Tuesday, April 08, 2014

I Love a Mystery (1945, 1973).

Based on Carleton E. Morse's radio series, I Love a Mystery follows the adventures of three insurance investigators. In the 1973 TV-movie version, mystery writer Melodie Johnson Howe appears as Charity, one of the daughters of star Ida Lupino.

(At left: The Devil's Mask, the 1946 version of I Love a Mystery)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I could be wrong, but I think the made-for-TV version may have been filmed in 1966 or '67 as a series pilot, and was not broadcast until 1973. It was in a campy so-bad-it's-good style, which was the fad in the mid-sixties (e.g., the Batman TV series, the Matt Helm movies). Maybe it was shelved when the camp fad passed, then NBC dug it up and ran it when they had a time slot to fill.

The 1940's movies seemed like typical "B" detective movies, not bad, not especially good. Jim Harmon ("The Great Radio Heroes") called the 1945 movie "disappointing." But he may have had high expectations, since he called the original series "the greatest radio show of all time."