Radio review – SDP – “Alias Nick Beal” (1950) **1/2

Interesting Faustian tale with Ray Milland very well cast as a modern day devil who tempts an honest DA with the help of a fallen woman (here Jan Sterling). These stories work well when the devil has good arguments and Milland does here , pointing out the iomportance of compromise, and the options given to the DA are genuinely tempting (eg dodgy evidence to put away a genuinely bad person). Apparently the film version which I’ve never seen is very noir – this doesn’t really come across on radio but the drama still works. Presumbaly John Farrow was attracted to the themes of temptation, good vs evil, etc – I was looking forward to hearing what he sounded like at the end (how broad was the accent?) but he was sick and couldn’t make the broadcast.