The Up For Parole Radio Program

Background

Thoughout the Golden Age of Radio, crime drama of one sub-genre or another held America's interest. Whether targeted to juvenile or adult audiences, crime dramas of the era continued to provide escapist adventure, cerebral crime detection or simply schadenfreude value, America absorbed itself in the more compelling crime productions:

1929-59 True Detective Mysteries
1930-31 Captain Post, Crime Specialist
1933-39 Calling All Cars
1935-57 Gang Busters
1935-36 Police Reporter
1936-49 Famous Jury Trials
1937 Murder Will Out
1937-52 Big Town
1938 Attorney at Law
1939 Crime and Death Take No Holiday
1939-52 Mr. District Attorney
1943 Highway Patrol 
1944-45 American Woman’s Jury
1945 Manhunt
1946 Police Woman
1946-47 The Crime Cases of Warden Lawes
1946-54 Under Arrest
1947-49 Call the Police
1947-57 Official Detective
1947-1955 The Big Story
1948 Criminal Casebook
1949 Crime Correspondent
1949-51 Crime Does Not Pay
1949-52 Pursuit
1949-57 Dragnet
1950-51 Hannibal Cobb
1950-51 Up for Parole
1950-53 The Lineup
1950 Wanted!
1951 The Man From Homicide
1951-52 Defense Attorney
1952 The Judge
1952 The Private Files of Matthew Bell
1954-55 Night Watch
1956 Indictment

We've intentionally omitted the hundreds of crime and mystery adventures of the era targeted to juveniles, the 'gentleman' or 'couples' detective dramas of the era, and the 'gumshoe' dramas of the era. The subject here is real--or fictional--crime dramatizations that purported to be either inspired by or drawn from actual crime files or crime headlines throughout the era.

The post-World War II era, especially, found itself awash in 'adult' crime and western dramas, a trend that continued well into the mid-1950s. That trend also exploded over early Television as well. Indeed, several of the 'adult' crime and western dramas of the Golden Age Radio era made a successful jump to Television, several of them airing concurrently over Radio and Television.

CBS launches Up For Parole

The concept of a radio series based on either prisoners or prospective parolees had been floating around for several years prior to the 1950 premiere of Up For Parole. At least two auditions for such a project were produced for potential sponsor or network interest. CBS ultimately produced Up for Parole in cooperation with the National Probation and Parole Association with an eye toward more widely publicizing both the justice and injustice--percieved or otherwise--of the era's attempts to either rehabilitate or encourage the rehabilitation of America's convicted criminals.

The series described itself as based on actual case files provided through the auspices of the National Probation and Parole Association with further research provided by Wally Gould of CBS. Premiering on March 10th of 1950, Up for Parole aired for thirty-nine, network-sustained episodes--or 'cases'. The new series also employed an 'audience participation' element in the following general format:

• The introduction of the parole candidate, his or her crime--in the words of the prisoner, and the parole candidate's 'case number' or 'prisoner number.'
• A dramatization of the life events that resulted in the candidate's incarceration(s).
• The prisoner's ultimate trial(s) or conviction(s).
• A promotional break provided for the listening audience to formulate their own conclusions and decisions regarding the candidate's worthiness for parole.
• The actual 'decision' of the Parole Board and its rationale for either granting or denying parole.
• A brief epilogue describing the post-decision outcome of the Parole Board on the episode's subject.

And indeed, not all of the parole candidates were ultimately granted parole during the series, which continued to make the series compelling for its audience. The crimes and sentences of the parole candidates ran the gamut of serious felonies from larceny to murder--and even cattle-rustling. The Parole Board Chairman, most often depicted by actor Wendell Holmes, took pains during several episodes to underscore--to both the parole candidate and the listening audience--that the decision of the Board had to be unanimous. That being the requirement there was even more of a burden, on both the words of the candidate and the episodes' accompanying dramatizations, to provide an even more compelling case for his or her parole decision by the Board--and of course that of the listening audience as well.

Thus, the criteria for both the fictional Parole Board and the listening audience set a comparatively high bar for compassion, credibility and justice. All of the dramatized 'cases' were understandably morality tales--morality tales being very much the rage throughout the Cold War years of the new Atomic Age. In service of those ends, CBS writers Arnold Perl, Allan Sloane and Robert Cenedella provided a careful mix of pathos, detail and authenticity to Up for Parole's underlying dramatizations.

Produced and broadcast out of CBS' New York flagship station WCBS, CBS also tapped its West Coast resources to assemble the series. CBS' successful young black director Mitchell Grayson produced and directed the series out of WCBS and John Dietz directed the West Coast contributions out of CBS-KNX in Hollywood. CBS staff writer and researcher Wally Gould assisted the writers in vetting the authencity and accuracy of the series' 'case files,' and CBS music director Harry Salter provided the series' musical underscore and interstitial musical elements. Harry Marble served as the series' narrator and announcer.

Though failing to find a sponsor for the series, CBS continued to capitalize on the comparative success of Up for Parole to promote many of the other programs in its lineup. Up for Parole was immediately followed by Broadway Is My Beat in most CBS markets and as most fans of Broadway Is My Beat can testify, Broadway Is My Beat also seized on its popular success--and network-sustained status--to aggressively promote CBS' more popular weekly programs of the era.

The bottom line? We found Up for Parole to be a well-mounted crime drama novelty of the era. It followed up on the traditional denouement moments of most of the competing crime dramas of the period with dramatizations of the efforts of convicted criminals to gain parole from their prison sentences. Splendid radio fare, all told.

Series Derivatives:

Notes on Provenances:

The most helpful provenances were newspaper listings.

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[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.]