“Before the war, Frank Race worked as an attorney,
but he traded his law books for the cloak-and-dagger of the OSS.
When the war was over, his former life was over, too . . .
adventure became his business!”

The Adventures of Frank Race (1949-50) aired “The Adventure of the General’s Lady” on August 28, 1949, as the 18th of its 43 episodes. Original air dates for this program are impossible to pin down due to the fact that it was not sold to one of the four major national radio networks who would air the shows at a set day and time nationwide, but was syndicated to individual stations across the country who would broadcast episodes at whatever dates suited their local programming. This is only the second episode featuring Frank Race’s adventures we have run, the first coming on December 10, 2022. As such, a recap of the introductory background material provided in that initial episode is below, for newcomers to the show or for those needing to refresh their memories.

The italicized opening at the top of this page is the host’s introduction to each episode. The premise of a private investigator with a government background such as the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services, forerunner to our C.I. A.) was not new. Radio had a number of programs prior to Frank Race when espionage was still in the minds of the public following World War II, among them Secret Agent K-7 (1939), The Man Called X (1944), Dangerous Assignment (debuting in 1949), and also debuting in 1949 was Richard Diamond, Private Detective who had a background which included the O.S.S.. The Adventures of Frank Race has been characterized as a combination of Johnny Dollar and James Bond. Johnny Dollar in that Race also investigates (as his cover) for an insurance firm, and James Bond due to the women, intelligent, beautiful and honest (well some of them)—as well as some not so trustworthy, with whom he has encounters. While Race obviously has “cases” due to his work for the insurance company, they are designed more as world-traveling adventures, thus the title of the show.

Tom Collins (1913-1973, photo top right) starred as Frank Race for the show’s first 22 episodes. Collins was well known to radio fans as the voice of Chandu in the 1948 run of Chandu the Magician. Beginning with episode 23, Collins would pass the torch to versatile and talented radio actor Paul Dubov (1918-1979, photo at right), and nary a beat was missed. From 1938-1977 Dubov appeared in many film and/or TV shows, a few among them being Day the World Ended (1955), The She Creature (1956), Voodoo Woman (1957), and The Underwater City (1962) for film, and Wanted, Dead or Alive (1960) and Bat Masterson (1961) for TV. Though the title role was split evenly between Collins and Dubov during the show’s run, Race’s sometimes valet/cab driver/associate and “sidekick” if you will, was Marc Donovan, played perfectly throughout all 43 episodes by Tony Barrett (1916-1974, photo at left as the character Melody Fiske, a piano playing thug in the 1947 film Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome, featuring Boris Karloff), another of radio and TV’s most versatile actors, writers, and even producers. Two of his several TV credits include being one of the writers for the popular detective program Peter Gunn (1958) and one of the primary developers of The Mod Squad (1968). A few of the supporting actors appearing in episodes during the show’s run were many of radio’s finest, including Gerald Mohr, Frank Lovejoy, Lurene Tuttle, Virginia Gregg, and Parley Bear.

This episode finds Frank in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. Tunisia lies between Algeria to its west and Libya to its east, with Tunis on its northern coast facing the Mediterranean Sea, a mere 195 miles from the coast of southern Italy. Frank is to meet his local contact who will then read him in with more detail on the possible situation he is here to make sure never occurs—that being the possible assassination of the ruling General–whose death would set in motion a series of circumstances that would severely disrupt, if not kill, the contract between Tunisia and the United States for a certain “product” over which Tunisia has in abundance and which the United States sorely needs. The precious commodity and the reason the United States feels it imperative to secure its unbroken chain of delivery will become clear once you have heard the story of “The Adventure of the General’s Lady,” played out here in that part of the world known by outsiders for its terrible booze and beautiful women.

(The linked CD at the top includes this episode and 15 others.)

Play Time: 26:24

{Airing on the final Sunday of summer vacation before the start of the new school year, the neighborhood gang made sure to hit the nearby newsstand the next day for more tales of skullduggery thwarted by doggedly determined detectives. They found what they were looking for with the issues shown below. Detective Tales (1935-53) must have been doing it right because it lasted an impressive 18 years and produced 202 issues. For all but its last 3 years it was a monthly. New Detective (1941-55) ran the usual gamut of crime fiction, but with an emphasis on police detectives written by many popular authors of the period. The issue below features two well known names, for instance. John D. MacDonald was of course popular in the mystery/crime genres though he also penned a trio of SF novels, while Fredric Brown was also known in science fiction circles as one of the masters of the short-short story (today known as the “flash” story). New Detective was a bi-monthly in 1949. The Phantom Detective (1933-53) was a direct marketing response to the success of The Shadow. While operating on a less frequent schedule than The Shadow, it lasted for over 20 years, making it the “longest-running, single-character pulp” in history. It managed 5 issues in 1949 due to its transitioning from a bi-monthly to a quarterly with its Spring issue.}

[Left: Detective Tales, 8/49 – Center: New Detective, 9/49 – Right: Phantom Detective, Summer/49]

To view the entire list of weekly Old Time Radio episodes at Tangent Online, click here.