Nick Carter¸ Master Detective - Death After Dark (audio product)
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Yes¸ it's another case for that most famous of all manhunters¸ the detective whose ability at solving crime is unequaled in the history of detective fiction: Nick Carter¸ Master Detective!"
Nick Carter¸ nearly perfect in both matchless intellect and olympian physique¸ set the standard for private eye fiction for decades. Originating in an 1886 pulp story¸ Carter was quickly so popular he spun out into his own magazine. Over the coming decades¸ he would be a fixture of Street & Smith publications¸ the silver screen (beginning in a 1908 French silent film) and eventually on the radio from 1943 to 1955. While later versions of the character reimagined him as a secret agent and even an assassin¸ the original take on Nick Carter was part of the foundation of the detective genre and continues to entertain today.
Carter operates out of his New York brownstone office and laboratory¸ joined by his assistant Patsy Bowen and sometime-assistant/sometime-reporter "Scubby" Wilson. While the character is played as the squarest of square-jawed gumshoes¸ modern audiences will recognize the inherent hilarity of the series¸ from the bizarrely convoluted investigations to Nick's bits of arcane¸ esoteric knowledge that invariably allow him to solve the case. Best enjoyed with an appreciation for the ridiculous (and some patience with the appalling stereotypes of the past)¸ this series transports you back to a nostalgic age that never was.
Death After Dark
First Broadcast: February 19¸ 1944.
Starring Lon Clark and Helen Choate.
"...or Nick Carter and the Mystery of the Vampire Killings." A series of nightime attacks by tiny creatures in a park draws in Nick and company. Cornmeal is utilized as a valuable investigative tool. Nick is barely persuaded not to crossdress in public. Patsy recites The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. Vampires¸ monkeys¸ bats¸ gangsters and a very involved Edgar Allen Poe reading all have to be ruled out as suspects before extraordinary racism finally solves the case. Nick explains that killing someone by drawing all the blood out of their body isn't murder.
Advertising: A PSA reminding Americans to stick to wartime gasoline rationing and never turn to the black market.