#bold venture

[oldradioguy1776]

Husband and wife duo, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall starred in the old time radio program "Bold Venture" 1951-1952

[cantsayidont]

Video Killed the Radio Star

If you don't already feel sufficiently alienated from the culture of your generation, consider getting into old time radio. It's pretty easy to do: Radio was mainstream media from the 1930s well into the 1950s, and it hung on for quite a while after it started losing ground to television. There's a huge amount of programming in various genres, and a surprising amount of it survives; there was a cottage industry in OTR cassettes and CDs for many years, a lot of shows can be found in MP3 format without much effort, and some of it pops up regularly on streaming platforms.

The easiest way to get into it is if you're already got a fondness for some older Hollywood star: If they were a movie star between 1930 and 1960, there's a good chance they guest-starred in various radio shows, and they might even have had their own show for a while. For instance, do you like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall? Around 1950, they had their own syndicated radio adventure series, BOLD VENTURE, which was essentially an extended riff on their characters in the 1944 film version of TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT. Orson Welles, of course, was a big radio star, playing the lead on THE SHADOW in 1937–38 and then bringing his Mercury Theatre company to a number of different one-hour and half-hour radio series. Vincent Price starred for several seasons as Leslie Charteris's Simon Templar on THE SAINT. And almost everyone who was anyone showed up now and again on SUSPENSE or LUX RADIO THEATRE (which produced all-star one-hour adaptations of popular movies). If you're a Superman or Sherlock Holmes fan, the radio versions of those characters are a must — Holmes was a perennial presence on English-language radio for decades.

If you want something more modern, the British kept producing generally high-quality radio dramas in surprising volume until relatively recently, including a range of both adaptations and originals. Unlike American radio, the survival rate for older British programs from the '40s and '50s is poor, but the BBC has continued periodically airing its better material from the '70s through the '00s, a lot of which has been offered on cassette and CD. For instance, there were excellent BBC radio series dramatizing the Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster stories (with Michael Hordern and Richard Briers); Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series (with Ian Carmichael); and Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mysteries (with John Moffat), along with standalone plays on programs like SATURDAY-NIGHT THEATRE. The big limitation with British radio dramas is that the number of British radio actors who can do convincing American accents is not high (and is definitely lower than the number who mistakenly think they can), and the availability of American actors who know how to act for radio is clearly even more limited, which can become a grating problem when dramatizing American material.

One of the reasons that listening to older (and/or British) radio shows will contribute to your cultural alienation is that it will make a lot of modern dramatic podcast series and audio dramatizations excruciating, because it will reveal to you how bad a lot of modern audio dramatists and performers are at this once commonplace art. (If you are or are contemplating doing a dramatic podcast or audio drama, please, for the love of dog, make a close study of radio shows created before you were born, and diversify enough to recognize the mediocrity of hacks like Dirk Maggs, who's been stinking up audio drama on two continents for four decades now.)

[citizenscreen]

Many years ago I received a box set of old-time radio shows from a friend that included several episodes of Bold Venture, a radio action/adventure series Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall starred in together from 1951 to 1952. I have spent a bit of time on the Bold Venture of late and thought it a fine way to honor Lauren Bacall for the upcoming anniversary of her birth. Not that a reason is needed to spend time with old-time radio programs.

It is difficult to sit here and try to sell Bold Venture as important in the lives or careers of the legendary Bogarts. In fact, the program is rarely even mentioned in retrospectives of either actor’s career. I mean, you do not even get a chance to witness Lauren Bacall’s signature “look” on a radio program for crissakes, the look she “manufactured” due to nerves while working on Howard Hawks’ To Have and Have Not, during which she met Humphrey Bogart. The two went on to star in three more movies together, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Key Largo, and more importantly, fell in love, married and had a family. Anyway, all that said, the short-lived Bold Venure, which was produced by Bogart’s Santana Productions, holds the distinction of being the only radio program series to star either Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall, aside from single episodes of anthology series, so to say it is not worthy is a crime.

In Bold Venture Bogart stars as Slate Shannon, a seafarer who owns a hotel in Cuba that harbors a different shady character each week. Along to assist Shannon for the ride and each week’s adventure is Sailor Duval (Bacall). The premise of Bold Venture and most of the featured stories are reminiscent of the Bogart/Bacall film collaborations, To Have and Have Not in particular, which all but cemented the series’ popularity by capitalizing on the couple’s greatest films. There’s no doubt you’ll enjoy these programs if you are a Bogart and Bacall fan. I was recently surprised to find negative reviews of Bold Venture because for me the magic of what made Bogart Bogart and the allure of Bacall shine through in each episode. What seems to ring true is that the series lasted only one season because Bogart was not happy making it.

  Without further ado, here they are, Bogie and Bacall in the “sultry setting of tropical Havana” with each episode promising adventure, intrigue, mystery, and romance…

  “Deadly Merchanise”

https://ia800605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture51032601DeadlyMerchandise.mp3

  “A Bullet for Shannon”

https://ia800605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture51041604ABulletForShannon.mp3

  “This Gin Will Kill You”

https://ia800605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture51051408ThatGunWillKillYou.mp3

  “Russian Roulette”

https://ia800605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture51070215RussianRoulette.mp3

    “Dead Men Don’t Leave Prints”

https://ia600605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture51112636DeadMenDontLeavePrints.mp3

  “Revenge Equals Murder Times 2”

https://ia800605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture52012845RevengeEqualsMurderTimes2.mp3

  “The Bold Venture is Stolen”

https://ia600605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture51111234TheBoldVentureIsStolen.mp3

  “Engaged in Murder”

https://ia800605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture52021848EngagedInMurder.mp3

  “Welcome to Civilization Dead Man”

https://ia800605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture52022549WelcomeToCivilizationDeadMan.mp3

  “Deadly Diamonds”

https://ia800605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture52031752DeadlyDiamonds.mp3

  “Revenge is Sweet”

https://ia800605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture52032453RevengeIsSweet.mp3

  “The Runaway Wife”

https://ia800605.us.archive.org/28/items/BoldVenture57Episodes/BoldVenture52033154TheRunawayWife.mp3

  “Out of Control”

https://ia600307.us.archive.org/6/items/BoldVenture510910OutOfControl/Bold%20Venture%2051-09-10%20Out%20of%20Control.mp3

  ♥

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart at the Calvavados Cabaret in Paris, 1951

Bogart and Bacall Star in “Bold Venture” Many years ago I received a box set of old-time radio shows from a friend that included several episodes of…

[meanstreetspodcasts]

Ads from various local stations (and sponsors) for their broadcasts of Bold Venture - the syndicated adventure drama that brought Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to radio every week.

[thehorsegodbuilt]

Bold Venture

[effulgentpoet]

endless list of favorites:

BOLD VENTURE

Bold Venture was a syndicated radio series starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall that aired from 1951 to 1952. Salty seadog Slate Shannon (Bogart) owns a Cuban hotel, Shannon's Place, sheltering an assortment of treasure hunters, revolutionaries and other shady characters. With his sidekick and ward, the sultry Sailor Duval (Bacall), tagging along, he encounters modern-day pirates and other tough situations while navigating the waters around Havana. Aboard his boat, the Bold Venture, Slate and Sailor experience "adventure, intrigue, mystery and romance in the sultry settings of tropical Havana and the mysterious islands of the Caribbean." Calypso singer King Moses (Jester Hairston) provided musical bridges by threading plot situations into the lyrics of his songs. The series combined elements of a number of past Bogart/Bacall film collaborations, most notably To Have and Have Not which also cast Bogart as a boat owner in the Caribbean who reluctantly becomes involved in intrigue while romancing Bacall. The relationship between Shannon and King Moses, and his ownership of an inn, is strongly reminiscent of the dynamic between Rick Blaine and Sam in Casablanca.

[meanstreetspodcasts]

Tomorrow on Down These Mean Streets, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall headline three old time radio adventures from Bold Venture. The Hollywood heavyweights brought their smoldering chemistry in their own syndicated radio series, and we’ll enjoy all of the exotic intrigue and excitement on tomorrow’s new podcast episode!

Click here to subscribe to the podcast, and tune in every Sunday for old time radio detectives and crime-fighters.

[meanstreetspodcasts]

Actor and Hollywood legend Humphrey Bogart was born December 25, 1899. Bogart’s performances are legendary and headline some of cinema’s undisputed classics, including Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen. He’s the only actor to play the two great private eyes of fiction - Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade (in The Maltese Falcon) and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe (in The Big Sleep). 

On radio, Bogart was a regular guest on variety and comedy programs, and he and wife Lauren Bacall starred in Bold Venture, a syndicated mystery adventure program.

In honor of his birthday, I’ll post some of his radio performances. For more from the Golden Age of Radio, click here to subscribe to the “Down These Mean Streets” podcast in iTunes.