Fri 10 Feb 2012
An Old-Time Radio Review by Michael Shonk: BOLD VENTURE (1951).
Posted by Steve under Old Time Radio , Reviews[10] Comments
BOLD VENTURE. Syndicated; premiered March 26, 1951. Frederic W. Ziv Radio Production. Cast: Humphrey Bogart as Slate Shannon, Lauren Bacall as Sailor Duval, Jester Hairston as King Moses. Music: David Rose and his orchestra. Other credits (not given on air): Written by David Friedkin and Mort Fine. Directed by Henry Hayward.
Some interesting production information about the series:
The transcribed half-hour weekly was on over 400 stations by April 1951. It was first sold to local stations as a 52 weekly episodes package for $13 to $750 a week (depending on station size).
Bogart and Bacall signed a five-year contract for the show, got royalties earning them $5000 a week in the first year. Writers Fine and Friedkin got $1000 per episode in first year.
The first thirty-six episodes were done at once in early 1951 then Bogart and Bacall left on a European vacation. By the time the episodes aired Bogart was filming The African Queen. Reportedly there were 78 episodes done, but the number remains debated since most episodes had more than one title leading to some episodes getting counted twice. Today over fifty episodes survive. You can listen to many at Internet Archive here.
Bold Venture was a mix of the relationship between Bogart’s Harry to Bacall’s Slim in To Have and Have Not, toss in Sam from Casablanca and add “adventure, mystery and intrigue†in the “mysterious†Caribbean islands.
Slate Shannon was a former adventurer who had decided to settle in Havana Cuba and run a hotel called “Shannon’s Place.†He also rented out his services as Captain of his boat “The Bold Venture.â€
Sailor Duval was a young girl with a wild troubled past. When her father, an old friend of Slate, died he “willed†her to Slate to make sure she stayed safe.
Shannon was helped at the hotel by long time friend King Moses, who, when the story needed it, would sing a calypso song (by David Rose) recapping the episode’s story.
A popular source of stories was Slate’s “hobby†(as Sailor called it) of helping people, be it a neighbor who needed Slate to get his daughter away from a gangster or helping an old girlfriend who claimed she was going to be murdered by her stepmother.
“Shannon’s Place,†Slate’s hotel was a repeated cause to get Slate involved. Slate took it personally if anything happened at the hotel or to a guest, as when a beautiful female guest has her face ripped to shreds by killer gamecocks. In another episode Slate becomes a suspect when one of the hotel performers is killed. The script is available to read online here.
The final cause to get Slate involved was his boat “Bold Venture.†Slate and his boat would often be hired by clients who would lie about the real purpose of his trip such as gun running revolutionaries or a college educated treasure hunter turn killer out to retrieve stolen gold.
The stories were full of touches of crime fiction bordering on noir. Gunfire, fists, knifes, Slate getting beat up, Sailor in danger and countless dead bodies spiced up each week’s tale as our two heroes wisecracked and romanced through it all.
Strange characters were common, such as two schoolteachers out for excitement and adventure and willing to kill for it.
And what would this type of adventure mystery be without great dialog such as when Slate asks a man a question and the man replies toughly who’s asking, Sailor says “Him. I talk like this.â€
Then there was the final short scene (often called a “tag†or “epilogâ€) featuring Slate and Sailor and their relationship, usually ending with romance.
While the writing and music were enough to make Bold Venture a radio show worth listening to, it was Bogart and Bacall that made Bold Venture special. Their chemistry together translated to radio as well as film and real life. Plus, Bogart and Bacall could do something not many movie stars could, they could act with just their voice.
It would be the absence of Bogart and Bacall and that chemistry that would doom the Bold Venture TV series, but more about that next time.
ADDITIONAL SOURCES:
Billboard magazine, 1/31/51
Broadcasting, 4/16/51
OTRR Wiki page. (L. A. Times article by Walter Ames)
February 10th, 2012 at 5:23 pm
Some of the photos I included in Michael’s review have nothing to do with BOLD VENTURE, I’m sure, but I couldn’t resist adding them all.
This was one of the highlights of Old Radio, there’s no doubt about it. Listen to one, and you’ve got to hear them all.
The fact that the program was syndicated has driven OTR researchers crazy over the years, trying to put dates and correct titles to the individual episodes. It turns out, as I understand it, that in different cities, the series started on different dates and the stations played them in most any order they saw fit.
One thing I’ve never been able to understand is why, if some 400 stations broadcast the series, a complete run of discs has never turned up? Some ought to have escaped into the wild, as it were.
February 10th, 2012 at 9:53 pm
Some things, Steve, simply disappear. To prevent them from doing so, is one of the aims of your blog.
Two people might not know anything, three might be clueless, and the fourth is, with luck, the one with a hot trail.
The Doc
February 11th, 2012 at 8:25 pm
I was inspired by this post to check archive.org and it has 57 episodes available for our listening pleasure.
February 11th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
Shay
Your comment surprised me, because that first link in Michael’s review led to a page that had only 29 episodes listed, some of which I had a feeling were duplicates of each other.
So I conducted another search, and you are right. Here’s the updated link. It’ll take you to a page where you can have your choice of all 57 currently available. Not only that, but the sound is top notch.
http://www.archive.org/details/BoldVenture57Episodes
February 11th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
Well, as I said.
The Doc
February 11th, 2012 at 9:07 pm
It’s a big improvement, all right, but if there were 78 episodes produced, then by all accounts, there are still 21 missing and unaccounted for.
Not that I’m complaining. Not at all!
February 12th, 2012 at 3:51 pm
#3. Thanks, Shay for the better link.
I did find one interesting report I could not confirm. According to book “The Havana Habit” by Gustavo Peres Firmat (Yale Press 2010), “Warner Brothers vetted the scripts to ensure that the program did not poach too much on TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT…”
February 13th, 2012 at 10:35 am
The Paley Center archive has fifteen episodes of this program, though only one of them is listed in our database with a title: “Carlos’s $50,000 Giveaway,” which doesn’t appear to be among the titles at archive.org. I find it so interesting that Bogart was doing a radio series at what appears to be the height of his career, yet today it is almost unheard of for a major film star to sign up for the starring role in a TV series while his movie career is still in high gear. Perhaps HBO is changing that, but even on a show like “Luck,” you get someone like Dustin Hoffman, who is clearly past his prime movie years.
February 13th, 2012 at 11:21 am
David
I’m almost sure that “Carlos’s $50,000 Giveaway” is Program #41, “Crazy Old Carlo.” None of the programs as aired had title credits, so over the years collectors made up their own. The result was that you could have three or four copies of the same show in your collection, all with different names.
I thought I’d found a site that collected all of the different titles for each episode, along with the correct one (from the scripts), but right now I can’t locate it again.
There were probably many factors that helped persuade the Bogarts to do the series, and maybe Michael can say more, but with a contract of $5000 a week in hand, I can’t imagine they were unhappy about it.
February 13th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
#8. David, the networks had been after Bogart to do radio for awhile. There are reports from the time that Ziv outbid CBS.
One of the appeals of syndication vs weekly was recording in batches. This allowed him to schedule the radio series around his movie career and vacations. A weekly paycheck was nice too.
Some claim he owned a piece of the series, but I don’t think so. When Ziv sold to United Artists BOLD VENTURE was part of the package.
Bogart and Bacall were not the only major film stars to do a weekly radio series in 1951.
Fred MacMurray and Irene Dunne also signed with Ziv and did BRIGHT STAR.
http://www.archive.org/details/OTRR_Bright_Star_Singles
Cary Grant and his wife at the time Betsy Drake did a NBC sitcom called MR & MRS BLANDINGS that was based on the movie MR BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE.
http://www.archive.org/details/MrMrsBlandingsOtrSitcomOldTimeRadioComedy.caryGrantBetsyDrake