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Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

Episode 554 - Know When to Fold 'Em (Boston Blackie, Big Story, & Dragnet)

Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

Jack Mooney

Arts, Performing Arts, Mystery, Detectives, Old, Radio, Time, Tv & Film, Oldtimeradio

4.6982 Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2023

⏱️ 88 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ante up for three radio mysteries involving gamblers and the sometimes deadly bets they make. First, a pet shop owner is killed when he refuses to offer his store as a front for a gambling ring in Boston Blackie. Then, a real-life Chicago reporter cracks the case of a poker game that ends in murder on The Big Story (originally aired on NBC on April 4, 1951). And finally, Sgt. Joe Friday hunts for floating games in the City of Angels in "The Big Gamble" from Dragnet (originally aired on NBC on May 8, 1952).

Transcript

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0:00.0

Get this and get it straight.

0:02.0

Crime is a sucker's road,

0:04.0

and those who travel it'd wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave.

0:07.0

The story you're about to hear is true. The

0:12.5

The story you were about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

0:18.5

The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective.

0:21.5

The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize.

0:25.0

Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account.

0:30.0

America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator

0:33.2

yours truly Johnny Deller The Hello and welcome to down these mean streets with more old-time radio crime solvers. The detectives in this week's show are going to hope luck is on their

1:07.0

side. I've lined up three old time radio mysteries all involving gambling and gamblers.

1:15.0

First up today is Richard Kalmer as the man who's an enemy to those who make him an enemy and a friend to those who have no friend.

1:24.4

Gosh I kind of want to get that on a business card.

1:27.6

Anyway it's Boston Blackie and in this syndicated episode a man is murdered right in Blackie's apartment.

1:36.0

He's Joe Nelson, the proprietor of a pet shop who refused when a gambler wanted to use the store as a front.

1:44.0

Jan Minor plays Blackie's girlfriend Mary Wesley,

1:48.0

and will also hear Ed Begley,

1:50.0

a few years before he was Lieutenant Levinson on Richard Diamond playing the murdered man's

1:56.4

cousin.

1:58.1

In our second show today, we'll hear the tale of a real life reporter dramatized for radio in the big story.

2:06.7

Each episode of this series ripped a story from the headlines and detailed how a reporter

2:12.3

dug up the facts.

...

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