The Richard Diamond, Private Detective Radio Program

Background

Throughout Richard Powell's meteoric music career during the 1930s, Powell was the baby-faced crooner that preceded Frank Sinatra in setting the Great Depression era gals' hearts to fluttering. Richard Powell, for his part was already well into long pants, and trying to break into solid, dramatic Film roles. Given the Studio System of the era, Powell found himself offered only musicals or musical comedies in his Film career. Whenever Powell would seek more dramatic roles, his studio heads would veto the project. Powell persisted, and lobbied hard for the male lead in the film noir classic, Double Indemnity (1944) but lost the role to Fred MacMurray. But as if fated, Powell landed the role of Philip Marlowe in the other notable film noir classic of 1944, Murder, My Sweet.

Largely on the strength of his critical and popular success in Murder, My Sweet, he persuaded F.W. Fitch, the sponsor of his long-running Fitch Bandwagon Radio variety series to give Powell a try at a detective mystery series for the 1945 Summer season of Fitch Bandwagon, retitled, Fitch Bandwagon Mysteries, then ultimately, Rogue's Gallery.

Fitch Bandwagon Mysteries' Rogue's Gallery was an almost instant hit for Powell, and resulted in an eventual franchise of seven years of Rogue's Gallery, three years of which starred Dick Powell as Richard Rogue. Powell's critical and popular success in the film Johnny O'Clock (1947) further established his reputation as a solid dramatic actor. And while his critical and popular success in Film continued to rise, his sponsor of long standing, F.W. Fitch, was being sued by the Government over it's elaborate claims to 'cure' dandruff. Powell left the Fitch-sponsored Rogue's Gallery franchise upon completing the Summer Season of 1946.

But within two years, Dick Powell and NBC struck a deal to essentially reintroduce Powell's Richard Rogue character as Richard Diamond, Private Detective, or as it was often referred to, Richard Diamond, The Singing Detective.

Dick Powell's Richard Rogue resurfaces as Richard Diamond, the Singing Detective.

While it's unclear whether Dick Powell and NBC specifically set out to recycle Powell's Richard Rogue characterization, history can't help but beg the question. The Rogue's Gallery franchise had slipped into a hiatus when Barry Sullivan's interpretation of Richard Rogue experienced tepid reviews after the Rogue's Gallery's Summer run of 1947.

It's also unclear whether Powell set out to make the 'singing detective' element of NBC's Richard Diamond, Private Detective a permanent fixture of the new characterization. Powell's interpretation of his Richard Rogue character had also enjoyed a few musical episodes during Powell's run as the character, but given Powell's avowed desire to cement his growing dramatic talent, it would seem counterintutive that he'd lobby for a character that would burst into song as a regular feature of a new Radio series. Whether it was his desire to provide himself with a last opportunity to 'sing for his supper', or it was imposed on him by NBC, Powell seemed to enjoy the occasional musical interludes.

Quite naturally, Powell's interpretations of Richard Rogue and Richard Diamond can't help but invite comparisons. As Richard Rogue, he almost invariably found himself knocked out by one means or another during each episode. Those blackouts would transport Rogue to a backwater of Rogue's subconscious he called "Cloud Eight," and was abetted by an imaginary alter ego referred to as "Eugor" (Rogue spelled backward).

In Richard Diamond, Private Detective, by contrast, Diamond would almost as often find himself slugged, blackjacked, brass-knuckled, or otherwise beaned into a similar state of unconscious, but in the case of the Richard Diamond series, sans Peter Leeds in the role of "Eugor." Indeed, as the Parade article below in the log section indicates, Richard Diamond proved himself one of the most durable private eyes of the era, given his almost weekly brushes with death. Indeed, it's no wonder he so often found the desire to break out in song. Diamond had enough lives to make felines great and small, envious.

In another obvious comparison, Powell's Richard Rogue character, when he wasn't unconscious, was a guy that liked to play the field when it came to love interests. As Richard Diamond, Powell's found himself in a more abiding--and often challenging--relationship with the legendary Radio, Film and Television character actress, Virginia Gregg, as Helen Asher, Diamond's love interest and foil. Richard Diamond, Private Detective also saddled him with the great voice talent, Alan Reed, as Lieutenant Levinson, Diamond's friendly nemesis on the Homicide Squad.

Production Details

On the production side, Richard Diamond, Private Detective enjoyed a 'two-fer' of sorts, with Jaime Del Valle producing and directing his wife, Virginia Gregg in the role of Helen Asher. Also at the helm were, alternately, William P. Rousseau, Helen Mack and Nat Wolff. Nor did the Diamond franchise lack anything in writing talent, with no less than Gil Doud, E. Jack Neuman, and Blake Edwards taking the lion's share of the writing credits, assisted by Dick Carr, Ray Dietrich, Dick Quenton, and even Ty Cobb.

Powell's character, Richard Diamond, had been a detective with the Homicide Squad of New York's 5th Precinct for six years prior to his service during the War with the O.S.S., then putting out his own shingle as a private investigator after World War II. Contrary to the vehemently antogonistic relationships between the local constabulary and detectives of the 1940s and 1950s, Richard Diamond enjoyed a relatively cordial relationship with his former colleague on the 5th Precinct's Homicide Bureau, Lieutenant Walter Quincy 'Walt' Levinson, initially portrayed by Ed Begley and later portrayed by Alan Reed. For levity, Diamond also enjoyed a mutually needling relationship with Lt. Levinson's Sgt. Otis Loveloom, a loyal, but somewhat slow on the uptake Homicide Detective Sergeant. The program is sited in the New York area, and the Diamond Detective Agency was ostensibly located at Broadway and 53rd Street in New York City. The agency's supposed telephone number was LUdlow 5-9341. Diamond the detective was a $100-a-day man, presumably on the strength of his previous record of accomplishments while on the Homicide Squad.

While often strapped himself, Richard Diamond ironically enjoys a steady relationship with Helen Asher--portrayed by Virginia Gregg, a gorgeous 'trust fund baby' sitting atop a reported $10M trust fund. Frances Robinson filled in as Helen Asher in several of the NBC-sustained episodes. But stoic that he is, Diamond resists the obvious temptation to simply marry Helen and live off of her trust fund, ala Nick Charles of Thin Man fame. Helen isn't as fascinated with Diamond's cases as was Nora Charles, but Diamond often states that Helen Asher is far and away more intelligent than Diamond himself, and would probably make a far better detective if she ever set her mind to it. And indeed Helen does occasionally add several key insights over the course of the series.

A September 1949 read thru for Richard Diamond with June Allyson looking on. (Left to right): Wilms Herbert as Francis the butler, Virginia Gregg as Helen Asher and Dick Powell as Richard Diamond.

Virginia Gregg's contribution to the series can't be overstated. In addition to her recurring role as Diamond's love interest, Gregg performed in hundreds of other supporting characterizations throughout the run of the series. In addition, hubby Jaime Del Valle directed at least a third of the episodes and supervised virtually all of the transcribed programs themselves. Depending on her role(s) Gregg would often be credited as Virginia Del Valle.

A Hollywood production for the entire franchise, the NBC run was produced at NBC's Radio City-West and the ABC run originated from KECA's Studio Z for rehearsals and Studio X for recorded broadcasts.

Promoted as a comedy -- detective - romance series, all three elements were well supported. From a reading of the scripts it's clear that Powell did quite a bit of adlibbing throughout the run. Many of both scripted and adlibbed comments occasionally referred to other programs of the era, especially competing detective genre programming. In one episode, Diamond refers to both "Pat Koczak", "Sam Spade", and "Hearthstone of The Death Squad" as competitors. Richard Diamond occasionally made reference to himself, Dick Powell the actor, most often as an imitator, untalented singer, or poseur. During the NBC run, Diamond and the Sgt. Otis character traded barbs during almost every episode during which Sgt. Otis was part of the script.

NBC's run was somewhat typical for many of the network's turn of the decade programs. NBC sustained the production for the first fifty-two episodes until Rexall Drug Stores picked up the tab for the remainder of the NBC run. NBC's relationship with Rexall was not without its problems, however and there were periods of problems that went as far as litigation over the production and its continued sponsorship. The NBC run was first directed by William P. Rousseau, known for many of his other hard-hitting detective dramas. The Rousseau-directed episodes were typically more in the radio noir vein. That's not to say that Powell himself didn't continue to contribute his own unique film noir and radio noir influences over the series, but Powell's success with his more light-hearted Richard Rogue characterization very much drove the light comedy aspects of the Richard Diamond run. And of course legendary Blake Edwards penned the overwhelming majority of the scripts for the franchise, keeping them taut, compelling, and often bitingly humorous at the same time.

When it came time for Rexall and NBC to part company, Camel Cigarettes, Powell, Del Valle and the American Broadcasting Company struck a deal to take the series to ABC. Thanks to the R.J. Reynolds archives, we have the benefit of original scripts from the entire ABC, Camel-sponsored run. While the scripts vary in detail, they provide, for the most part, fairly complete details for every program actually broadcast over ABC. The ABC run employed a dizzying array of writers, ranging from Blake Edwards to Ty Cobb. For the ABC run, Alan Reed appeared as Lt. Levinson. The transition to ABC didn't diminish the quality of the run and indeed there are ardent proponents of both networks' efforts. The common denominators remained Dick Powell and Virginia Gregg with very much the same combination of crisp humor and compelling situations.

Dick Powell stayed with the franchise until the end of the Camel-sponsored run on June 27, 1952. Powell's own Film and Television careers had pretty much overtaken all of his time at that point. In 1952 Powell was tapped by Howard Hughes to direct RKO's Split Second, released in 1953 almost the same time as Rexall's last sponsored series of Richard Diamond over CBS. The 1953 run was entirely comprised of rebroadcasts of previous Rexall-sponsored programs over NBC. That Summer 1953 replacement run in the Amos 'n' Andy spot was the last season of Richard Diamond over Radio.

Powell's directing experience with RKO and Hughes soon propelled him to a position as producer for RKO, but Hughes ultimately sold RKO in 1955. Powell, in the meantime, had formed a telefilm production company with David Niven and Charles Boyer, named Four Star Productions. The company brought Ida Lupino into the production company the following year. And indeed, it was the Powell-led Four Star Productions that brought Richard Diamond, Private Detective [Call Mr. D] to Television in 1957, with David Janssen as Richard Diamond and Blake Edwards penning most of the scripts. The series ran for four seasons over Television, its last original program airing in September 1960.

Powell had always been very realistic in his approach to both his film noir characterizations as well as his Richard Rogue and Richard Diamond characters over Radio. Powell knew he'd struck a nerve with his talent for expositional characterizations and his critics and fans agreed. Sixty years later his newest fans agree with equal conviction.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were the log of the radioGOLDINdex and newspaper listings.

We invite you to compare our fully provenanced research with the Certifed Accurate Richard Diamond, Private Detective log. We've also provided a screen shot of their current log for comparison, HERE, to protect our own further due diligence.

OTRisms:

Right up front, the commercial otr community, entrenched as it is and as wildly inaccurate as it is, has long misrepresented the highly popular Richard Diamond, Private Detective canon since the inception of 'organized' otr, or 'old time radio.' The term, 'otr' itself, is inaccurate from the start. There's nothing whatsover 'old time' about the vast majority of surviving vintage Radio recordings from The Golden Age of Radio. The overwhelming majority of the surviving recordings are as entertaining and timeless today, as they were when they were first broadcast and recorded.

Note, by comparison, the scrupulously accurate catalogs of operatic and symphonic recordings from the same era--most often referred to as 'classical recordings'--and catalogs of jazz recordings from the same era. The operatic, classical, and jazz recordings of the era are not only scrupulously cataloged, but historically accurate across the board. Vintage, commercially broadcast Radio recordings of the era deserve the same attention to detail, scrupulous accuracy and historical detail as their classical and jazz counterparts. All families of vintage recordings deserve the same place in World History.

The difference, in practice, between classical and jazz catalogs of recordings of the era and vintage, commercially broadcast Radio recordings is that the proponents of 'classical and jazz' recordings highly value and appreciate their collections. The overwhelming majority of 'otr collectors', especially the commercial vendors responsible for the gross inaccuracies in virtually every canon of recordings from the era, don't care a whit about historical accuracy. And, indeed, the overwhelming majority of 'otr collectors' treat their 'hoards' like baseball card collections. They simply accumulate all they can lay their hands on, never really enjoying, appreciating, or even listening to the overwhelming majority of their accumulations.

Richard Diamond, Private Detective is a typical example of the travesty that 'otr' exploitation has wrought since its invention in 1975. And in the case of the Richard Diamond, Private Detective series', the persistent problems are legion, the vast majority of the misrepresentations and misinformation stemming from The Vintage Radio Place commercial cassette catalogs widely--and recklessly--employed throughout the 'otr community':

• Episode No. 1 of the NBC-sustained canon of Richard Diamond is almost certainly The Richard Barton Case, long cited as airing on May 1, 1949 instead of April 24, 1949. The Parade Magazine article of August 20, 1950 elaborately re-stages, pictorially, several vignettes from the preceding year of Richard Diamond episodes, complete with Dick Powell posing for each of the re-staged depictions of specific episodes. In the center of the two-page article is a re-staging of the episode referred to as from April 24, 1949. The restaged scene and situation is from The Richard Barton Case. And of course, the OTRR--and others--have monkeyed with the circulating AFRTS-denatured rendition to give it the appearance of a full-length, as-broadcast recording: padding it with 4 minutes of silence at the end, and slowing down the recording to stretch it to 27 minutes or so, the combination rendering either a 30:00 minute recording or a 32:00 minute recording. As it turns out, it was all for naught--it never was Episode No. 2 in the first place. And--as usual--the OTRR's obsession with mixing and matching AFRS and AFRTS-denatured recordings with 'as broadcast' recordings ends up screwing up their entire "Certified Accurate" collection for everyone that foolishly downloads from them--yet again.
• Episode No. 2 of the NBC-sustained canon of Richard Diamond is almost certainly The Wondrous Tale of the Hand-Painted Cow, a storyline later used during the ABC, Camel-sponsored run of Richard Diamond, script-titled, The White Cow Case. This further supports the provenance for Episode No. 1, since NBC almost certainly wouldn't have aired the same episode, two-weeks running, during the premiering two weeks of the new program. And indeed, the episode title cited in the newspaper listing for May 1, 1949 very specifically cites The Wondrous Tale of the Hand-Painted Cow as the title of that evening's episode.
• The majority of the remaining NBC-broadcast episodes of Richard Diamond failed to tease the plots, storylines or titles to the newspapers and magazine of the era, so that most of the remaining NBC-broadcast episode titles remain anecdotal. Even worse those few storylines, plots or titles that were provided have been for the most part completely rejected by the commercial otr vendors--and hence by the vast majority of otr collectors in their wake. As usual, it's got nothing to do with getting it right. It's all about avoiding changing disk labels and already burned or recorded stocks of on-the-shelf media awaiting sale. OTR authors are no better, the majority never issuing addenda to correct their legion inaccuracies.
• The ABC, Camel-sponsored run, by contrast, is supported by the actual scripts for the entire run, preserved and available as part of the reparations imposed by the Government on cigarette manufacturers of the era, at their tobaccodocuments.org site. We therefore have specific, fully provenanced titles for every script ever aired during the Camel-sponsored run over ABC. And yet, in spite of the ready availability of these scripts for over nine years now, the commercial otr community and their supporters still adamantly refuse to correct their apocryphal titles from the Camel run of Richard Diamond. This is the very essence of the problems plaguing the otr community in general--stubborn, entrenched--or often co-opted--refusal to correct the historical record regarding this national treasure of Golden Age Radio recordings.
• Nor, apart from the commercial messages, was there anything original about the canon of CBS rebroadcasts from the Rexall-sponsored Richard Diamond recordings originally aired over NBC. Each and every one of those programs were rebroadcasts of Rexall-sponsored episodes.
• Commercial otr vendors have had at least nine years to correct their erroneous Richard Diamond, Private Detective commercial catalogs. The OTRR is no better. Knowing full well that the precise titles of the entire ABC run of Richard Diamond, Private Detective are readily available, that influential group still goes out of their way to protect the very otr vendors they publicly posture against by perpetuating the inaccurate titles from certain OTRR-protected vendors (e.g., vendors who make donations to the OTRR). The OTRR continues to endorse only those references that either comprise their membership or generously donate to their efforts. 'Pay for play' is afterall a grand, albeit infamous, tradition from the commercial Radio era. Apparently the OTRR feels that 'pay for play' is as lucrative today as it was during the 'Rock N Roll' scandals of the 60s, 70s and 80s. They got booted from Wikipedia for such abuses. Now they simply employ their OTRRpedia for the practice.

One other episode deserves a bit of additional explanation--The Chapel Hill Case. In listening to the episode the following elements formed the basis for our placement of the program in the NBC Rexall run, the CBS Rebroadcasts run, and the AFRTS exemplars log:

• Helen Asher suggests that Rick consider writing holiday cards and "Christmas isn't that far off."
• The announcer heard in the only circulating rendition--an AFRTS-denatured recording--is Bill Forman, from the NBC Rexall run. Bill Forman is the only announcer heard on the circulating Jaime Del Valle-transcribed AFRTS recordings, as well as in the Rexall-sponsored runs.
• Lt. Levinson and Diamond discuss the Private Eye Test that Levinson helped Diamond pass "last year," and suggests that the Police Commissioner is threatening to have another one "this year."
• The impending new Private Eye Test can't be within one of the ABC Camel-sponsored episodes since every one of them is accounted for by an original script, Q.E.D..
• The intro music and theme employed is only heard in the NBC Rexall-sponsored episodes.

We've therefore concluded that The Chapel Hill Case can only be one of the previously unknown titles in the December 1950 range: December 13, December 20, or December 27. The December 13 date would seem the only qualifying date for The Chapel Hill Case. But we've left it provisional for the time being, while adjusting the CBS Rebroadcast log and AFRTS log accordingly. What remains indisputable--at present--is that the only circulating recording of The Chapel Hill Case is the AFRTS-denatured recording being disingenuously passed off by the OTRR and others as from the CBS Rebroadcasts canon only. A similar situation exists with two other titles in the CBS Rebroadcasts Run:

• The currently provisional Buried Treasure title cited in the CBS run can't be from the Camel canon since the CBS Rebroadcasts were only from the previous NBC Rexall-sponsored run. Nor can it be The Man With A Scar for the same reason. And indeed, the cited newspaper hint argues against The Man With A Scar as the title for that rebroadcast.
• The Pete Rocco Case can only be a rebroadcast of the NBC Rexall-sponsored episode of the same name. The Camel-sponsored script differs materially from the NBC script even though the plot line is the same. And again, the CBS Rebroadcasts run comprised only previously aired broadcasts from the Rexall-sponsored series.
• The provisionally titled The Hollywood Story can't be a rebroadcast from the Camel-sponsored canon for the same reasons cited above. It would have to be another Hollywood-themed episode from the remaining, as yet unidentified NBC-broadcast programs.
• The provisionally titled The Charles Johnson Matter can't be a rebroadcast from the Camel-sponsored canon for the same reasons cited above. It would have to be an episode from the remaining, as yet unidentified NBC-broadcast programs.
• Indeed, if all of the unaccounted-for episodes from the CBS Rebroadcasts run were employed to fill in the outstanding 'Title Unknown' episodes from the NBC Rexall-sponsored run, that run would have a complete set of titles as well.

It's also worth noting that the long-standing The Bloody Hat Case didn't air at Episode No. 11. It aired at Episode No. 7, on June 5, 1949, as provenanced by two newspapers of the era in two of the more rare thumbnail descriptions of the program. We've renamed it, more appropriately, The Bertram Kalmus Case, after the principal character, Bertram Kalmus, portrayed by Wally Maher.

The CBS Rebroadcasts Run, sponsored by Rexall, were all rebroadcasts of previous Rexall-sponsored Richard Diamond, Private Detective episodes. Therefore, the failure to cite a date from which the broadcast was repeated renders any entry in the CBS run without a date from which it was rebroadcast as suspect. Or perhaps the commercial otr community and the OTRR would have us believe that Dick Powell dropped everything he was doing in 1953 to record one or two original recordings to flesh out the CBS, Rexall-sponsored Summer run. We quite naturally doubt that hypothesis.

And, as we've all grown to expect from the otr community, at least 16 currently circulating exemplars of Richard Diamond, Private Detective are intentionally misnamed, truncated, altered or pieced together to disguise the actual recording. This accounts for the artificially high number of currently circulating exemplars. Nothing new about that. They're otr, afterall. And, again as usual, the otr community continues to mix and match AFRTS-denatured exemplars of the era with 'as broadcast' exemplars. This is the very reason that the Richard Diamond canon has been so absurdly cataloged for so many years. The answers themselves lie in many of the AFRTS recordings--especially Episode No. 1 of the canon, The Richard Barton Case, currently available only as an AFRTS recording.

We've cataloged the NBC, ABC, CBS and AFRTS canons of Richard Diamond, Private Detective (below) from as many historical provenances as we could assemble. If you feel that Golden Age Radio recordings merit the same accuracy, historical integrity, and respect accorded to the equally important classical and jazz catalogs from the era, we invite you to employ our findings.

If, on the other hand, you don't care about the accuracy or historical integrity of your vintage Radio collection, you're welcome to employ the wildly inaccurate commercial catalog details that have been circulating--in error--for at least forty years of 'otr'. The OTRR, Calfkiller or OTRCat are certainly good points of departure if you don't care a bit about the accuracy of your collection--or, for that matter, if you simply enjoy multiple copies of the exact same program in each canon of your collections.

We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

All rights reserved by their respective sources. Article and log copyright 2009 The Digital Deli Online--all rights reserved. Any failure to attribute the results of this copywritten work will be rigorously pursued.

[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]