SCRIPTS REDUX PART 2

YESTERDAY, WE LEARNED OF A RECYCLED SCRIPT going from play to movie to Broadway musical to movie of the musical. Today, the recycling continues, even to including an original author again. 

The Tears of Recycling. Old-time radio scripts got recycled as a routine, even more common than rerunning programs. Sometimes titles were retained—but not always. 

Image from radiospirits.com.

For example, an episode of Jeff Regan Investigator, “The Diamond Quartet,” was broadcast on August 14, 1948. Jeff, aka “The Lyon’s Eye,” was one of Jack Webb’s pre-Dragnet endeavors, others being Johnny Madero, Pier 23 and Pat Novak For Hire.

The Diamond Quartet is a fabulous necklace owned by a woman termed in that era “highly strung.” (No pun intended.) Jeff has to contend with an evil jeweler and a crooked but cordial casino mobster.

“The Diamond Quartet” comes to us courtesy of YouTube.

By the way, the cordial mobster sure sounds like Bill Conrad, best known as Matt Dillion on Gunsmoke and a familiar voice on CBS radio. Occasionally jumping ship to other networks, Conrad occasionally used the moniker Julies Krelboyne.

In less than a year, “The Diamond Quartet” script got recycled into “The Tears of Night Caper,” July 24, 1949, in which Sam Spade encountered a similarly highly-strung woman (albeit differently named) and the same plot. 

Having “good legs,” the script returned again as a five-episode “The Tears of Night Matter,” mid-May 1956, on Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. For the flavor of this recounting, check out the third episode of the priceless necklace, the jeweler, the casino mobster, and the lady, still highly-strung. 

The variations are all good fun, respectively displaying the shamus talents of Regan, Spade, and Dollar. 

Where Do Those Spectacles Lead? I’ve noted that Paul Temple is “My Favorite English Detective” (as opposed to the tantalizingly real Sherlock Holmes). Paul and his wife Steve (her moniker from Fleet Street days) are the products of Francis Durbridge, English mystery writer, novelist, and playwright. 

Durbridge was not averse to recycling, but in an interesting variation: radio drama to novelization to radio rendition. Wikipedia gives details. The original Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery was broadcast over eight episodes December 1, 1947, to January 19, 1948. In those days, Paul was portrayed by Kim Peacock; wife Steve by Marjorie Westbury (who continued in the role for years).

Sullivan Mystery is a ripping good tale beginning with a BOAC flying boat to Cairo with a stopover in Aosta, Italy. Returning a pair of Richard Sullivan’s spectacles is the challenge, with competing villains, murders, and the usual Temple highjinks. As Paul would say, “By Timothy!”

Not uncommon for the series, Durbridge co-authored a (much-revised) novelization Paul Temple: East of Algiers, 1959. This time around, the spectacles are being taken to David Foster in Tunis, not to Richard Sullivan in Cairo. And Aosta complexities are replaced by Parisian skullduggery. 

Bringing matters up to date, Paul Temple and the Sullivan Mystery got an eight-episode audio redo August 7-October 2, 2006. By this time, Paul’s voice was rendered by Crawford Logan; Steve’s, by Gerda Stevenson. 

There’s also an audio CD of East of Algiers read by Anthony Head. (He has other Temples as well.)

You’ll understand that whereas I have both recent renditions on CD, I don’t listen to them without a Temple break in between. Just whose spectacles are those anyway? ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2023