Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 271 – Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper

01/24/17 • 35 min

This podcast offering is only tangentially a detective story of sorts. It does involve investigations by individuals, potential suspects, potential crimes, and a resolution of sorts. And like many of my features, it comes based upon a short story. The story is from the sometimes strange mind of writer Robert Bloch. Bloch is probably best known among the public at large as the writer of the story upon which the classic Hitchcock film, Psycho, is based.

In 1943 Bloch published “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” one of the author’s first unique stories and not an imitation of H.P. Lovecraft, whom he had admired since before his writing days. Previously, his stories were mostly imitations of Lovecraft’s style.

In 1945, the story was adapted and aired over the Molle Mystery Theater, but like much of this series audio, it is only available via the Armed Forces Radio’s Mystery Playhouse. The adaptation is relatively faithful for the first 20 minutes, then creates a completely different final scene to end it. Unfortunately, if you have read the original story which appeared in Weird Tales in July 1943, there is a sort of third act to this story and possibly the best written scene in the whole story, in my opinion. The third major scene takes place in a seedy bar on a cold, foggy November night in Chicago’s south side, wonderfully described by author Bloch. You can read the original story online by going to the link below.

Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper in Weird Tales

The music under is from the series Twin Peaks and is written by Angelo Badalamenti called “Fire Walk With Me”

Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper in Weird Tales

The music under is from the series Twin Peaks and is written by Angelo Badalamenti called “Fire Walk With Me”

Previous Episode

Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 270 – The Man in the Velvet Hat

In the introduction to Jerome and Harold Prince’s first detective short story, editors Ellery Queen called the piece a “strange, strange story.” The story was called “The Man in the Velvet Hat” and it became the best known of the writing duo who continued to publish occasionally in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

In the introduction, the authors wrote to the editor: “...we think we owe a good deal to the motion picture. For the motion picture is able to create a mood of unreal reality by means of quick, sharp, shifting images (rapid cross-cutting). We have utilized the same technique.”
Ellery Queen added “Slowly, increasingly, inexorably, this frankly experimental technique will get under your skin, and in the end you will possess and be possessed with such a long lingering memory of the man in the velvet hat.”

In 1944, the story was adapted for radio for the Molle’ Mystery Theater via the Mutual Broadcasting System. That original episode is not available, but it was captured via the Armed Forces Service for its Mystery Playhouse. The version attempts to catch some of the style created by the authors by being rather fast paced trying to squeeze the overall plot within a 30 minute timeframe. The host of the Molle Mystery Theater was Bernard Lenrow (left) who portrayed Geoffrey Barnes. You won’t hear him in this episode, but he remained host for a few years.

Music under is “Blind” performed by Train.

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Radio Detective Story Hour Episode 272 – The Thimble

Eleazar Lipsky was a lawyer and prosecutor in the Bronx and Manhattan until his death in 1993. In the 1940s he turned to writing novels and plays while maintaining his legal work. It was natural that most of his stories revolved around the courtroom and investigative attorneys. Probably his most famous novel was originally based upon a 100 page manuscript which became a film noir called Kiss of Death starring Victor Mature.

Lipsky wrote a number of other stories including a detective story centered around an investigator in The People Against O’Hara, which also became a film starring Spencer Tracy. Nearing the end of its long run on radio, the thriller series Suspense adapted a story by Lipsky called “The Thimble.” The story was adapted by Allan Sloane who went on to write extremely sensitive scripts for television earning him several Emmys and Peabody awards.

Given that this script came from a medium that was in its death throes in 1959, it is fast paced and holds listeners in leading up to the crime resolution. The District Attorney was played by Whitfield Connor, whose authoritarian voice works well in this story.

The radio play has a somewhat surprising ending on how the crime is committed.

Music under is created and performed by Oskar Schuster