Sun 19 Apr 2020
A PI Television Episode Review: MARTIN KANE, PRIVATE EYE “Black Pearls” (1952).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[8] Comments
MARTIN KANE, PRIVATE EYE “Black Pearls.†NBC, 27 March 1952 (Season 3, Episode 27). Lloyd Nolan as Martin Kane, Walter Kinsella, King Calder. Guest Cast: Mary Alice Moore, Edith King, Eugene Baxter, Richard Purdy. Writer: Donald S. Sanford. Director: Frank Burns.
Martin Kane, Private Eye, starring William Gargan, started on radio for Mutual on August 7, 1949, then began on TV for NBC on September 1, 1949. When the radio show moved to NBC on July 1, 1951, Lloyd Nolan took over the title role for a year on both radio and TV. Lee Tracy followed up on the radio version until the end of its radio run on December 21, 1952.
Following Lloyd Nolan on the television series were both Tracy and Mark Stevens. The last TV episode was June 17, 1954. (I hope I have all these dates, networks, and actors correct. It got a little complicated on me.)
I remember the radio show when it was on Mutual. As I recall, it was on Sunday afternoon, just before The Shadow. I never saw any examples of the television version until just now, and I wasn’t impressed. Even though it was state of the art the time, it was cheaply produced, and I somehow found it doubly so by the inclusion of the sponsor’s ads (Sano cigarettes and a couple brands of pipe tobacco) right into the program itself.
Nor was the story anything for anyone involved to feel especially proud about. Kane is sent $500 in cash to come disguised as a news reporter to a yacht in the Florida Keys. The note is unsigned, but the money is good. Not surprisingly, the only reason he’s brought on board to to be the fall guy in a frame-up in a case of murder and stolen pearls. What was interesting was how one of those new cameras that not only take photos but also develop them internally is involved.
There is some effort by the part of the screenwriter to make all four people on board look as guilty as possible, but in at least one case, the plot he/she/they had in mind in never followed up on. I usually like Lloyd in either the movies or on TV, but in this particular instance he flubs his lines rather noticeably two or three times. All in all, Martin Kane, Private Eye was not one of the gems of the Golden Age of Television.
April 19th, 2020 at 12:12 pm
Bill Gargan was brought back a few years later for The New Adventures of Martin Kane produced by Ziv and filmed in Europe.
I did not relate to Martin Kane in any of its permutations, but always liked Gargan dating back to his film work, and radio years as Ross Dolan in I Deal In Danger.
April 19th, 2020 at 1:22 pm
You’re right about the later NEW ADVENTURES series. I missed that. It was on for one season of 39 episodes in 1957-58. Not only was it filmed in Europe but the series took place in London. Not much is known about it, and none of the shows seem to have survived.
As for the earlier series, I have not verified it, so I didn’t mention in my review, but it was my sense in watching the one I did that it was telecast live. If anyone knows for sure, would you let me know for sure?
April 19th, 2020 at 5:16 pm
Steve, there is an episode over at Internet Archives that has a credit that this was a film production. But I think this was done live on film.
So many different actors played the same character yet the character lacked any soul or substance.
Best part was Henry Kane wrote several of episodes and always had a nice twist.
It was common in radio and early TV for the character and sponsor’s product to merge. My favorite in radio was THE CASEBOOK OF GREGORY HOOD and for TV was BOSTON BLACKIE. This was generally caused by the shows owned and run by advertising agencies as the networks would just sell time slots. The credits say United Tobacco Company owns/produced MARTIN KANE.
Actors loved the tie in as they got paid better for the commercial than starring in the show.
The breaking of the fourth wall can be odd but in those days viewers seemed to be able to accept that the story and characters were fiction and it is just a show. Today’s fiction characters are held to a standard of realism as the audience demands absolute loyalty to characters and premise backstory.
Gargan was popular in radio starring in, as Barry said, I DEAL IN DANGER. He also starred in radio series MURDER WILL OUT where after the crime is solved people are paid if they can answer questions about the episode.
Gargan also did BARRIE CRAIG.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUh5PiUmqV0
April 19th, 2020 at 8:24 pm
I have read on one website that the show was broadcast live, but it’s not a site I know, so I have to leave the question in the still not answered category.
No, Martin Kane never had any personality. As a character, he really had no no reason for existing. Totally generic, I’m sorry to say. If the story I saw had been better, though, I would have rated it higher. As it is, a solid “D” is the best I could do.
I liked the show on the radio, but since I was seven or eight at the time, I really don’t think my memories of it would mean anything today. I never heard of BARRIE CRAIG until I started collection OTR shows on tape. William Gargan had a voice that really was very effective on radio.
April 19th, 2020 at 9:32 pm
Steve, it could be both. Remember networks broadcast live before I LOVE LUCY. So early KANE could have been live and later were filmed. Early TV signals traveled by radio waves or Bell telephone cables. By the early 50s networks were adapting to TV-Film for syndication or reaching TV stations beyond radio waves and telephone cable.
If it had been broadcast live the copy would be most likely kinoscope – virtual all network shows after 1949 and some in the 40s were backed up by kinoscope by the networks by contract with kinoscope. Some advertising agencies and the companies kept their own copies – either TV Film or kinoscope.
The look of the picture resembles film more than kinoscope to me.
It does remind me of the look of early DOCTOR WHO and THE AVENGERS – complete with bloopers.
I could still be wrong. There is a YouTube copy of a short documentary explaining how TV was broadcast. I will see if I can find it.
April 19th, 2020 at 9:33 pm
I have a quasi-connection to William Gargan and his voice. My wife had a boyfriend prior to meeting me, a grand fellow named Ray Davis. Ray developed a cancer in his esophagus and as consequence his voice box was removed. Steve, you mentioned Bill Gargan’s voice, and I loved it; he had the same surgery. Both men learned, or relearned a form of speech, and Gargan went to work for The Cancer Society of America, which is where and when Ray met him, and without over playign it, always described his friend william Gargan in glowing terms.
April 19th, 2020 at 10:03 pm
Barry Lane, liked the story.
Below is an educational film on how TV in 1949 went from the network studio to the viewers TV set. This is most likely how early MARTIN KANE worked. Note what was left out was kinescope was part of the network camera and a copy was removed after every broadcast.
The official date of the network’s begin in 1948 (NBC, DuMont), 1949 (CBS, ABC). Both NBC and CBS started their experiment networks in early 1940s with a break for WWII. TV itself can be traced back to the 1800s but didn’t really get taken seriously until the late 1920s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPZEbImbFRU
April 20th, 2020 at 9:47 pm
There were several issues of a Martin Kane comic book too.