Real Crimes Basis for Two Programs

 By JOHN CROSBY

      CBS and NBC have both come up with almost identical programs aimed at solving crimes which are still open cases and at apprehending criminals still at large.  Both these programs, NBC's "Wanted" (7 p.m. PDT Friday) and CBS's "Somebody Knows" (6 p.m. PDT Thursday), are, so far as I know, novel, though rather belated, experiments in radio journalism.

     Both programs review actual unsolved crimes, providing listeners with as much information as possible about the suspects in the hope that some listener may come forth with tips leading to the capture and conviction of the criminals.

     The networks would be performing a great public service if they land any criminals.  So far, neither of them has.  Even if they don't, these are both highly educational programs, furnishing the average laymen with sound information on the workings, both of the underworld and of the law enforcement agencies.  Since the public's thirst for crime programs of some sort seems virtually unquenchable, it's nice to have a couple of programs that deal with authentic crimes as opposed to the ordinary run of derring-do on the radio.

REWARD OFFERED

     "Somebody Knows," which offers a $5000 reward if you can put a finger on any of these criminals, recently took up the case of a psychopathic killer operating in St. Paul.  It opened with the voice of a Dr. Hathaway, a professor of psychology, addressing a seminar on mental abnormalities and speaking specifically of the repetitive nature of criminal acts by various types of psychopaths.

     This led into the review of the case of a girl named Geraldine.  Geraldine was returning home from her job shortly after midnight on a rainy night.  She was within two blocks of her home--a fact established by the bus driver who let her out there--when she was attacked and killed.  Her body, the throat and wrists slashed, was found three miles away from the scene of the crime.  The girl was neither raped nor robbed.

     Dr. Hathaway, who was called into the case by the police, predicted that the killer would strike again if the same set of circumstances arose again.  Sure enough, about a  year later, a girl named Mary Agnes was returning to her home alone from an evening at the ballet about midnight.  The circumstances were almost identical.  She was within three blocks of her home--a fact verified by the streetcar conductor.  It was a rainy night.  The streets were deserted.  Mary Agnes was killed in the same manner as Geraldine, throat and wrists slashed, and her body was discovered miles from the crime scene. 

NO DIRECT LINK

     There was no direct evidence linking both crimes to the same person, but Dr. Hathaway drew up a list of 21 points of similarity and concluded with what he described as a "personality portrait" of the killer.  Want to hear it?

     The man, says Dr. Hathaway, lived or lives somewhere in the neighborhood of the crime, has an automobile--probably an inconspicuous one--has a chance to roam the neighborhood either on foot or in his car without attracting too much attention, probably had an opportunity to know about Mary Agnes and may even have known her, was between the ages of 25 and 45, is likely to be intelligent with a good job and is the type of man not ordinarily open to suspicion, may have had a recent nervous breakdown, has sullen moody spells, shows less than average interest in women (a rather surprising point), and probably carries a knife with which he commits his crimes around with him at all times.

     The criminal is still at large, and, Dr. Hathaway warned, he will strike again under the same set of circumstances. 

'WANTED' DIFFERENT

     "Wanted" is a somewhat different proposition.  Its producers, Walter and Peggy McGraw, toured the country for months collecting the voices on tape of police officials, newspapermen, district attorneys, prison officials and witnesses involved in some of the Nation's most spectacular unsolved crimes.  No actors are used on this one at all.  The actual persons simply retell what they know of the crime.  Each week an underworld character, kept anonymous for his own protection, gives tips on the habits, appearance and associates of the wanted man.

     The cases "Wanted" has dealt with include that of Willie "The Actor" Sutton, a very skillful jail-break artist, who is wanted for virtually everything.  Another concerned the shocking murder of Sen. Warren G. Hooper, of Michigan, who was to have been one of the principal witnesses in a gambling probe in that state.  Wanted for the latter is a man named Mike Sulik, who, McGraw informed us, is one of the most dangerous criminals at large.

     Both programs employ almost a magazine rather than a dramatic approach, avoid sensationalism and stick to the facts which, after all the crime nonsense on the air, you'll find enormously refreshing.

(Copyright, 1950, for The Tribune)

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John Crosby had long been a critic of the 'radio noir' crime and detective dramas of the 1940s, almost invariably panning the majority of them for their questionable plots and far-fetched and implausible situations. But both Somebody Knows and Wanted seemed to strike the right balance for Crosby. For the Radio audiences of the era, not nearly as much.

Though both series achieved respectable ratings during their brief summer runs, neither were renewed beyond their Summer seasons. Both series were more docudramas than dramatizations. For American audiences, both series' remained simply 'a Summer fling' and little more. Dragnet continued to climb the charts and CBS' The Line-Up was gaining both an audience and sponsors.

Production notes and history

Summertime is, afterall, a time of escapism for most of America. Somebody Knows differed from Wanted by focusing on an unsolved crime of a particularly gruesome or notorious nature. Wanted by contrast focused on the career fugitive. Wanted's thirteen installments traced the 'careers' of criminals who'd acheived the lofty heights of the FBI's infamous 'Ten Most Wanted' list. These were con-artists, repeat prison escapees, and killers of the most notorious stripe. Many of the names were still quite familiar to early 1950s audiences: Willie Sutton, Mikey Melik, 'Two Gun Kinnie' Wagner and Glen Roy Wright in particular. And while many of these desperadoes were more regional sensations in nature, Willie 'The Actor' Sutton and 'Two Gun Kinnie' Wagner had made headlines across the U.S. during their various crime sprees.

While Somebody Knows had offered a standing $5,000 reward for further insights into their unsolved crime depictions, Wanted focused only on fugitives either currently or previously at large--with no reward offered other than America's unspoken obligation to assist in the fugitive's capture, or recapture.

Wanted's format framed each docudrama with the actual, first person accounts of those involved in the crimes commited by the fugitive at issue. The interviews were intermixed with Fred Collins' and Walter McGraw's expositions to move the dramatizations to their conclusion. At the conclusion of each program, the narrator(s) would provide clues as to the possible whereabouts of the fugitive(s) at large.

The circulating exemplars are uniformly taut, well paced and informative, even by today's standards. Dramatizations were kept to a minimum, relying primarily on the first-person accounts and interviews to move the plots along. Morris Mamorsky's scores added to the pace and suspense of each episode, and the expositional writing in support of each episode was both succinct and informative.

Both series--Somebody Knows and Wanted--were also examples of series' conceived, shaped, promoted, produced and directed by a single, independent producer for network consumption: Jimmy Saphier for Somebody Knows and Walter McGraw for Wanted. These types of entrepreneurial productions would see far greater exploitation throughout the 1950s, as major networks sought to reduce or restrain Radio production costs in favor of their Television offerings.

For Crime fans of the era, Wanted clearly fired the imagination and provided a radio verite realism to each installment rarely ever heard before over Radio. For the sociologist or student of the police science of the era, the surviving exemplars illustrate the evolving sophistication of both criminal forensics and fugitive pursuit technology of the era.