Friday's Favorite OTR

The Falcon: “Worried Wife” 4/1/51


The Falcon was a bit generic. The lead character—private eye Michael Waring (aka “The Falcon”)—was a standard hard-boiled detective who was never really given a unique personality of his own.



But all the same, The Falcon is pretty much always fun to listen to. The various actors who played Waring (Les Damon in this episode) managed to give him some bite and the scripts, supporting characters and production values were always solid. (Though there was sometimes an over-reliance on clichéd organ music to punctuate dramatic moments.)


The show therefore becomes a prime example of just how effective a medium for storytelling radio was. The Theater of the Mind could take a generic character in a generic setting and still make it all sound great.


In this episode, a newlywed husband is nearly shot by an old girlfriend. His wife goes to Waring for help before there’s a second murder attempt. But it’s too late—Waring finds the husband dead.


But was it the old girlfriend? Or the wife? Or the guy who owed the victim money? Waring does a nice bit of multi-layered deductive reasoning to finger the killer.



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