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![]() are considerably vexed by the history of what happened to "The Adventures of Ellery Queen" radio series after it went commercial and came under the domination of an advertising agency. They pointed to the case as confirmation of the fact, that advertising men can deflate a good literary property and then pass the resultant black eye to the creative people. It was supposedly dropped by Gulf rated as something of a flop, with it chances of finding a new sponsor not too bright. The authors pointed out bitterly that two basic changes were made immediately and others were imposed later. First, the show was cut to 30 minutes, although the authors say, by every rule of professional judgment, the development of the literary formula required the full hour. Second, the deft direction of George Zachary, who fostered the show at CBS and put it across, was tossed away, the writers think, solely because he was not a Young & Rubicam man. He was retained on the payroll because he was part of the package price, but largely to twiddle his thumbs and eat his heart. Several agencies got some backwash from all authors big enough or daring enough to assert themselves against being smothered by an agency conference system or kicked around by newcomers who had nothing to do with the creation of the program. |
Dannay had a near fatal accident in 1940 but despite all this they restarted to produce a radio script a week. |
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Fred not only compiled his anthology 101 Years' Entertainment but also launched EQMM (Fall 1941). |
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![]() Above Left to Right: "Ellery Queen meets the critics". Howard Haycraft, Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee), Basil Davenport, and Granville Hicks. |
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After the CBS reign the cousins returned to the prose and wrote Calamity Town (1942). After which they started to diversify. The reason being (one of their best works till date) Calamity Town was rejected for prepublication in a national magazine. So they decided it wise not to put all the eggs in one basket. By that time Ellery went to the movies but Dannay described them quiet rightful as "...each one more dreadful than the other...". They had much more control over their product in radio and frankly more luck...their agent was instructed to look for a network and sponsor. |
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Season 2 The Adventures of Ellery Queen ![]() NBC Bromo-Seltzer Thursdays 9:30 - 10:00 pm 1942 (68-93) ![]() Producer/Director: George Zachary - Knowles Entriken Announcer: Ernest Chappell (right) Scripts: Frederic Dannay, Manfred B. Lee Music: Charles Paul, organist Stars: Carleton Young (Ellery), Santos Ortega (Inspector Queen), Ted de Corsia (Velie), Marion Shockley (Nikki Porter). |
![]() ![]() Above left: Hugh Marlowe and Marian Shockley Above right: Inspector Queen turns the tables. Ellery Queen, Columbia's master of mysteries, and Nikki listen to Inspector Queen. Usually Ellery's father finds it difficult to get in a word when the youngsters are in action. This time, they are not only listening but positively concentrating. ![]() coinciding with the last broadcast of the series. During the next three months of he and Dannay worked on There was an Old Woman. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Meanwhile on December 16, 1942 it was announced (Variety) that Manfred and Fred may do a special series for the Government on the subject of security of war information. They conferred with George Zachary, radio production head of the Office of War information who had left the Ellery Queen show. They would keep control over the plots and only some slogans were added by the Office. Tom, Dick and Harry or the Adventure Of The Murdered Ship (EQMM, 7/43) is by no means the best example of a Queen story but it does show the format of the radio plays and, like no other radio drama the influence of the Office. In ![]()
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Season 3 The Adventures of Ellery Queen ![]() NBC Bromo-Seltzer Thursdays 9:30 - 10:00 pm 1942 - 1943 (94-145) East Coast version aired Saturdays 7:30 - 8:00 pm Producer/Director: Knowles Entriken, Bruce Kamman Announcer: Ernest Chappell Stand-by Announcer: Ben Grauer Scripts: Frederic Dannay, Manfred B. Lee Music: Charles Paul, organist Stars: Carleton Young (Ellery), Santos Ortega (Inspector Queen), Ted de Corsia (Velie), Marion Shockley , Helen Lewis for nine weeks starting Sep 1943 (Nikki Porter). |
![]() ![]() Above left: Sydney Smith. Above right: Marian Shockley, actress heard as Nikki Porter on NBC Ellery Queen. NBC photo is marked 3/18/42 included text: "SCREAM TEST: screaming technique is part of the necessary equipment for Marian Shockley". |
Season 4 The Adventures of Ellery Queen ![]() NBC Bromo-Seltzer Thursdays 9:30 - 10:00 pm 1943 - 1944 (146-197) East Coast version aired Saturdays 7:30 - 8:00 pm Producer/Director: Bruce Kamman / Bill Tuttle / Bob Steel Announcer: Ernest Chappell Scripts: Frederic Dannay, Manfred B. Lee Music: Charles Paul, organist Stars: Sydney Smith (Ellery), Santos Ortega (Inspector Queen), Ted de Corsia (Velie), Helen Lewis 5 episodes / Marion Shockley (restarting 11/11/43) (Nikki Porter) |
![]() they earned $50,000 per year most of which through the radio adventures which were heard by more than fifteen million listeners every week! In 1943 some reruns were scheduled and the cousins used their time to write The Murderer is a Fox . Enter Sydney Smith as Ellery Queen which kept the role for almost four years. As a gimmick NBC kept his identity a secret. As did Hugh ![]() |
Season 5 The Adventures of Ellery Queen ![]() NBC Bromo-Seltzer Thursdays 9:30 - 10:00 pm 1944 (198-210) East Coast version aired Saturdays 7:30 - 8:00 pm Producer/Director: Bob Steel Announcer: Ernest Chappell Scripts: Frederic Dannay, Manfred B. Lee Music: Charles Paul, organist Stars: Sydney Smith (Ellery), Santos Ortega (Inspector Queen), Ted de Corsia (Velie), Marion Shockley (Nikki Porter). |
![]() himself. Among the dramatic cast was Santos Ortega (1944-47). On Sunday January 21. 1944, it had (Sydney Smith) Ellery Queen as guest. ![]() |
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) |
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Season 6 The Adventures of Ellery Queen ![]() CBS Anacin Wednesdays 7:30 - 8:00 pm 1945 - 1946 (240-291) 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), Gertrude Warner /Charlotte Keane beginning mid-July 1946 (Nikki Porter) |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Above left: Gertrude Warner, (a hidden) "Ellery Queen" and Santos Ortega in the studio (11-1945) Above right: Warren Hull, Parks Johnson (When the Vox Poppers were armchair detectives) and Charlotte Keane before the CBS mike, (August 21 1946). |
Season
7 The Adventures of Ellery Queen ![]() CBS Anacin Wednesdays 7:30 - 8:00 pm 1946 - 1947 (292-318) Producer/Director: Bob Steel Announcer: Don Hancock Scripts: Anthony Boucher, Manfred B. Lee, Tom Everitt Stars: Sydney Smith / Richard Coogan / Lawrence Dobkin (Ellery), Santos Ortega / Bill Smith (Inspector Queen), Ted de Corsia / Ed Latimer (Velie), Charlotte Keane (Nikki Porter) |
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Season 8 The Adventures of Ellery Queen ![]() NBC Anacin Sundays 6:30 - 7:00 pm 1947 (319-328) Producer/Director: Tom Victor Announcer: Don Hancock Scripts: Anthony Boucher, Manfred B. Lee, Tom Everitt Music: Chet Kingsbury, Organist Stars: Lawrence Dobkin (Ellery), Bill Smith (Inspector Queen), Ed Latimer / George Mathews (Velie), Charlotte Keane (Nikki Porter) Show moves to Hollywood
The Adventures of Ellery Queen
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After the last episode of Season 8 Ellery Queen left the airwaves (05-27-48). For completeness, we would also like to mention that some sources also specified William P. Rousseau as director for Ellery Queen. However, we could not confirm this to date.
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Australian episodes The Adventures of Ellery Queen ![]() Grace Gibson Radio productions Fridays 7:30 - 8:00 pm 1954-1955 (1-52) Director: John Saul ... Stars: Charles Tingwell (EQ), Wendy Playfair (Nikki), Harp McGuire (RQ/../EQ), Nigel Lovell (Velie) |
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The following "Queen radio products" we only mention to be complete but in
essence the radio story ends here, fortunately by that time television had
began to show interest (1951).![]() |
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During the sixties the cousins rented their
hero for use in this syndicated package of 100 (silly) one-minute-mysteries.
None of them
with any involvement of Lee or Dannay. Most of these episodes seem to have survived. |
Ellery Queen's Minute Mysteries ![]() (Syndicated) ![]() Bill Owen played the role of Ellery. No less than 520 one minute long mysteries were produced by Creative Marketing & Communications, Cincinnati, Ohio and issued on a reel-to-reel format. Set 1: November 1965 (episode 1-130) Set 2: April 1966 (episode 131-259) Set 3: September 1966 (episode 260-390) Set 4: February 1967 (episode 391-520) |
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After the decline of OTR it seemed this kind of
entertainment was lost for mass audiences. This still seems true till this
day although some kind of revival is seen in re-enactment of old OTR
scripts. This is the case for Ellery Queen in both
Above right: "...Cast members, directed by Sharon Wood, are Brian Bevacqua,Mary Carter, Mike Grace,Kara Lee, Meredith Lewko, Scott Magnuson, Stan Marro, Eric Peirce, Julie Richardson, Arthur Vidro and Dori Yacono." |
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Dutch radioplays ![]() "We heard all about the American radio plays... but is there anything in the Dutch language?" I hear my fellow countrymen think... Although I found evidence (see below) short wave radio brought at least some of the early hour-long radio episodes to the European listener (W2XE from New York), I think it's safe to say it's doubtful all episodes were broadcasted as such and even more doubtful the program was popular in Europe.
In Belgium Bert Janssens made a radio play based on "The Adventure of the Seven Black Cats" (1934). The translation by Herman Niels was broadcast via NIR on Thursday April 3. 1947 as "Zeven Zwarte Katten". On March 7.1954 a single broadcast on AVRO brought a radio play based on the short-story "The Lamp of God". This broadcast was the main event of a full evening program Radioscoop and was titled "Het Huis in de Wildernis" (aka "The House in the Wildenness"). It was repeated on Sep 26. 1960.
Finally
Léon Povel and
Willem Tollenaar directed a KRO
radio play The Glass Village
(Het Glazen
Dorp) broadcast in four
episodes in January of 1961.
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References
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Introduction |
Floor Plan | Q.B.I. |
List of Suspects | Whodunit?
| Q.E.D. | Kill as
directed | New |
Copyright![]() Copyright © MCMXCIX-MMXXIV Ellery Queen, a website on deduction. All rights reserved. |