TV Review: Front Page Detective This series was broadcast on the DuMont Network from 1951-1952, starring Edmund Lowe as David Chase. Mr. Chase was a newspaper columnist in the style of Walter Winchell, seeking interesting tidbits of news and gossip, with many people sending him items. Often, his column or his investigative activities involved him… Continue reading TV Review: Front Page Detective
Category: TV
TV Review: The Court of Last Resort
TV Review: The Court of Last Resort In 1948, seven lawyers, including Erle Stanley Gardner, the author of the Perry Mason series, formed a group called “The Court of Last Resort.” They investigated convictions that seemed to have irregularities, to see if the accused had actually committed the crime, much like the modern “Project Innocence.” Mr.… Continue reading TV Review: The Court of Last Resort
TV Review: The Cases of Eddie Drake/Code 3
TV Review: The Cases of Eddie Drake/Code 3 The Cases of Eddie Drake was a private eye series broadcast on the DuMont network in 1952. The framing device was that psychiatrist Dr. Karen Gayle (Patricia Morison) was writing a book on criminal psychology, and paid Eddie Drake (Don Haggerty) to tell her about his cases.… Continue reading TV Review: The Cases of Eddie Drake/Code 3
TV Review: Bulldog Drummond & Burke’s Law
TV Review: Bulldog Drummond & Burke’s Law A couple more episodes from my DVD collection. Bulldog Drummond was created by H.C. “Sapper” McNeile in 1920, after a prototype police officer version failed to get traction. Mr. Drummond was an independently wealthy gentleman adventurer and veteran of World War One who got bored and put out… Continue reading TV Review: Bulldog Drummond & Burke’s Law
TV Review: Alfred Hitchcock Presents
TV Review: Alfred Hitchcock Presents This half-hour anthology program ran from 1955-1962, when it was replaced by The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. The series concentrated on suspense stories, with rare supernatural elements (and even these usually explained by the end of the story.) Mr. Hitchcock himself would appear as the host to introduce the episode, crack a… Continue reading TV Review: Alfred Hitchcock Presents
TV Review: The Adventures of Ellery Queen–The Hanged Acrobat
TV Review: The Adventures of Ellery Queen–The Hanged Acrobat Ellery Queen was the pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, and also the main character of their long-running mystery series. He was an intellectual, and a bit of a snob, who often helped his father, a New York City police inspector, solve murders. The… Continue reading TV Review: The Adventures of Ellery Queen–The Hanged Acrobat
TV Review: The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu
TV Review: The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu Fu Manchu is the greatest of the Yellow Peril villains, created during a time period when it was believed that “sinister Chinamen” plotted to overthrow the Western nations and bring the world under Asiatic control. The first Sax Rohmer Fu Manchu novel, The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, was published… Continue reading TV Review: The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu
TV Review: Bonanza
TV Review: Bonanza I recently watched a dozen episodes of this classic Western series (1959-1973) on a Mill Creek discount DVD release. Apparently, some episodes from the first two seasons have fallen into the public domain. But not the music, so the evocative opening theme was dubbed over with twangy generic “Western” music. Ben Cartwright… Continue reading TV Review: Bonanza
TV Review: Northwest Passage
TV Review: Northwest Passage This 1958 television series is set during the French & Indian War (1756-1763). A Colonial militia named Roger’s Rangers battle the perfidious French and their Native American allies in what later became upstate New York and Quebec. Both this series and the 1940 movie were based on a 1937 novel. (The… Continue reading TV Review: Northwest Passage
TV Review: The Adventures of Jim Bowie
TV Review: The Adventures of Jim Bowie I watched several episodes of this 1950s television show via a Mill Creek DVD. As you might have guessed, this series is a heavily fictionalized story about the famous land speculator and knife fighter, Jim Bowie, popularizer of the blade that bears his name. The series is primarily… Continue reading TV Review: The Adventures of Jim Bowie