Radio review – Texaco Theatre – “Criminal Code” (1939) ** (warning: spoilers)

Odd show – it’s half variety, half serious drama. The variety component guest stars Bela Lugosi, who appears in a sketch entitled ‘Dracula of Sunnybrook Farm’ –Dracula is a boarder at a farm and kills all the locals, which is a funny idea but they don’t do any more than that – indeed, it just kind of ends. (Before then Lugosi engages in some banter including general teasing of Karloff - but then he goes on to reassure that he and Boris are great mates).

The second half is an adaptation of a prison drama, the Criminal Code, with Burgess Meredith as a guy who kills someone in a fight and gets a rather stiff sentence of ten years; he falls for the warden’s daughter. Not bad. Howard Hawks filmed this story in 1931 (the movie featured Boris Karloff, in the role that led to him being cast in Frankenstein). The film had a happy ending but this one doesn’t – Meredith kills the baddy and the self-righteous warden puts him away.