Premier Collections: 
Broadway's My Beat, Volume 2
Liner notes written by Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.

Click to listen to an audio sample

"It goes without saying…"

In this author’s opinion, if Elliot Lewis had done nothing else but essay the role of wisenheimer sidekick Frankie Remley on "The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show," he’d still be considered one of the all-time OTR greats. Fortunately for modern day listeners and fans, Lewis expanded his horizons during radio’s Golden Age — becoming involved in directing, producing and writing — to the point where he can be considered a real rarity: one of radio’s "renaissance men."

"I never enjoyed acting," Lewis once observed in an interview. "I was able to do it, because...it’s a trick, and it’s a trick that somehow I knew how to do, without any training." His disdain for the acting profession, which some have speculated stemmed from the fact that it came rather easily to him, was always heavily disguised in every job he took; from comedy shows like the Jack Benny and Burns & Allen programs to dramatic series like "The Casebook of Gregory Hood" and "The Voyage of the Scarlet Queen." His performance as Philip Carney on "Queen" is considered by modern-day observers as one of his finest, and it was on that regrettably short-run series that he got to flex his directing muscles as well. His training for the gradual progression from behind the mike to behind the control-room window started on "Suspense," as he worked his way up from occasional script contributor to working alongside producer William Spier. Spier would often utilize Lewis’ expertise in making necessary cuts and changes to scripts, and later would come to depend on him to direct broadcasts that might prove to be problematic.

Lewis’ directorial success on "Suspense" established the necessary good faith to convince the CBS network into letting him take the full production reins beginning in August 1950. For four years, he rejuvenated the veteran mystery-drama warhorse with innovative broadcasts, among them "The Wreck of the Old 97," "Ordeal at Donner Pass," and "The Giant of Thermopylae." Perhaps Lewis’ crowing achievement on "radio’s outstanding theater of thrills" was his two-part adaptation of Shakespeare’s "Othello" in May of 1953, in which he played the title character, supported by his then-wife Cathy as Desdemona and Richard Widmark as Iago.

Other shows produced by Lewis included "Crime Classics," a wonderfully underrated series that focused on historical crime (and was prominently featured in an earlier Premier Collection from Radio Archives), and "On Stage," considered by many to be one of radio’s finest anthology series. In an odd coincidence, both shows were broadcast on the same night during their short runs -- a scheduling anomaly that prompted Lewis to try a unique experiment: documenting Abraham Lincoln’s assassination on "Classics" and spotlighting "Our American Cousin" (the play the Great Emancipator was watching when shot down) on "Stage." (The following morning, Lewis arrived at his office to find a note on his desk from CBS chairman William S. Paley that read: "Interesting idea. Don’t do it again.")

A third Lewis series that was briefly scheduled on the same night as the two aforementioned dramatic offerings was "Broadway’s My Beat," the detective series that served as Lewis’s introduction to the producer-director’s chair back in July 1949 when the show left CBS’ New York Studios to be produced in Hollywood. Lewis approached his freshman assignment with great relish: a Manhattan native, he hired three experts in sound patterns — David Light, Ralph Cummings and Ross Murray — to work the show because of his belief that "you should hear the city constantly." He also assigned veteran scribes Morton Fine and David Friedkin (both would work with Lewis on "Crime Classics" as well) to write the scripts, and tabbed composer-conductor Alexander Courage for "Beat’s" music score. (Courage wisely chose — tongue-in-cheek, it’s suspected — "I’ll Take Manhattan" as "Beat’s" opening and closing theme.)

Lewis also cast first-rate actors in the roles of the show’s regulars, beginning with actor-announcer Larry Thor as plainclothes homicide detective Danny Clover (the show’s original star, Anthony Ross, did not make the trek to the West Coast), and followed up with Charles Calvert as comedy relief Sergeant Gino Tartaglia and character great Jack Kruschen as Clover’s trusty backup, Detective Muggavan. Many of the finest performers in the business also made frequent appearances, including Harry Bartell, Peggy Webber, Jeanette Nolan, Lawrence Dobkin and the future Mrs. Elliot Lewis, Mary Jane Croft. Though it was broadcast over the Tiffany network for five years (1949-54), "Beat" often 'got no respect,' being frequently bounced around on the network’s schedule and appearing as both a regular and summer replacement series.

Due to popular demand, Radio Archives is pleased to present a second volume of "Broadway’s My Beat," a series which predated the critically-acclaimed "Dragnet" by several months and helped pave the way for the gritty, realistic cop shows to come. "Beat’s" reputation for hard-hitting drama is still evident in this ten-CD collection featuring twenty half-hour episodes, fully restored and digitally transferred from original 16" CBS/KNX recordings.

Radio Archives invites you to walk the beat with Detective Danny Clover as he patrols "Times Square to Columbus Circle...the gaudiest, the most violent...the lonesomest mile in the world."

Georgia Gray (#61)
A taxi dancer is stabbed at a dime-a-dance hall, and before she dies she describes her assailant as a man who bought $5.00 worth of tickets. Clover’s attention to the case shifts to her mobster boyfriend, who soon turns up dead as well. With Tony Barrett, Francis Chaney, Martha Wentworth, Lawrence Dobkin, Joy Terry, Leo Cleary and Junius Matthews
Saturday, April 28, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Harry Foster (#62)
The only witnesses to a stabbing in Central Park are a small schoolboy and a crazed invalid known to the residents of her apartment building as "The Looker." With Lamont Johnson, Cathy Lewis, Virginia Gregg, Herb Vigran, John McGovern and Lou Krugman
Saturday, May 5, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Charles Crandall (#63)
A dead man is found in an alley with no identification — only an expensive watch and a parking ticket made out to "Charles Crandall." As Clover probes into the details of his death, he learns that Crandall is very much alive...and that his story leads to yet another murder victim: a female barfly. With Lou Merrill, Jeanette Nolan, Adam Williams, Peggy Webber and Joy Terry
Saturday, May 12, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Earl Lawson (#66)
A wealthy stockbroker is murdered in Times Square, and a young woman snaps a photograph of the deed. The culprit is Ray Brewer, a hoodlum who has been diagnosed with a bad ticker and has only one month to live. With Peggy Webber, Ted Osborne, Don Diamond and Tony Barrett
Saturday, June 9, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Frank Dunn (#67)
A bartender at an upscale, uptown establishment has been shot to death. His reputation as a ladies’ man provides a lengthy list of suspects for Danny to sift through. With Mary Jane Croft, Joseph Granby, Gladys Holland, Herb Butterfield and Edgar Barrier
Saturday, June 16, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Ruth Larson (#68)
A fourteen-year-old girl is dead, the cause of death being a fractured skull which resulted from the blow of a pistol butt. A murder with similar circumstances is reported...followed by a third. What is the killer’s motive? (The program is preceded by a Korean War cease-fire bulletin.) With Joseph Kearns, Martha Wentworth, Harry Bartell and Charles Davis
Saturday, June 23, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Pablo Molari (#69)
Johnny Hammett presides over the Hudson Club, a social organization that provides athletic and leisure activities for neighborhood teens. The Hudson gets some bad P.R., however, when a young kid named Pablo Molari is found beaten to death outside the clubhouse door. With Richard Crenna, William Tracy, Peggy Webber and Michael Ann Barrett
Saturday, June 30, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Joe Gruber (#70)
The hunt is on for a man who committed murder during his flight from an armed robbery. Clover and Muggavan have trailed him to a second floor apartment...but he appears to have made an ingenious escape! With Barbara Whiting, Irene Tedrow, Lou Krugman, Martha Wentworth, Norman Field and Jerry Hausner
Sunday, July 8, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sponsored by Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum

David Blaine (#72)
A frantic woman contacts the police to tell them her fiancé is threatening to blow his brains out. When Clover and Muggavan arrive at the address, they hear a gunshot; apparently the man has made good on his threat.
Sunday, July 22, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sponsored by Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum

Howard Crawford (#74)
A man who drowned in a public swimming pool has also suffered the indignity of having his personal belongings swiped from the locker he was using, making it difficult for Danny to identify the body. An autopsy further reveals that the victim did not drown but was, in fact, murdered. (The program is delayed for two minutes for an appeal by HOPE for assistant to aid the victims of flooding near Topeka, Kansas.) With Mary Jane Croft, Hy Averback, Stan Waxman and Michael Ann Barrett
Sunday, August 5, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sponsored by Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum

Anna Compton (#78)
A woman is found dead in her boyfriend’s car and, as Clover investigates, he learns that the woman was fooling around on her very odd duck of a husband. With Howard McNear, Billy Halop, Lou Krugman, Joe Forte and Francis Chaney
Saturday, September 15, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Lucille Baker (#91)
An inebriated man calls the police to inform them that the wife of a co-worker has been found strangled in his apartment. With William Conrad, Harry Bartell, Peggy Webber, Lou Merrill and Herb Butterfield
Saturday, December 15, 1951 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Helen Selby (#150)
A moving man is instructed that, if no one is home when he arrives at his client's apartment, he's to enter on his own and go to work. However, once he's inside, he finds that he’s not alone after all -- his client's dead body is also on the premises. With Herb Butterfield, Lou Merrill, Gloria Gordon, Hy Averback and Lamont Johnson
Saturday, January 31, 1953 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Peggy Warner (#151)
A young girl is found in an alley, suffering from the effects of having been poisoned. Clover discovers that the girl once worked as a domestic for a slightly dysfunctional family. With Irene Tedrow, Herb Butterfield, Sam Edwards, Marvin Miller and Peggy Webber
Saturday, February 7, 1953 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Margaret Royce (#163)
Lela Royce arrives at headquarters to report that her 55 year-old sister is missing. It sounds like a job for Missing Persons...but when Clover and Muggavan investigate, it’s suggested that the woman may have been a victim of foul play. With Norma Varden, Sam Edwards, Martha Wentworth, Jerry Hausner and Hal Girard
Saturday, May 2, 1953 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Sybil Crane (#164)
A woman reports to Danny that a car sped by her stoop and dumped a young girl out on the nearby street. The girl later expires from stab wounds and, in his quest to locate her murderer, Clover learns that there was more to the victim than meets the eye. With Joseph Kearns, Martha Wentworth, Sandra Gould, Paul Richards and Joseph Granby
Saturday, May 9, 1953 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Barbara Hunt (#165)
A woman is discovered dying in an upstairs apartment by a tenant who was planning to rent the place downstairs. Clues to the attempted homicide are murky, but seem to be centered on the victim’s one-time gangster husband and her obsession with living in the past. With Lurene Tuttle, Sheldon Leonard, Hy Averback, Marian Richmond and George Neise
Saturday, May 16, 1953 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Joan Tracy (#166)
A meek but nevertheless giddily drunk woman has been brought into the station house with a blood-stained knife in her purse. Her dominating husband comes to collect her in the morning, whereupon she threatens to kill him. With Sammie Hill, Whitfield Connor, D.J. Thompson, Jerry Hausner and Harry Bartell
Saturday, May 23, 1953 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

Ruth Shay (#167)
A missing woman — a hefty redhead by the name of Ruth Shay — is found dead on the waterfront with seven bullets in her body. A friend of Ruth’s contacts the police with information on the murder...but she, too, turns up deceased not long after the phone call. With Lamont Johnson, Truda Marson, Lawrence Dobkin and Steve Roberts
Saturday, May 30, 1953 – 30:00 – CBS, sustaining

John Nelson (#168)
A nattily-attired man is found dead in a hotel room festooned with framed pictures of wild animals. The only clues to his demise are an old bullet wound and a newspaper clipping detailing the exploits of a husband-and-wife team of big game hunters. With Herb Butterfield, Irene Tedrow, Ben Wright, Hal Girard and Tom Tully
Saturday, June 6, 1953 – 30:00 - CBS, sustaining

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