Boston Blackie

About Boston Blackie

Boston Blackie is an old time radio detective show about a reformed jewel thief who solves crimes on his own side of the law, "enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend." It ran from 1944 to 1950, and here you can listen to it free online, around the clock, or as a free podcast. Chester Morris, star of Columbia's Boston Blackie films, brought him to NBC radio in the summer of 1944. From 1945 to 1950 Richard Kollmar played him in the long-running syndicated series from Frederick Ziv.

Blackie is older than radio. Author Jack Boyle created him while serving time in the Colorado State Penitentiary, and the first stories ran in The American Magazine in 1914, signed "No. 6606." In print Blackie was a safecracker with a code of honor. On radio he is a self-taught expert on gems with "no visible means of support," as critic John Crosby put it, who solves cases "more for the fun of it than for sordid cash." Most stories turn on jewels, frame-ups and convicts out for revenge.

The fun is in the regulars. Inspector Farraday, played on the Ziv shows by Maurice Tarplin, keeps suspecting Blackie of New York's latest crime no matter how many cases Blackie cracks for him. Blackie's girlfriend Mary Wesley, a nurse, was played by Jan Miner and Lesley Woods, and his pal Shorty by Tony Barrett and John Gibson. The Ziv shows were sold station by station with local sponsors, so you'll hear a mix of old beer and loan commercials. Author Tim DeForest called the Ziv version "consistently well-written."

What you’ll hear

• Two Blackies: Chester Morris on the 1944 NBC summer series and Richard Kollmar on the Ziv shows from 1945 to 1950.
• The running feud with Inspector Farraday, who suspects Blackie of nearly every crime in town.
• Jewel thefts, frame-ups and escaped convicts out to get Blackie, along with stranger puzzles such as an office building that vanishes overnight.
• Maurice Tarplin, the eerie narrator of The Mysterious Traveler, as Farraday.
• Studio organ music and the Boston Blackie theme by organist Lew White.
• Local commercials of the 1940s, including Champagne Velvet beer of Indiana, "the Smeeeeoooth Beer."

Where to start

• Begin with "The Jonathan Diamond" (1944), the first NBC broadcast with Chester Morris, in which Blackie is arrested in Chicago as part of a woman's scheme.
• "Black Market Blackie" (1944) shows how the war crept into the stories. "Blackie Jilts Mary" (1945) is a look at Blackie's love life.
• Most episodes were never given titles on the air, so it is easy to drop in anywhere. The podcast releases a new episode twice a week in broadcast order.

Boston Blackie on the radio

NBC (1944); Ziv syndication on Mutual and ABC (1945-1950), 1944-1950. With Chester Morris, Richard Lane, Jan Miner, Lesley Woods, Harlow Wilcox.

Where the recordings come from

The Boston Blackie recordings here come from the Old Time Radio Researchers' Boston Blackie Singles set (199 episodes), hosted by the Internet Archive. Our thanks to the Old Time Radio Researchers, the volunteers who found, dated and assembled the set, and to the Archive and the collectors whose uploads it rests on. The sound is our remaster of those files (rumble, hiss and hum cleaned out, levelled to steady broadcast loudness); the recordings themselves are theirs. About our sources.

Every Boston Blackie episode: the full list, with air dates and stories

More to listen to

• Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
• Let George Do It
• Broadway Is My Beat
• Nick Carter, Master Detective
• The Adventures of Philip Marlowe
• Christmas on old-time radio

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