Sunday, September 21, 2008

Henry Kane's Peter Chambers on the Radio

Returning from Dallas today, we listened to an episode of Peter Chambers, based on the novels by Henry Kane, who wrote the radio show as well. Dane Clark played Chambers, and he was okay in the role, but the show didn't offer anything different from a lot of other p.i. shows on radio. Well, there was one thing. I don't know if it's typical of the series as a whole, but in the show we heard, the voiceover narration is done in second person. I found it a little annoying at first, but I got used to it. Listening to the show didn't make me want to seek out others in the series, but if one comes on XM again while I'm listening, I won't turn it off.

2 comments:

Richard Moore said...

I was unaware there had been a Peter Chambers radio program and appreciate the tip. On Kevin Burton Smith's Thrilling Detective Website, he says it was on NBC for five months in 1954 and was produced as well as written by Kane. I was a fan of Kane as a teenager and still find some of his work entertaining. Some of that is probably nostalgia as Kane's patented patter probably clangs on modern ears as much of Damon Runyon's clangs on mine.

Dane Clark I liked in small doses--ideally as a 3rd lead in a Warner Brothers movie and not as a star in one of his own programmers. Someone tagged him as a pint-sized John Garfield, which was true in more ways than one.

Richard

Glen Davis said...

I'm a fan of Pete Chambers. I think his patter holds up pretty well. I've long wanted to listen to one of these episodes.