Category Archives: 1930s

Fighting drugs with a radio-comicbook crossover

Posted on March 28, 2016 by

Radio and movie star Frank Lovejoy would have been 104 today. Better known as the leading man reporter on Night Beat,  Lovejoy also took a turn as The Blue Beetle, a radio and comic book superhero who appeared to borrow … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, 1940s, adaptations, adventure, comics, detectives, reporters, science fiction | Leave a comment

Two-fisted editor KO’s reform school scandal

Posted on September 2, 2015 by

News about a real-life judge sentenced to jail for taking kickbacks from a for-profit jail reminded me of this Big Town episode, with its crusading newspaper editor sending a 17-year-old copyboy undercover to expose a corrupt and barbaric reformatory. “A … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, Drama, newspaper crusades, newspapers, undercover | Leave a comment

Little Orphan Annie in the newsroom

Posted on January 14, 2014 by

Popular radio series characters of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s often visited or were visited by newspaper reporters and editors. Little Orphan Annie, decades before her Broadway debut, paid a visit to a local editor on the occasion of her … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, adventure, children, comics, editors, local news | Leave a comment

It Happened More Than One Night — on radio

Posted on December 17, 2013 by

by Bob Stepno“It’s a Wonderful Life” had no newspaper characters to give me an excuse to include the seasonal favorite here, so I’ll make a holiday present of another Frank Capra classic: It Happened One Night appeared on the silver screen … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, 1940s, adaptations, Capra, comedy, reporters, romance, stereotypes | Leave a comment

Reporter, actress, find love in “Next Time…”

Posted on June 27, 2013 by

Next Time We Love, a 1936 “struggling marriage” melodrama with a young James Stewart as a reporter and Margaret Sullavan as his aspiring actress wife, was adapted for radio repeatedly, including versions with Stewart and the very different Jimmy Cagney as … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, adaptations, foreign correspondents, marriages, reporters | Leave a comment

Journalistic aspirations at Vic and Sade

Posted on May 25, 2013 by

The classic radio comedy “Vic and Sade” by Paul Rhymer had no journalist characters appear at its microphones, as far as I know, although the main characters were regular newspaper readers… but Vic Gook did discuss writing for the paper … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, 1940s, comedy, newspaper readers, Old Time Radio Groups | 1 Comment

Happy Birthday, Mr. Pulitzer

Posted on April 10, 2013 by

Publisher Joseph Pulitzer — of the New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch — was born on April 10 (in 1847), which is as good an excuse as any to offer two versions of his biography as presented to radio … Continue reading →

Posted in 1930s, 19th century, editors, New York City, newspaper crusades, publishers, Pulitzer Prize, true stories | Leave a comment