Radio review – "Box 13: Ep 1-3" (1948) *1/2

Alan Ladd stars in this radio series made for his own company. Although Ladd plays a role custom made for his talents – tough talking ex-reporter Dan Halliday (the narrator repeats the name something like ten times in the half hour), the show is undone by its idiotic concept: Halliday is an ex-journo who wants to write fiction, so he puts an ad in a paper asking for adventure, send mail to his old paper care of Box 13. So you don’t really care that his first adventure results in him being framed for murder – it was his own silly idea. The support players overact and you get the sense everyone was sending it up.

That’s the first two episodes, anyway. The third one – where Suzy joins him to work – is better because it seems deliberately light (Ladd helps a little old lady dispose a dead body; Ladd was good with little old ladies as he showed in Lucky Jordan).