
It was from WXYZ that the Lone Ranger galloped onto the public airwaves in 1933. In 1936, the same station began producing The Green Hornet. Sgt. Preston of the Yukon—a Canadian Mountie who always gets his man--was added to the mix in 1939.
All were great shows and all ended up begin broadcast nationally for long runs on radio. Two of these three shows, though, share an even closer connection. It turns out that their main characters were related.
The Green Hornet was in reality Britt Reid, publisher of an important newspaper in a never-identified big Eastern city. Disgusted with political graft and ineffectual laws, Britt took on the identity of the Green Hornet and armed himself with a gun that squirts knock-out gas. Pretending himself to be a gangster in this identity, he gathered evidence that put many criminals behind bars and helped clean up the city. Initially, only his valet Kato knows that Britt and the Hornet are the same person. Kato, in fact, works with the Hornet, using his martial arts skills and high intelligence to help bring the bad guys down.
The show was well-written and expertly produced. The nifty buzzing sound effect of the Black Beauty (the Hornet’s car) was particularly effective.
The Hornet was purposely created to be a modern-day, urban analog to the Lone Ranger. But the creative staff at WXYZ wanted a closer connection than this thematic one. In 1942, on the Ranger’s show, the Western hero met his long-lost nephew. Young Dan Reid became a semi-regular character on the show.
Notice the last name? In the 1947 Hornet episode “Too Hot to Handle”, an elderly Dan Reid traveled east to visit his son Britt. Britt tells him about his Hornet identity. Dan not only approves of Britt’s masked identity, but tells him of an ancestor who also wore a mask while riding across the Old West on a similar mission.
From there, the episode involves Dan helping on a mission to stop a criminal from blackmailing his way out of a narcotics charge. This is all done very well, but it’s that initial scene, linking the Ranger and the Hornet as close relatives, that’s the really cool part. Dan never actually calls the Lone Ranger by name. Instead, he simply describes him while the “William Tell Overture” (the Ranger’s theme music) rises up in the background. I’m assuming there was no legal reason for not naming the Ranger—both characters were copyrighted by WXYZ’s owner George Trendle—and that this was done purely for dramatic effect. It actually works quite well, allowing the audience to figure it out for themselves and collectively shout “They are related!! I KNEW IT!!!”
Click HERE to listen or download.
A lot of the most joyful listening experiences of old-time radio originated in the same place—radio station WXYZ in Detroit.
It was from WXYZ that the Lone Ranger galloped onto the public airwaves in 1933. In 1936, the same station began producing The Green Hornet. Sgt. Preston of the Yukon—a Canadian Mountie who always gets his man--was added to the mix in 1939.
All were great shows and all ended up begin broadcast nationally for long runs on radio. Two of these three shows, though, share an even closer connection. It turns out that their main characters were related.
The Green Hornet was in reality Britt Reid, publisher of an important newspaper in a never-identified big Eastern city. Disgusted with political graft and ineffectual laws, Britt took on the identity of the Green Hornet and armed himself with a gun that squirts knock-out gas. Pretending himself to be a gangster in this identity, he gathered evidence that put many criminals behind bars and helped clean up the city. Initially, only his valet Kato knows that Britt and the Hornet are the same person. Kato, in fact, works with the Hornet, using his martial arts skills and high intelligence to help bring the bad guys down.
The show was well-written and expertly produced. The nifty buzzing sound effect of the Black Beauty (the Hornet’s car) was particularly effective.
The Hornet was purposely created to be a modern-day, urban analog to the Lone Ranger. But the creative staff at WXYZ wanted a closer connection than this thematic one. In 1942, on the Ranger’s show, the Western hero met his long-lost nephew. Young Dan Reid became a semi-regular character on the show.
Notice the last name? In the 1947 Hornet episode “Too Hot to Handle”, an elderly Dan Reid traveled east to visit his son Britt. Britt tells him about his Hornet identity. Dan not only approves of Britt’s masked identity, but tells him of an ancestor who also wore a mask while riding across the Old West on a similar mission.
From there, the episode involves Dan helping on a mission to stop a criminal from blackmailing his way out of a narcotics charge. This is all done very well, but it’s that initial scene, linking the Ranger and the Hornet as close relatives, that’s the really cool part. Dan never actually calls the Lone Ranger by name. Instead, he simply describes him while the “William Tell Overture” (the Ranger’s theme music) rises up in the background. I’m assuming there was no legal reason for not naming the Ranger—both characters were copyrighted by WXYZ’s owner George Trendle—and that this was done purely for dramatic effect. It actually works quite well, allowing the audience to figure it out for themselves and collectively shout “They are related!! I KNEW IT!!!”
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Friday's Favorite OTR
The Green Hornet: “A Man of Many Words” 7/9/46
A radio commentator who is threatening to expose the head of a black market ring is murdered. Brit Reid begins printing editorials about the black market soon after, earning him a spot on the gang’s hit list as well.
The gang leader is an interesting character—an enormously fat man who has a tendency to use multisyllabic words. Sort of an evil Nero Wolfe. He tries to lure Brit into a trap, but the newsman stays one mental step ahead of him. This allows Britt to escape death and round up the bad guys—with a little “help” from the Green Hornet, of course.
Click HERE to listen or download.
A radio commentator who is threatening to expose the head of a black market ring is murdered. Brit Reid begins printing editorials about the black market soon after, earning him a spot on the gang’s hit list as well.
The gang leader is an interesting character—an enormously fat man who has a tendency to use multisyllabic words. Sort of an evil Nero Wolfe. He tries to lure Brit into a trap, but the newsman stays one mental step ahead of him. This allows Britt to escape death and round up the bad guys—with a little “help” from the Green Hornet, of course.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Friday's Favorite OTR
The Green Hornet: "Paroled for Revenge" 5/16/44
A racketeer is paroled from prison and immediately plans to take revenge on Britt Reid, the man who put him away. He's unaware, of course, that Reid is actually the Green Hornet.
But the racketeer and a couple of henchmen still manage to snatch and imprison Reid. Fortunately for our hero, his aide Kato keeps his head and manages to trail the bad guys to their hideout. This, combined with a lack of honor amongst thieves (one of them tries to sell out the others for some reward money) allows the Hornet and Kato to get the drop on them.
As is usual for the shows produced at WXYZ in Detroit (The Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon), this episode combines a strong script with great production values. It all adds up to a half-hour of fine storytelling.
This episode is available to hear or download HERE.
A racketeer is paroled from prison and immediately plans to take revenge on Britt Reid, the man who put him away. He's unaware, of course, that Reid is actually the Green Hornet.
But the racketeer and a couple of henchmen still manage to snatch and imprison Reid. Fortunately for our hero, his aide Kato keeps his head and manages to trail the bad guys to their hideout. This, combined with a lack of honor amongst thieves (one of them tries to sell out the others for some reward money) allows the Hornet and Kato to get the drop on them.
As is usual for the shows produced at WXYZ in Detroit (The Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon), this episode combines a strong script with great production values. It all adds up to a half-hour of fine storytelling.
This episode is available to hear or download HERE.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
You Gotta Respect the Cliffhanger
A lot of the old timey stuff I like is done in a cliffhanger format: multi-chapter serials in which each chapter ends at a tense or dramatic moment. Radio shows like The Adventures of Superman, I Love a Mystery and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar are good examples of this.
And, of course, there are the movie serials—a concept that goes back to the silent film days and ran into the 1950s before dying out. The movie serials ran anywhere from twelve to fifteen chapters. To see the whole thing, you had to go to the theater each Saturday, watching the next chapter as part of the Saturday matinee. A lot of the best serials--Superman, The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Zorro’s Fighting Legion, etc.—are available on DVD.
Now there is a proper way and an improper way to watch movie serials (or listen to radio serials, for that matter). You can’t watch more than one chapter per day. You can’t sit and watch the whole thing in one sitting. That partially spoils the experience and it simply isn’t done. Enjoying the pleasant suspense of a cliffhanger is half the fun. A little patience—a little self-control—and the entire experience becomes that much more enjoyable.
I had a birthday recently and got a copy of the 1940 serial The Green Hornet as a gift. It’s one of the better ones. The production values are good. There’s some really nifty looking car crashes and plane wrecks. The story is strong—each chapter, the Hornet is breaking up yet another racket run by a syndicate of mobsters (with the identity of the top mobster being kept secret). The Hornet’s car—the Black Beauty—is cool-looking, as is his custom-made gas gun. The Hornet is played by actor/stunt man Gordon Jones, but when he puts on his mask, his voice becomes that of Al Hodge—the actor who played the Hornet on radio. The fight scenes are energetic and nicely choreographed.
Keye Luke, best known as Charlie Chan’s number one son and later as Master Po in the Kung Fu tv series, is the Hornet’s Philippino valet Kato, the character responsible for souping up the Black Beauty and inventing the gas gun. He’s one of my favorite character actors from the 1930s & 1940s—always giving a personable performance.
So far, I’ve watched the first four episodes. The Hornet’s gotten the goods on a construction company using shoddy and unsafe materials and busted up a murder/insurance racket. He’s caught three of the bad guys, but they’ve either refused to squeel on the rest or been killed to insure their silence.
At the end of the fourth chapter, the Hornet is in an out-of-control car as it slams into a gas station. How will he survive? I’ll find out tomorrow, when I watch Chapter Five.
But not before then. I know the proper way to watch a serial, by golly.
When I was in Sudan on a short-term mission trip last May, I discovered that several of the full-time missionaries were hooked on the TV show Prison Break, which uses the serial format. They had the DVDs and would watch a whole bunch of episodes at one time.
I tried to explain the extraordinary wrongness of this—that they had to ration out the episodes and enjoy the suspense. But I couldn’t get them to listen. I even tried to convince them that there’s a verse in Leviticus that bans watching more than one episode a day, but they didn’t buy that.
Well, I know the proper way to watch a serial, even if the rest of the world doesn’t. One chapter a day. It’s the only way. Watch more than a chapter a day and you simply don’t go to Heaven when you die.
And, of course, there are the movie serials—a concept that goes back to the silent film days and ran into the 1950s before dying out. The movie serials ran anywhere from twelve to fifteen chapters. To see the whole thing, you had to go to the theater each Saturday, watching the next chapter as part of the Saturday matinee. A lot of the best serials--Superman, The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Zorro’s Fighting Legion, etc.—are available on DVD.
Now there is a proper way and an improper way to watch movie serials (or listen to radio serials, for that matter). You can’t watch more than one chapter per day. You can’t sit and watch the whole thing in one sitting. That partially spoils the experience and it simply isn’t done. Enjoying the pleasant suspense of a cliffhanger is half the fun. A little patience—a little self-control—and the entire experience becomes that much more enjoyable.
I had a birthday recently and got a copy of the 1940 serial The Green Hornet as a gift. It’s one of the better ones. The production values are good. There’s some really nifty looking car crashes and plane wrecks. The story is strong—each chapter, the Hornet is breaking up yet another racket run by a syndicate of mobsters (with the identity of the top mobster being kept secret). The Hornet’s car—the Black Beauty—is cool-looking, as is his custom-made gas gun. The Hornet is played by actor/stunt man Gordon Jones, but when he puts on his mask, his voice becomes that of Al Hodge—the actor who played the Hornet on radio. The fight scenes are energetic and nicely choreographed.
Keye Luke, best known as Charlie Chan’s number one son and later as Master Po in the Kung Fu tv series, is the Hornet’s Philippino valet Kato, the character responsible for souping up the Black Beauty and inventing the gas gun. He’s one of my favorite character actors from the 1930s & 1940s—always giving a personable performance.
So far, I’ve watched the first four episodes. The Hornet’s gotten the goods on a construction company using shoddy and unsafe materials and busted up a murder/insurance racket. He’s caught three of the bad guys, but they’ve either refused to squeel on the rest or been killed to insure their silence.
At the end of the fourth chapter, the Hornet is in an out-of-control car as it slams into a gas station. How will he survive? I’ll find out tomorrow, when I watch Chapter Five.
But not before then. I know the proper way to watch a serial, by golly.
When I was in Sudan on a short-term mission trip last May, I discovered that several of the full-time missionaries were hooked on the TV show Prison Break, which uses the serial format. They had the DVDs and would watch a whole bunch of episodes at one time.
I tried to explain the extraordinary wrongness of this—that they had to ration out the episodes and enjoy the suspense. But I couldn’t get them to listen. I even tried to convince them that there’s a verse in Leviticus that bans watching more than one episode a day, but they didn’t buy that.
Well, I know the proper way to watch a serial, even if the rest of the world doesn’t. One chapter a day. It’s the only way. Watch more than a chapter a day and you simply don’t go to Heaven when you die.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
