Customer Reviews

I Love a Mystery [With DVD] (Collector Series Old Time Radio Shows)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After being out of print for a long time I Love A Mystery returns. This set is an excellent representation of Carlton E. Morse's radio series. The set of 20 CDs contains the following programs:
From I Love A Mystery:
The Thing that Cried In the Night
Bury Your Dead Arizona
The Million Dollar Curse (still missing episode 10)

The complete run of Morse's I Love Adventure

The complete first story, "City of the Dead", from Adventures by Morse
Plus the two audition shows for Adventures by Morse.

All sound like they have some cleaning done to them, and sound fantastic. This is a great set, and highly recommended!

To the other reviewer's point, there is a reason that this collection features the "same old shows" that have been kicking around for years, etc. If you read the Encylopedia of Old-Time Radio, you'll see that tapes of the other shows have not been found to date -- the only ones out there are from the later Hollywood shows, not the New York shows with the original cast. Rumors have circulated for years that the tapes are being hoarded somewhere ... but at any rate, these are the ones that are available, until more are discovered.

Here again we have the same shows that have been kicking around for decades hugely over-priced to make yet ANOTHER buck out of someone else's work. There is nothing new here so don't waste your money.

Someday (maybe) someone will put together one of these things and will give us something that will make the collection worthwhile. How about the ORIGINAL CAST of "I LOVE A MYSTERY"?
Michael Raffeto is the original Jack Packard (and is the guy creator Carleton E Morse had in mind when he created the part) He, along with Barton Yarborough as "Doc Long" and Reggie Patterson as "Reggie York", are the cast who put I LOVE A MYSTERY into our living rooms back in the good old days...but...no...we get the same old version everybody's been hearing for years with Russell Thorson as Jack, Jim Boles as Doc and Tony Randall as Reggie.

Now, please, I'm saying nothing against these three actors...(nor against Tom Collins, who took over the part of Reggie after Mr Patterson's death --Tom sure got around---he inherited the part of Chandu the Magician too---the original Chandu was Gayne Whitman---interesting because he's the guy trying to get radio stations to buy ADVENTURES BY MORSE on those two "audition shows" you hear on this cd---they did a FINE job recreating these classic shows back in the early 50s but everyone HAS these or can get them much cheaper than they are being offered here...my point is if you're gonna charge me over twenty bucks for something it better not be something I can get free from any collector (minus the cost of a blank cd or dvd). Give me something I haven't heard!!! Please!!!

In the meantime save your money until the people putting these albums out finally realize they are going to have to put in some work if they want to make some money.

Yes, this is stuff that has been around for a long time,
but the quality of sound is definitely an improvement
and I am willing to pay the price for perfection!
I was pretty young when these played on the radio in the 40's
and I remember being completely taken by the series.
I had to go to bed at 9:00 p.m., but my radio was under the covers to hear the 10:00 p.m. I Love A Mystery radio program.
Sometimes I slept and missed the program, but more than likely,
I listened to scary tales like Temple of Vampires, Bury Your Dead, Arizona, etc. By the way, there are a few other mysteries in the series out there and I would love a Volume 2, especially with Temple of Vampires which in my book was the best of the series. Thank you for throwing a bone to those from the 40's who grew up with old time radio. Carleton E. Morse was a genius and a totally under-rated writer. Why didn't Hollywood come courting? He would have come up with some imaginative movies. His radio imagination was definitely cinematic. Under the covers, I was seeing a movie in my mind. The three movies that were done by Hollywood were not Carlton E. Morse quality, strictly vintage B-movie cheapos.
Leo Catalano
San Francisco

Oh what a tangled web we weave. Created by Carlton Morse, "I Love A Mystery" is the one of the most fondly remembered mystery/suspense radio shows ever produced, giving birth to radio shows, comix, and movies, and was probably never a tv show because they couldn't do the special effects. Although they could NOW (**hint-hint**).

There's a lot of talk and kevetching about this show and this product, but there seems little actually written about what's on the discs and about the shows reproduced here so I guess it's up to me.

*********I LOVE A MYSTERY********

"I Love A Mystery" wasn't the most popular or the longest running radio show, but, there's a reason it's still remembered fondly by old-time radio fans, while some of the more popular radio shows are mostly forgotten today.

The radio show originally ran from '39-'44, in '48, and from '49-'52; each story ran like mini mini-series, each story having thirteen continuing episodes running about eleven minutes each, or at least the later ones did.

The core characters were American Jack Packard, horndog Texan Doc Long, and Brit Reggie York, of the nomadic A-1 Detective Agency. Each episode (here) featured the supernatural, and although the dénouement always debunked it, sometimes this logical dénouement could be just as fantastic. This series by all accounts seemed to be like the "X-Files", but told from Scully's viewpoint.

While not having (***sob***) the classic 'Temple of the Serpent', these disks contain three concurrent episodes from the third, Tony Randall version. 'The Thing That Cries In The Night' involves hauntings, mysterious deaths, family curses, and has a creaking gothic atmosphere to die for (or in).

'Bury Your Dead Arizona' sees our heroes in a desert town investigating mysterious deaths, a curse, werewolves, and possession, amongst other things. This is one of the episodes (which seems to star a young Mercedes McCambridge) where the supernatural is more believable than the rational explanation. There is a running joke of a (possessed?) woman (Ms. McCambridge?) who wants to stab somebody, anybody ("Can I stab him Maestro?" she constantly pleads) being especially funny. Especially since you know she's no killer.

'The Million Dollar Curse' has less supernaturalism than the previous two, and deals, as do all three of these stories, with a young woman's curse. In this story a young woman keeps killing her relatives and beaus violently, and 'The Million Dollar Curse' has multiple storylines, a damsel in distress, gangsters; moves at a breakneck speed, and is a lot of extremely violent pulp fun. While it's missing its tenth episode, you can still fill in the gaps, and may be the best of the three "I Love A Mystery" stories "reprinted" here. While the stories date some, they move briskly, are well written, and chock full of humor. While performed live, they are well acted, you hardly ever hear the actors missing a beat, with all of the lead characters having their own distinct personalities. A quick note, each episode includes the original commercials.

********I LOVE ADVENTURE********

These are followed by all thirteen episodes of "I Love Adventure", under the umbrella title of 'The China Coast Incident'. This was the second incarnation of "I Love A Mystery", with the original version of the A-l Agency having been broken up by WWII. Jack Packard is approached by the secret organization the "21 Old Men" for covert ops. Each episode is a half hour long with each episode being a complete adventure in and of itself. Packard reteams with Reggie in the second episode, and after the sixth episode their relationship with the shadowy 21 thankfully ends, and A-1 is reformed. "I Love Adventure" doesn't live up to the "I Love A Mystery" adventures as "I Love Adventure" is completely devoid of humor, and any form of fantastic mystery. The stories are predictable and stark second-rate imitations of the men's Fawcett Gold Medal stories. And Reggie acts like Doc, the villains are pedestrian, and the acting is the pits. "I Love Adventure" may have some of the worst attempts at accents ever done, and the sound quality is rank, with some of the episodes barely audible. The leads also seem to be doing most of the secondary characters, leading to confusion in the listener as to who is who. On paper, these episodes would probably appeal to those who love hard-boiled fiction, in execution however, everything just sucked lemons. Reggie doesn't appear until episode two, and Doc doesn't appear until episode eight, then Reggie disappears for good, neither appearing together. Two polar opposite episodes best exemplified this series. Episode six, 'The Finishing School Mystery' is about the kidnapping of a class of girls from an all-girl prep school. It starts out interestingly, but the mystery ends up being banal, inane, and a waste of time, while episode seven, clearly the best episode in the series, 'But Grandma, But What Big Teeth You Have' starts off with a banal crime, and ends being a great, hard hitting nasty about non-sexual child abuse. "I Love Adventure" was two separate series, a spy-adventure series and later, a hard-boiled detective series. The stories are, except 'Grandma' and episode twelve, 'Curse On The Highway', a predictable, but solid trucking mystery, pretty forgettable. Although the last seven episodes of the series are the best of the lot, there's a real reason this series didn't last and is mostly forgotten today.

********ADVENTURES BY MORSE********

The set also includes the complete ten episodes of the 'City Of The Dead'. This was the first story of "Adventures By Morse", a series that ran in 1944 right after "I Love A Mystery" left the air, and which successfully combines the pseudo-supernatural, and serial elements of "I Love A Mystery" with the hard-boiled humorlessness suspense of the later "I Love Adventure". 'City Of The Dead' is a creepy story about a disparate bunch of people under siege overnight in a graveyard while something tries to pick them off one at a time, and as the siege intensifies, secrets, and secret motives are gradually revealed. While the story drags at times, the story has plenty of twists, scares, and is well acted and written, and is prescient to later "slasher" and horror siege movies that would become movie standards from the sixties on. 'City of the Dead' is a lot of fun, even if the ending doesn't quite live up to the build-up.

My father, as long as I can remember, always talked about this show, and even into his seventies could tell me who the characters were, and what they did. It's a tribute to the show that even after all of the year since "I Love A Mystery" was gone from the airwaves, people (like my Dad, who listened to it as a child) still remembered this show and the magic it evoked, while Morse's more popular show of the time "One Man's Family" is long forgotten. This show has several copywrite dates so I assume that it originally appeared on cassette, then on CD, then in this collection with its accompanying DVD (see below). When I saw it for sale I immediately bought it for him and he enjoyed it immensely. He especially liked the 'Bury Your Dead Arizona' episode. Yes, I am one of those "idiots" who paid money for this, and I'm glad I did. People can b!tch all they want about these episodes being commonly available elsewhere, but they ain't to most, and where can you get all of these episodes, stories, and series in one package? This is quite a collection for the "I Love A Mystery" fan.

********THE ACCOMPANING DVD********

This package also includes an episode each of "Boston Blackie" (with Kent Taylor), "Gang Busters", "The Third Man" (with Michael Rennie & Jonathan Harris), and "Richard Diamond" (with David Jannsen) on DVD, and were fifties tv detective shows that had originally started on radio. "The Third Man" and "Boston Blackie" were spin-offs of radio shows that were spun-off from movies. I don't have the DVD at hand right now, but I believe that it is "The Third Man" episode that has a very young babealicious Barbara Eden as a guest star, although "Richard Diamond"'s episode had the best mystery. Also of note is that Kent Taylor of "Boston Blackie" was in the movie version of "Gang Busters" in 1942.

In the end, this is package is essential to all classic horror or pulp fans. It gets five stars despite the "I Love Adventure" series here. My Dad loved this CD collection, and an earlier and different version of this review appeared in "Cemetery Dance" and was edited by Bob. Thanx Bob.

This review is dedicated to George Baumgart (1930-2010), an "I Love A Mystery" fan.

I used to listen to this show when I was younger. I was so excited to hear it again on a cd. The quality of this cd is good. I recommend this cd to anyone that liked the show.

The issue of all the old Radio Shows is by far the best decision ever made. I think I now own most of them and always look forward to adding more to my collection. Wonderful!

The set is mediocre in mystery/suspence content compared to it's comtemparies of the same period. The sound quality is poor. It was dull and muffled through out the entire collection and the volume was not consistent. The Special Bonus CD, TV's Greatest Shows Originating form Early Radio, would not play. I tried it on three different CD players. This is not worth the money or the time listening!

The product is good and the shipping was prompt. I think the show is too corny and not very suspensful.

Love these old time radio shows, even the commercials. Great entertainment. I Love A Mystery.