Sat 14 Dec 2019
An Old Time Radio Review: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF NERO WOLFE “The Case of the Disappearing Diamonds.”
Posted by Steve under Old Time Radio , Reviews[13] Comments
THE NEW ADVENTURES OF NERO WOLFE “The Case of the Disappearing Diamonds.” NBC, 30 minutes. March 9, 1951. Sydney Greenstreet, Harry Bartell. Story: Mindret Lord.
As a radio series The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe was heard for one short season on NBC, running from October 20, 1950, to April 27, 1951. There had been two earlier versions: The Adventures of Nero Wolfe, a 1943–44 series on ABC starring Santos Ortega and Luis van Rooten, and The Amazing Nero Wolfe, a 1945 series on Mutual starring Francis X. Bushman, but there’s no denying that Sydney Greenstreet was well nigh perfectly cast for the role.
For a season of only 26 shows, though, the series went though quite a few people playing Archie. Besides Harry Bartell, they included such well known radio voices as Gerald Mohr, Herb Ellis, Lawrence Dobkin, Lamont Johnson and Wally Maher. It probably didn’t matter to radio audiences all that much who played the part back then, however. The combo of Nero Wolfe and Sydney Greenstreet was, I’m sure, all they needed.
I’m not so sure about the stories, though, not if this is an example. It begins with a sneak thief named Willie Inch asking Wolfe to help him prove he didn’t kill the lady of the house after he’d burgled it, and quite successfully, too. It’s too bad he left fingerprints behind, as well as the body of the lady.
And oh, yes, a small fortune in diamonds is also missing, but Willie Inch did not take them. Someone else had larceny on his (or her) mind the very same evening. There is also a beautiful young woman involved. She claims to be a writer and wants to do a story about Wolfe. Archie demurs, saying that a fellow named Rex Stout is already writing up his adventures. After Wolfe proves she’s a fraud, that doesn’t stop Archie for making a play for her — to his regret.
But the ending is very weak and terribly rushed. Something could have made of the gimmick involved, but as it was, that’s all is was, only a gimmick. The trappings of the Wolfean stories are there, but there’s not solid enough in this episode to make me want to listen to another. I’ll stick to the books, and the Maury Chaykin-Timothy Hutton TV show that was how on A&E a while back. As an adaption of one of my favorite detective series, it was most satisfactory.
December 14th, 2019 at 9:41 pm
In 30 minutes you have time for a simple mystery or a rushed one. I have listened to most of the Wolfe adaptations including the NBC TV series, ABC TV Movie pilot and a CBC Canada radio series. I have seen clips on YouTube for the Italian TV version you can watch at MHz Choice.
I found the ABC TV Movie to be the best. I have listen to Greenstreet version but don’t remember much about them except I liked Gerald Mohr – but I like him in anything so that doesn’t count. I didn’t find Greenstreet as Wolfe that impressive – he was playing his usual characters.
It is difficult to write mysteries where the detective does not leave a room (or house). I can’t remember how loyal the radio version was to the gimmick.
There was a British TV series called MAN IN ROOM 17 where two men sat in a room while others do their legwork. It always seemed to try too hard with the gimmick and it would have been much easier on everyone if they got off their butts and did their own outside work. I usually feel the same with Wolfe.
December 14th, 2019 at 10:26 pm
Worthwhile mostly for Greenstreet as Wolfe, but not a little for Mohr who makes a great voice for Archie conveying both the hard-boiled and sarcastic side of the character.
Mohr was a good Philip Marlowe on radio too suggesting a tie there between the characters I never really thought about. Of course Archie’s wise cracking is only one facet of the Marlowe persona, but Stout doesn’t get credit for just how well he married the modern American voice of the hard-boiled school to the older standards of the mystery dating back to Holmes and Watson.
December 15th, 2019 at 12:46 am
Michael, I am also a big fan of Gerald Mohr’s and followed his career from the Marlowe radio series through his film and television work. As for Nero Wolfe, there were too many Archies. Nuff said.
December 15th, 2019 at 3:39 am
Steve–you left an extra line in the first paradrah, unfinished, you meant to cut.
I remain fond of the Italian telefilms, which the broadcast arm of MHz, MHz Worldview, will periodically rerun …I dubbed them on my DVR last go-round (Philadelphia one o the lucky markets with a MHz Worldview affiliate station).
December 15th, 2019 at 3:41 am
“Paradrah” being the unwanted child, in my 3:40 am brain, of draft and paragraph…
December 15th, 2019 at 7:59 am
It was the second paragraph also, Todd, but no matter. A redundant line is a redundant line, no matter what. I’ve fixed it now, I think and thanks!
December 15th, 2019 at 3:54 pm
I wish I could claim myself more of a fan of Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe. But for reasons which escape me, I have never been able to get truly excited about it even though I can clearly see (even at a distance) that it’s high-quality stuff. My loss.
I can put in a word however, for the voice talents of one Harry Bartell. Extraordinarily versatile radio performer. Listening to as much OTRR as I do, I hear him pop up everywhere and in everything. He plays sidekicks, he plays villains, he plays henchmen. Witnesses, traitors, backstabbers, thugs, lovers, clerks, informants. He could do young-and-bouncy Archie Goodwin or decrepit, broken-down Yucatan indian. Western, crime, mystery. What a fluent voice.
He was with Nigel Bruce as an announcer for one of the Sherlock Holmes radio series –politely and enthusiastically touting the splendors of sponsor, Petri Wine –but more famously, he was one of the steady regulars of ‘Gunsmoke’ radio. Probably 75% of all episodes. Bartell possessed a particular gift for Spanish- accented characters. Really marvelous.
While I certainly appreciate Gerald Mohr (and the other incarnations of Archie listed above), I must favor Bartell in this case; even from the scant episodes I’ve heard. Maybe it’s just the pleasure of ‘familiarity’; but I like how his puppy-like boyishness complements Greenstreet’s bass-like, stentorian tones.
December 16th, 2019 at 9:43 pm
Harry Bartell was was on the great voices of radio. This is spite of the fact that it wasn’t all that distinctive. You had to be a steady listener to be able to put a name to the sound of his voice. I’m sure that’s also why he was cast so often: he could play so many roles so well.
And here’s a small extra. I was once in email touch with him. He dropped in on a internet OTR group as was a member for a while, and something he said caught my attention. It seems as though he had kept a diary of all his radio appearances over the years, and of ocurse I emailed him, wanting to know more, and inparticular whether it was worth publishing.
He replied and said sadly no. It was all handwritten an d largely in his own personal code. He also really didn’t think anyone would be interested, certainly not worth the time it would take to make it readable. I wish I could have persuaded him otherwise!
December 18th, 2019 at 3:29 pm
Oh my gosh. That’s wonderful. Boy, would I have enjoyed asking him a few questions about the shows he appeared in.
January 16th, 2021 at 11:25 pm
Picking up on a long-dormant discussion:
Harry Bartell continues to intrigue me. I envy your emails with him. But I have also heard tell that he was an avid shutterbug on-set. He compiled quite a library of star photos; at a time when not everyone carried a camera. His pictures of ‘Gunsmoke’ stars are something I’d dearly like to see more of.
Bartell’s personal ‘bio’ photo shows (to me) a rather distinguished, personable, swarthy-faced man. What his bio says about him, sometimes differs. He’s often described as having a ‘baby face’ or a ‘college-freshman voice’. I can’t make any sense of it.
Anyway, both Gerald Mohr and Harry Bartell each in their own way, make wonderful ‘Archie Goodwin’ foils, from where I stand.
I agree too, (in objective terms) that the sheer technical feat alone of marrying hard-boiled American crime to the tradition of Holmes-and-Watson (which Stout does) is unjustly neglected by genre fans.
Ultimately what I’m pondering (at least, right at this moment) is: why do I always care so little about the Nero Wolfe concept in general? Why does the whole thing leave me flat?
The books –notwithstanding their obvious technical flair –I’ve largely shunned.
But in OTRR (where it would seem like a winning formula) it is perennially a cheap substitute for me when I can’t obtain anything better.
Mulling it over, I have come to suspect that it is that Nero Wolfe is never in danger. He is always super-comfortable. He sits at the ‘center of a web’.
What he needs is a Moriarty. He needs an enemy spider who sits at the center of another web.
Just thinking aloud!
January 16th, 2021 at 11:30 pm
Nero Wolfe is essentially, “Mycroft Holmes”. I’m positive I’m not the first to hypothesize this.
September 13th, 2021 at 8:28 pm
Belatedly:
This is Harry Bartell saying “Listen To DEAR ABBY!”
That’s how I remember hearing him, midmornings on CBS Radio for most of the ’60s, playing interlocutor for Abigail Van Buren.
Here in Chicago, WBBM Radio (780-oh on your radio!) had a middle-of-the-road music and talk format, with both local and network features aimed at housewives who stayed home.
Abby Van and Harry were warm, friendly voices, imparting information and humor for years, until CBS dialed it down – as the network moved into all-news radio (but that’s another story …).
Along about this time, Harry Bartell began turning up on Jack Webb’s Dragnet reboot, and I could put a face on the man – amiable, salt-and-pepper hair, not too tall, fit the voice like a glove …
Sometime after that, when I learned he was an Archie Goodwin voice, I called it to mind as I read the Wolfe books; not bad at all.
Later on, I learned that Harry made the detective rounds on radio; It made me curious about
that end of the medium – and so a hobby comes to be.
Not much to add to that, really; but this is a really nice way to spend our time, isn’t it?
September 13th, 2021 at 9:48 pm
You bet it is. Thanks, Mike!