Ellery Queen's radio plays - page 8

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Season 5 (2/2)
*The Adventures of Ellery Queen* CBS Anacin Wednesdays 7:30 - 8:00 pm 1945 (211-239) Producer/Director: Bob Steel Announcer: Don Hancock Scripts: Frederic Dannay (Anthony Boucher), Manfred B. Lee Stars: Sydney Smith (Ellery), Santos Ortega (Inspector Queen), Ted de Corsia (Velie), Barbara Terrell / Gertrude Warner beginning 7-25-45 (Nikki Porter)
The Saint owed it's debut over Radio to the extraordinary success of the Ellery Queen franchise. Ellery Queen had become so popular over Radio that it priced itself out of a sponsor. Emerson Drug, the maker of Bromo-Seltzer, decided that it would be more economical for them to abandon their Ellery Queen sponsorship over NBC and inaugurate a new series at a much lower cost. And so it was that Emerson Drug, Leslie Charteris, and producer/agent James Saphier brought the package to air over NBC for a three-month run between January and April 1945. So after 3 weeks the EQ series returned with a new sponsor, a new network, a new evening and a new Nikki (Barbara Terrell)
211*	"The Diamond Fence" 01-24-45 :30:00* An AFRS Mystery Playhouse program "The Diamond Fence" Sneak preview at the end of a program exists Guest Armchair Detective: Janet Blair (actress) Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 11-26-54 (Episode 20) A composer who thinks he's a second Gershwin, a once-famous radio singer and a notorious "fence" for whom all New York is searching figures in the mystery that takes place in a shabby rooming house in Greenwich Village. "Ellery Queen" program shifted webs and sponsors Wed. (24) going from NBC to CBS and from BromoSeltzer to Anacin. On an average, it's certainly one of the top whodunits and probably the most cerebral, keeping the "let's think this out '' flavor projected by Fred Dannay and Manfred Lee, creators of the character, in their books and short stories. That didn't stop last week's show from falling below par, not only in that the guilty character was fairly obvious, but the clue was one which stuck out midway, thereby actually obviating the need for the rest of the show. As a production, it's a pip of a job, even though Sidney Smith (Ellery) doesn't come over with the necessary incisiveness. Santos Ortega and Ted de Corsia, as the crotchety inspector and the dumb police sergeant, are excellent. New femme lead, replacing Marion Shockley, is Barbara Terrell, part being built up on her romance with Ellery. (Variety, Wednesday January 31. 1945)
212*	"The Seven Thousand Victims" 01-31-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: George Givot (actor) An American Army transport carrying 7,000 wounded G.I.'s back home, runs into a dirty sea and, a bad night. Suddenly the beam of an isolated lighthouse blinks off and stays off.
213*	"The Lost Card" 02-07-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Dean F.Willey (railroad executive) Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 02-25-55 (Episode 33) A sinister murder mystery shocks passengers in a sleeping car of a train speeding from Boston to New York. The problem to be solved centers on a card-sharper, who discloses the identity of a murderer by hiding a card up his sleeve the card used to play his last trick. (The ABC Weekly)
214*	"The Wine Machine" 02-14-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Howard W. Blakeslee (science editor) Mr.Blakeslee had no trouble solving the case. Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 03-18-55 (Episode 36) One of Ellery Queen's oddest adventures. Here is a scientist with a machine which will turn young raw wine into a fully matured vintage wine of the best quality - all in a matter of seconds! However at a demonstration of this alleged miracle, a young woman drinks a glass of the treated wine, and falls dead - poisoned! (The ABC Weekly)
215*	"The Crime in the Snow" 02-21-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Ted Husing (radio sports commentator) and Tim Cohane (sports editor) Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 04-08-55 (Episode 39) Nikki Porter, accepts Ellery's invitation to spend a week- end at the ski lodge.
216*	"The Secret Weapon" 02-28-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: H.W. (Tex) Roden (mystery writer) Story of enemy sabotage in war plant.

Left: Ellery Queen, the noted amateur detective presents his weekly whodunit, introduces each week a prominent guest detective, flabbergasts everybody. It may seem hard to you but the master sleuth always comes through with a neat answer in The Adventures of Ellery Queen (Add March 1945).

217*	"The Rare Stamp" 03-07-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Dick Powell (actor) The story is about the mysterious circumstances that surround the life of a retired judge and his valuable rare stamp collection. Queen steps in when the judge receives a death-threat note and a warning shot on his life.
218*	"The Poisoned Slipper" 03-14-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Earl Wilson (Broadway night-life columnist for The New York Post and coast-to-coast newspapers, and author of the new book, I Am Gazing Into My 8-Ball.) Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 10-15-54 (Episode 14) "The Needle Hole Mystery" aka "The Poisoned Slipper". A New York newspaper's city editor gets murdered in the papers busy newsroom. I suppose you want to know how I happened to pick the murderer correctly when I was guest detective on the Ellery Queen* broadcast last night. I* guessed the answer, that's all, just guessed it! The program has two broadcasts, one for the East at 7:30, one for the West at 12:30. Guest detectives who appear at 12:30 could be sure to get the answer right merely by listening to the solution on the 7:30 show. But here's a funny thing. Most of those at 12:30 get the answer wrong: there too honest to listen at 7:30. Everybody's getting so honest it's sickening. (Earl Wilson, New York Post, Thursday March 15. 1945)
219*	"The Sword of Damocles" 03-21-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Milo Boulton (radio host of We, the People) Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 09-17-54 (Episode 10) Ellery pits his wits against an invisible killer in this murder mystery and both wins and loses. An octogenarian art collector suddenly turns from the old masters and rare books to something that might appeal to kids - a collection of historic weapons and instruments of torture. He gets a great kick of it until he finds that someone is using his collection of lethal instruments to set death traps for him. (Chesterfield Cigarettes Presents) Music that Satisfies was a 15-minute radio program that was broadcast two times a week. The Music that Satisfies Ellery Queen was on the radio the same day as a regular radio play (Mar 21. 1945).
220*	"The Red Death" 03-28-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Jane Wyatt (actress) Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 01-28-55 (Episode 29) The story of a killer horse in a big-time rodeo... a sort of ether wave "Thunderhead" The mystery concerns horses, in a big-time rodeo. A four-legged killer, the Red Death, is in the spotlight. But after a man's life has been ticked off in a matter of seconds, Ellery finds the real killer - and he doesn't wear a saddle. (The ABC Weekly) Guest armchair detective is Jane Wyatt, screen and stage star currently appearing with Franchot Tone on Broadway in Hope for the Best. She'll be given 30 seconds in which to solve the mystery. Less than 20 per cent of the visiting sleuths guess the right answers. (Albany N.Y. Newspaper, Mar 28, 1945)
221*	"The Lucky Sailor" 04-04-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: F. Beverley Kelley (publicity director for Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus) Love story about a WAC and a sailor, which weave in the mystery of a hidden treasure of $35,000. Clues tattooed on a sailor lead Ellery to a pair of dice and a mysterious tombstone.
222*	"The Musical Murder" 04-11-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Anne Fromer (managing editor of Magazine Digest) Ellery Queen finds himself up to his neck in a feud among song writers. There is a fascinating musical surprise clue.
223*	"The Crime that wasn't Possible" 04-18-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Monroe Wheeler (director of exhibitions of Museum of Modern Art in New York, art critic/book designer) A bold thief announces that he'll steal a priceless masterpiece from a well-guarded art museum on a certain day and then carries out his threat.

Program of 4-25 Pre-empted by a United Nations special on the San Francisco conference of the U.N. with President's Truman speech in the plenary session. Postponed until 05-16-45 in several regions.

224*	"The Key to the Mystery" 05-02-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Jo-Carroll Dennison (Miss America of 1943, actress) Ellery helps a glamorous movie star when an anonymous blackmailer threatens to go public with an old film unless she pays him off.
225*	"The Murdered Moths" 05-09-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Jack Gaver (author, United Press columnist) A young man just returned from the war and a hoped-for wedding. Nikki would like it to be two weddings. Ellery, however, is more interested in the clue of the dead moths.
226*	"The Dangerous Race" 05-16-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Orlo Robertson (Associated Press general sports editor) (Initially Orlo was scheduled for 4-25) Ellery encounters murder at the racetrack while trying to protect a valuable horse.
227*	"The Man in the Pillbox" 05-23-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Ted R. Gamble (national director, war finance division of U.S. treasury department) The show opens with a shot interrupting a tender love scene as master sleuth Ellery Queen and his sweetheart-secretary, Nikki Porter, are drifting lazily on a peaceful lake. The bullet comes from a weird-looking structure, resembling a pillbox, on a little island. The big "why" which needs explanation in this crime teaser, is why a man should shut himself in a veritable fortress and shoot at strangers.
228*	"The Runaway Husband" 05-30-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: James Montgomery Flagg (painter and magazine illustrator) A man who runs a model agency disappears.
229*	"The Iron Woman" 06-06-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Annamary Dickey (Metropolitan Opera Star) When a socialite sportswoman finds herself the victim of a series of diabolically planned sports accidents.
230*	"The Corpse of Mr. Entwhistle" 06-13-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Gladys Swarthout (mezzo-soprano of the Metropolitan Opera, who will appeal for support of the 7th War Loan.) Repeat performance guest: Ted R. Gamble (national director, war finance division of U.S. treasury department) Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 05-06-55 (Episode 43) as "The Case of Entwhistle" A newspaperwoman finds a professional blackmailer Ezra Entwhistle in his soundproof office with three bullets in his body, one on top of the other.
	This episode marks the beginning of the collaboration with Anthony Boucher
231*	"The Absent Automatic" 06-20-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Colonel Joseph S.Snyder (executive officer of Camp Kilmer of New York Port of Debarkation) Repeat performance guest: Joan Tetzel (actress) Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 04-29-55 (Episode 42) as "The Absent Automatic" aka "The Missing Automatic" A Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer finds threatening notes in his mailbox. Later he comes back claiming he's just kidding his jealous secretary, who was about to shoot him. Ellery arrives and finds neither the gun nor the alleged threatening letters.
232*	"Mr. One and Mr. Two" aka "Mr.1 and Mr. 2" 06-27-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Bennett Cerf (publisher president of Random House and author of the bestseller Try and Stop Me) Repeat performance guest: Victor Moore (actor) A reclusive millionaire asks Ellery to find out which of the two men who have shown up on his doorstep really is his son, who ran away thirty years earlier.
233*	"Nikki's Rich Uncle" 07-04-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: George Frazier (magazine editor) Nikki is suspected of murdering the man who claimed to be her wealthy uncle. Ellery to the rescue!
234*	"The Shipyard Racket" 07-11-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: George Lait (International News Service war correspondent, and one of the chief technical advisers on the Ernie Pyle movie, The Story of G.I. Joe) A vicious and nefarious character starts an unpatriotic racket in the Herndon Shipyard. The new personnel manager tackles the mystery - but without success. In fact, before he really gets started tracking down the villain, three bullets get in his way, and Ellery Queen steps in. Together with his sweetheart-secretary Nikki Porter, the master detective starts digging for clues. But the deeper they dig and the more they unearth, the deeper the mystery and the greater the danger. The plot thickens when Nikki is abducted, and Ellery finds himself with one secretary less - but one clue more.
235*	"The Gentleman Burglar" 07-18-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Wendy Barrie (actress), Fred Uttal (radio quizmaster) The master detective himself turns thief! Browbeaten into this unorthodox role by Nikki Porter, slick sleuth Ellery skates on thin ice. The problem, as Ellery sees it, is to figure out the combination of Keats Talbot's safe. But when het turns up with Sergeant Velie to burgle the private vault without telling Velie what he's up to Queen's troubles double.

Gertrude Warner takes over as Nikki Porter

236*	"The Torture Victim" 07-25-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Julie Gibson (actress, singer) Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 06-24-55 (Episode 50) A sheet is found with the baffling message "They're Torturing me" written in blood. The mysterious disappearance of the body of Herbert Frink poses the problem Mr. Hall is to help Ellery Queen solve. A building containing forty flats is sealed off by the police. Everybody in it is checked. Finally, a body is found. But Ellery proves that this is not the body of Herbert Frink. Yet Herbert Frink's body is still in the building. Where? (The ABC Weekly)
237*	"Nick the Knife" 08-01-45 :30:00* Written by Manfred B.Lee & Anthony Boucher This script was penned by Anthony Boucher who later re-worked the beginning of this story in an episode of the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes called "(The Strange Case Of) The Murder In Wax". Guest Armchair Detective: Gertrude Niesen (Broadway actress from the Broadway musical Follow the Girls) Repeat performance guest: Thomas Lockhart (coast guardsman) preserved as Mystery Playhouse (Armed Forces Radio Services) episode. Repeated on 04-15-48 as "The Slicer" (Episode 349) Part of a series of EQ episodes to be restaged with Australian actors and local commercials. Airdate 10-01-54 (Episode 12) Private Sleuth Ellery Queen herewith grapples with one his grimmest crime cases. Death stalks the lonely streets of New York, as a mysterious prowler lies in wait to attack an kill pretty young girls. The victim all suffer the same fate. Their faces and wrists are slashed with a knife. The reign of terror lasts seven months, while the killer evades the police. Who is "Nick the Knife," as the newspapers call the invisible marauder? Ellery and his winsome secretary, Nikki Porter, set a trap for the murderous criminal, and before Ellery is through, he uses Nikki as live bait.
238*	"The Clue in C Major" 08-08-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Evelyn Keyes (actress in One Thousand and One lights) Ellery and Nikki are weekend guests in an eccentric French composer's Connecticut home. Murder follows...
239*	"The Time of Death" 08-15-45 :30:00* Guest Armchair Detective: Sally Eilers (actress to make her Broadway debut in the new show Make Yourself at Home", an Academy Award winner for her performance in Bad Girl, and a singing and dancing star who started in films as a bit player. She has starred in Dry Martini, She Couldn't Say No, Sailor's Holiday, Doughboy and Strike Me Pink.) A mystery involving a couple of million dollars and a couple of killers. The master detective and his secretary, Nikki Porter, attempt to save Joseph Triton from an untimely death, and meet up with one of the most incredible families on record a family of murderers.

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