Fri 25 Nov 2011
A TV Series History and Review, by Michael Shonk: CHARLIE WILD, PRIVATE DETECTIVE (1950-52).
Posted by Steve under Old Time Radio , TV mysteries[13] Comments
by Michael Shonk
As a long time fan of radio’s Adventures of Sam Spade, I have wanted to sample an episode of Charlie Wild for over forty years. While there are no known surviving copies of the NBC or CBS radio show I have found an available DuMont TV episode online at tv4u.com. [Scroll down to the Charlie Wild photo and link.]
But before we get to my review let’s examine the history of Charlie Wild, Private Detective (aka Charlie Wild, Private Eye).
In radio and early television, the networks sold time slots to advertisers. Wildroot Hair Tonic paid through Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn ad agency to NBC for the Sunday 5:30pm half hour slot to air Adventures of Sam Spade. The series was popular with radio listeners and critics, but there were growing problems. Wildroot decided to drop the series.
Broadcasting (September 25, 1950) reported over 6,000 letters requesting Sam Spade remain on the air. Wildroot and BBD&O denied the listing of star Howard Duff in “Red Channels” as a possible communist was the cause. They claimed it was due to the need for a lower budget so Wildroot could increase its spending in television.
When Wildroot dropped Spade, it had also reduced the time slots they owned from two to one. Producer-director William Spier, who owned a piece of Sam Spade radio series, confirmed there had been an attempt to budget radio and TV versions of Sam Spade, but no agreement could be reached.
“WILDROOT DROPS ONE DICK, PICKS ANOTHER PRIVATE EYE. Wildroot, which recently dropped Sam Spade, last week bought Charlie Wild, Private Eye, for its Sunday afternoon time on NBC.” (Billboard, September 9, 1950)
NBC RADIO. September 24, 1950 through December 17, 1950. Sunday 5:30-6pm (E). 13 episodes. George Petrie as Charlie Wild. Written by Peter Barry. Directed by Carlo D’Angelo. Produced by Lawrence White.
Broadcasting (August 28, 1950): “Wildroot Co, Buffalo will sponsor agency-created program titled Charlie Wild, Private Eye…”
In Billboard (October 7, 1950), reviewing the first radio episode of Charlie Wild, Leon Morse wrote, “Cut from the Sam Spade pattern with all the familiar ingredients, this detective series should also establish itself with the aid of some sharper scripting.” Morse found “George Petrie’s acting of the private eye was slick and smooth…”
While Charlie was a rip-off of Spade, Charlie was not Sam. It was Sam Spade (Howard Duff) who introduce Charlie Wild (George Petrie) to the radio audience, according to Spade historian John Scheinfeld. Also Sam and Charlie were both on NBC radio (Spade on Friday and Wild on Sunday) November 17th through December 17th.
Wildroot wanted Charlie Wild on TV as well as radio.
December 2, 1950 Billboard reported, “NBC’s loss of the $500,000 Wildroot radio billings for Charlie Wild, and half again as much for the projected TV version, was the direct result of the web’s being in such healthy shape in TV. Because NBC-TV could not provide the sponsor with a time slot for the new video version, Wildroot approached CBS-TV. That net agreed to take the business- if the radio version switched from NBC too. Total gain for CBS – about $750,000.”
CBS RADIO. January 7, 1951 through July 1, 1951. Sunday 6-6:30pm (E). Weekly. 26 episodes.
CBS TELEVISION. December 22, 1950 through April 6 (or 13), 1951. Friday 9-9:30pm (E). Alternate weeks.
— April 18, 1951 through June 27, 1951. Wednesday 9-9:30pm (E). Weekly.
Charlie Wild played by Kevin O’Morrison (December through March), John McQuade (March 1951 through rest of series). Sponsored by Wildroot Company Inc through BBDO via CBS. Produced by Lawrence White and Walter Tibbals for Regis Radio. Written by Peter Barry. Directed by Paul Nickell.
The Billboard (January 6, 1951) review of the Charlie Wild, Private Detective TV premiere found that “O’Morrison was sufficiently engaging tele-wise as redoubtable Wild.” Reviewer Bob Francis also wrote, “What Wild needs is more original story approach and less hokum.”
Dates get confusing for the television series (perhaps some strong brave TV Guide collector could save the day). While the TV series aired on alternate Fridays, the radio series was weekly and on Sunday. It appears there were more radio episodes produced than television.
In the June 9, 1951 issue of Billboard, “…the cancellation this week of the simulcast version of Charlie Wild, Private Eye on Columbia Broadcasting System’s radio & TV networks by Wildroot… Wildroot brought Charlie Wild over from NBC, but the program failed to catch on sufficiently to make for renewal.”
That was the end of Wildroot’s involvement with Charlie, as well as the end of Charlie on radio, but it was not the end of Charlie Wild. Billboard (August 11, 1951) reported Mogen David Wine Corporation of America through agency Weiss & Geller decided to sponsor Charlie Wild and moved him to ABC-TV.
ABC TELEVISION. September 11, 1951 through March 4, 1952. Tuesday 8-8:30pm (E). Larry White Productions. Executive produced by Herbert Brodkin. Produced by Larry White. John McQuade as Charlie Wild.
In a Billboard (September 22, 1951) review of episode “The Case of the Sad Eyed Clam” written by Stanley Niss and directed by Leonard Valenta, critic Haps Kemper wrote, “Clam’s plot was routine, the script hardly scintillating, and the performances unenthusiastic…”
ABC was having major financial problems and was trying to convince the FCC to approve ABC’s desire to merge with United Paramount Theatres. (DuMont was the chief opposition. For more about that story read Billboard March 1, 1952, page 6.) Many of the advertisers panicked and removed their programs from ABC. Mogen David took Charlie Wild to DuMont.
DUMONT TELEVISION. March 13, 1952 through June 19, 1952. (*) Thursday 10-10:30pm. DuMont Presentation in association with L. White and E. Rosenberg Production. Sponsor was Mogen David Wine
(*) According to Broadcasting (July 7, 1952), Charlie was still on the DuMont schedule in July. The Los Angeles Times had Charlie airing on KTTV-TV Los Angeles at Thursday 8:30-9pm (P) as late as July 31, 1952.
“The Case of Double Trouble.” Cast: John McQuade as Charlie Wild, John Shellie as Captain O’Connell, Philip Truex as Tillinghost, Philippa Bevans as Amanda. Produced by Herbert Broadkin. Directed by Charles Adams. Written by Palmer Thompson. Television director was Barry Shear.
This was DuMont so it is no surprise the production values were cheap. Shooting live and in small sets limited the possibilities for action, forcing the story to rely too heavily on the weak dialog and disappointing cast. John McQuade performance as Charlie was lackluster.
We open as Charlie is talking into a Dictaphone to “Sweetheart.” He tells her about “The Case of Double Trouble.” It began when Charlie’s pal Police Captain O’Connell found an envelope outside Charlie’s door. The Captain and Charlie plan to have dinner together. The envelope contains half of a five hundred dollar bill and a promise for the other half when Charlie takes a unknown client’s case.
It is late Friday and despite a hungry Captain tagging along, Charlie meets the client. The client wants Charlie to protect a priceless parchment in a sealed envelope for the weekend. Charlie takes the envelope back to his office where he is knocked out by a huge ruthless woman and her pipsqueak husband.
Charlie wakes up and calls O’Connell who is still waiting for his dinner. Charlie tells his pal to go up to the client’s hotel room and keep him there until Charlie can get there.
Soon, all the characters gather in the room, there is a required fight, and all is revealed. We end back with Charlie on the Dictaphone telling “Sweetheart” there is money in the safe minus what he and the Captain spent on dinner.
“Get Wildroot Cream Oil, Charlie/It keeps your hair in trim/You see it’s non-alcoholic, Charlie/It’s made with soothing lanolin…”
One of my goals, with these research heavy reviews, is to focus on the source materials of the time the series was made in an effort to confirm or disprove the current historical views which too often is riddled with misinformation. There remains questions about Charlie Wild I was unable to confirm or disprove.
Did the series title come from the Wildroot commercial jingle that advised Charlie to get the hair product? Probably. Oddly, each of the Billboard’s reviews discussed the commercial but made no mention of any connection between the series title and the commercial jingle.
What role did Dashiell Hammett’s character, Sam Spade’s secretary Effie Perrin play in Charlie Wild? I find it hard to believe Wild’s secretary and Spade’s secretary was the same character. I found no mention of Wild’s secretary by any name, not even in the reviews. Try reviewing radio’s Sam Spade without mentioning his secretary.
Currently, it is unknown who played Charlie Wild’s secretary in the NBC radio series. It is commonly accepted today that Cloris Leachman played TV’s Charlie Wild’s secretary Effie Perrin.
Hopefully, someday a copy of the NBC radio Charlie Wild with George Petrie (who would have been a better replacement for Howard Duff as Sam Spade than Steve Dunne) will be found. I wonder what reaction the audience (to say nothing about the lawyers) had if Effie Perrin was Wild’s secretary in New York on NBC, Sunday at 5:30pm and Sam Spade’s secretary in San Francisco on NBC, Friday at 8:30pm.
There remain fifteen Charlie Wild TV episodes at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, as well as some at the Paley Center. These could hold the answer about Effie, if she did not spend all of her time off stage as she did in “The Case of Double Trouble.” Was Charlie Wild’s secretary Effie Perrin or, as I suspect, another character called Effie?
ADDITIONAL SOURCES:
On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio by John Denning.
JJ Radio logs: http://www. jjonz.us/RadioLogs
Mystery*File: https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=8425
November 25th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Oops, I failed to inform readers where they can find BILLBOARD and BROADCASTING magazines.
BILLBOARD is available at Google books for free viewing.
BROADCASTING archive can be found at:
http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Broadcasting_Individual_Issues_Guide.htm
November 25th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
I should also probably add that the photo of Kevin O’Morrison that I found and added to the article was taken some 20 years later than when he was in CHARLIE WILD.
November 25th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
That episode of CHARLIE WILD that you uncovered, Michael, was fun to watch. There were maybe three stage sets involved, as compared to the many many they use on shows today like NCIS, CSI, Bones, Castle and so on. But the characters were interesting, even more than the plot, which was simple but effective.
Even though it probably violated somebody’s Rules of what’s permissible in detective fiction.
November 26th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
It’s my understanding, and this is not straightforward information, that CBS and the sponsor wanted to get rid of Hammett and Howard Duff, ergo, Charlie Wild.
November 26th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Barry, I could have done an entire post about why SPADE was dropped.
As I do these research reviews I find most of today’s information lacks the original source. The current thought is Wildroot cancelled SPADE because of the Red Scare. That no doubt played a role. After all despite high listener demand that got SPADE back on the air. No one would sponsor the program.
As for CBS, Wildroot dumped SPADE while it was on NBC. Networks basically sold time slots to advertisers. It was all Wildroot’s decision.
Dashiell Hammett had all ready gotten in trouble. Wildroot’s response was to take Hammett’s name off the series. And the series continued.
It was Duff making “Channels” the blacklist magazine that many then and today blame for the cancellation. But it was more complicated than that (they could have just replaced Duff like NBC did).
SPADE was one of the most expensive shows to produce. Duff was becoming a movie star and his salary was rising. Spier was one of radio’s top producers and believed in producing quality programs that were not cheap to make. SPADE was done on the West Coast while the Wildroot and its agency were on the East Coast. There is a photo in BROADCASTING magazine where the Wildroot people were having a long distance phone call story meeting with the SPADE and network people.
CHARLIE was cheap. In BROADCASTING there was a breakdown of SPADE’s dollar numbers vs CHARLIE’s. The math was beyond me but it was obvious CHARLIE was much cheaper for Wildroot to produce than SPADE.
My sources are limited. I hope others can add more information and the original source rather than just accepting the hearsay of IMDb, Wikipedia, and other modern sources.
Barry, thanks for your comment and allowing me to go into more detail than I could in the post.
November 26th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Michael–
Thank you. That is a fine essay. One thought. Duff was not still not enough of an attraction, though he should have been, to justify his price. And, I believe he was peaking at just about that time. Too bad.
November 27th, 2011 at 12:39 am
Really a lack of clarity to my previous post. What I intended to get across is that he was pricing himself out of work relative to his clout. He would not be the first one to do that. Thanks for bearing with me.
November 27th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
I agree, Barry, Duff certainly priced himself out of radio work, but he still had his film career.
From IMDb bio of Duff
“He eventually left the program [SAM SPADE] when his film career settled in and Stephen Dunne took over the radio voice of the detective in 1950 for its final season.”
He may not have worked radio for six years but he continued to work in movies on a regular basis despite his name in “Red Channels.”
But his talent was his voice. And he never again neared the success he had with radio’s SAM SPADE.
November 27th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Absolutely Michael:
But, look at the quality of films before and during the Sam Spade period, and after. Either suppporting parts in better projects, or minor films. No star making turns. Louis (Hayward) was married to Ida Lupino, he said about Duff. “Howard was always looking for a fight.” I think he makes that impression. That kind of guy.
November 28th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
I spent the weekend poring through my 1950-52 TV Forecasts searching out whatever info on Charlie Wild i could find – which turned out to be not much.
I can confirm the broadcast dates in relation to CW’s network-to-network migration. My Forecast shows CW in its DuMont slot one week after the last date given (this would be July 26, 1952), but this could be erroneous; last-minute changes were hardly uncommon back then, and CW’s replacement, the Chicago-originated This Is Music, is in place the week following, August 2. Since my reference books have This Is Music starting in July in this timeslot, I’m guessing the change missed TV Forecast’s deadline.
As for CW’s possible later airings, we could be looking at delayed broadcasts in other markets. Back in the Eddie Drake thread, I mentioned having a map showing all the TV stations that were on the air in 1951. That year, 61 American cities had TV stations, and only five of these – Los Angeles (7), New York (6), Chicago, Washington DC, and Boston (4 each), could carry all four networks. A few larger cities had three ststions, and a few more had two, but most TV cities in the USA had only one ststion, which had to pick and choose from four nets and syndie products. Thus you find many series that aired at all hours of the day and night, no matter what night they were airing in connected parts of the country.
All of which makes researching the subject a festival of pitfalls – something that those who made the shows could have no way of knowing.
About Howard Duff:
It’s fair to say that if he didn’t quite make it big in movies, he more than made up for it in television. Here he had two major allies: his wife Ida Lupino and his close friend Dick Powell, who helped establish him at the latter’s company Four Star. Powell’s staunch Republicanism also got Duff around the blacklist.
History has shown that the real villains in the blacklisting business were the advertising agencies. They had the major control over broadcasting in the ’50s, and it was to placate sponsors that they gave so much sway to Vincent Hartnett’s Red Channels. It was producer-stars like Dick Powell who would stand up for stars like Howard Duff when agencies would try to compel nteworks to drop them. It took years, but ultimately the blacklists eroded away, and ad agencies lost their control of TV and radio.
As for Howard Duff being a lesser star for being more on TV — I believe time has pretty much ended that pecking order for good.
Long overdue.
November 28th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Mike, thanks for looking.
I think, but could not prove, the West Coast picked up CHARLIE months after the East Coast.
TV was a different world. Sponsors ruled. Clearances meant something. In BILLBOARD September 29, 1951, there is an article dealing with the problems CBS was having getting a hour long series with Frank Sinatra on the air. They wanted to put it on Tuesday 8-9pm, but NBC’s Milton Berle dominated the time slot, with the rest picking up ABC’s CHARLIE WILD at 8-8:30. Curtis Publishing was sponsoring an unnamed series on DuMont at 8:30-9pm. CBS could not find a sponsor for the show and even if they did, there were not enough stations left to carry Sinatra.
My biggest surprise during my research was the quote from producer Spier’s that there was an attempt to continue SPADE on radio and as a TV series. Sam Spade has never had a TV series.
As for film is better than TV for Hollywood status, that remains true. As in the past, today’s movie stars who turn to TV are in their fifties or older and can no longer get leading roles in films (this is especially true for women). Compare a Brad Pitt vs Mark Harmon (star of top rated drama). Crossover can happen but nearly always the now movie star had started as a TV star (Michael Fox).
November 28th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Michael, the Paley Center has five episodes of “Charlie Wild Private Detective,” but, alas, all TV. All five are from the DuMont run. I’ve watched two and am waiting for viewing copies of the remaining three. Unfortunately they don’t provide answers to any of the excellent questions you pose above. There is no appearance by Charlie’s secretary in either of the two episodes I viewed. I did also locate two Variety reviews, one from February 1951 (CBS, with Kevin O’Morrison in the title role) and one from September 1951 (ABC, starring McQuade)). Again, no mention in either of the Spade-Wild intersect or the origins of the show’s title, though I have to admit I like your connection between sponsor and character names. The February review, of an episode titled “The Opus of the First Love,” dismisses the show as “singularly unexciting in its Friday (2) fortnightly installment.” The September review confirms your ABC launch date of 9/11/51 and initially appears to be dismissing the show for relying on the “now-standard whodunit formula with its numerous stock devices which have long since been discarded by B motion pictures,” but then goes on to predict (wrongly, as it turned out) that the show would find a “significant” audience: “The elements are there — fast action, a broad swipe of sex and plenty of roughhouse — which should fill the bill for the blood and thunder aficionados.” Larry White, the producer of this show, was a man who gave a good many programs to the Paley Center and was always calling us up to ask us to make him copies — sometimes four or five times of the same program. I was never sure what he was doing with them. I would love to pose some of these questions to him, but I haven’t heard from him in years and I’m not even sure if he is still alive. If I find out anything interesting in the last three episodes I will post accordingly. You did a really good job on the history of this show.
November 28th, 2011 at 11:46 pm
Thanks, David. From my reading, Larry White was a packager, the guy who puts all the talent, etc together. He was involved from the very beginning to the end of the series. He should have all the answers to anything about CHARLIE WILD.
Considering the interest today in SAM SPADE, the story of CHARLIE WILD as well as its role in SPADE’s history would make a great book.