Newsroom flashbulbs meet city murder.
Casey, Crime Photographer follows an ace cameraman for the Morning Express as crime scenes pull him from the office, the Blue Note Cafe, and police headquarters. Its cases move through a locked shop, theater rooms, stolen papers, poisoning, and sharp exchanges with Ann Williams and Captain Logan.
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Casey, Crime Photographer is a crime-radio drama about a newspaper cameraman who keeps arriving where the city has turned dangerous. Casey is introduced as the ace cameraman for the Morning Express, and the excerpts make that job feel like a passport into trouble. A locked shop, a police telephone, an untidy photographer’s room, a neighborhood pet shop, the Blue Note Cafe, and a half-lit theater can all become the next crime scene. The show wastes little time getting there. Someone hears gunshots. Someone calls headquarters. Someone asks for a gun. Someone brings Casey a problem that money will not fix. Then the dialogue starts snapping. The series has a newsroom engine, but it is not only about scoops and photographs. It is also about suspicion, performance, bluffing, and the social rooms where reporters and police keep crossing paths. Ann Williams gives the drama one of its best counterweights, meeting Casey’s confidence with quick judgment and dry resistance. Captain Logan supplies the official homicide pressure. Ethelbert and the Blue Note Cafe add a recurring place where crime talk can loosen into comedy before the next body or lead pulls everyone back out. The cases in its episodes involve murder reports, poison, guns, stolen papers, suspected frames, theater people, shopkeepers, and suspects who may be more complicated than they first appear. Its style is openly theatrical, with announcer-led openings, sponsor-era interruptions, and scenes that announce themselves through doors, telephones, weather, and voices. That period texture is part of the appeal. So is the pace. The show feels built for listeners who enjoy old radio drama when it is busy, verbal, and urban, with enough banter to keep the murder plots from turning grimly heavy. The mysteries are not presented as quiet puzzles. They are public disturbances, chased by a cameraman who belongs in the crowd and in the story at once.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants vintage crime drama driven by reporters, police rooms, theatrical suspects, and quick verbal sparring. It fits someone more interested in atmosphere and momentum than modern forensic procedure.
What sets it apart: The show centers a crime photographer rather than a detective, giving each case a newsroom angle and a reason for Casey to be both observer and instigator. The Blue Note Cafe scenes add a social texture around the murders and police work.
Casey, Crime Photographer was a popular radio show that aired from 1943 to 1955 on CBS. The show was based on the character of Jack "Flashgun" Casey, a crime photographer for the fictional newspaper The Morning Express, created by novelist George Harmon Coxe.Casey, Crime Photographer radio show posterThe show followed Casey as he solved crimes alongside his reporter friend, Ann Williams, and his other friends at their favorite hangout, the Blue Note Cafe. The Blue Note was also a jazz club, and the show often featured musical performances from the Archie Bleyer Orchestra and the Teddy Wilson Trio.Casey, Crime Photographer was a long-running and popular show, and it helped to popularize the c…
The Blue Note phone rings, and your quiet drink turns into a murder assignment.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A brownstone kidnapping sends Casey through a bookshop, a ransom letter, and a chimney trail.
Luella and Henry's brownstone turns dangerous fast: gunshots, a body being bundled into a black sedan, and a getaway that pulls Casey into a kidnapping case.
A New Year's case sends Casey toward a mob, a kidnapping, and the hope of finding Professor Wendell alive.
A bleak New Year's morning at the Blue Note Cafe opens into a case that sends Casey after Professor Wendell, with the trail bending toward Nick Morrow's Tavern and Jake Schultz's mob.
A drunken-driving stop opens onto a murder case with a suspicious suicide setup.
A drunken-driving stop opens into a murder inquiry when Casey finds a dead woman hidden under a blanket in the back seat of a sporty blue sedan.
Casey's darkroom becomes the key to a murder case when a mysterious negative may reveal Shorty's killer.
Casey's case opens on a small debt at the Blue Note Cafe, then pulls his darkroom into the middle of a murder inquiry. Shorty Irwin turns up with a camera case much like Casey's, and soon there are negatives Casey never took, including one that may point toward Shorty's killer.
Casey follows a numbers-racket lead into danger, while cafe banter keeps the episode sly and loose.
Casey, Crime Photographer sends a numbers-racket assignment through a brisk mix of newsroom confidence, cafe chatter, and pool-hall bravado. Casey and Ethelbert begin at the Blue Note Cafe, where Ethelbert frets over Gladys and Casey dispenses shaky marriage advice, before the…
A disputed will, a watchful household, and Casey's camera keep this vintage crime story taut.
Bradford Randall's new will turns his library into a tense family battleground. Agatha is set on marrying Giuseppe and refuses to believe her father meant to leave her out, while Captain Logan gathers the butler and maid to confirm their signatures before the document goes to…
Restored broadcasts, sharp shadows, bright old voices.
Casey, Crime Photographer follows Casey and Annie Williams as they investigate upholsterer Goldblatt's murder in a shop locked from the inside.
Casey and Annie Williams investigate an attempted farmhouse burglary involving Millicent Hodges, a former circus strongwoman known as Queen of the Amazon.
Casey investigates a murdered stranger whose message about Sweden’s unique three-skilling orange error points toward Robert Hyden’s rare-stamp business.
Crime Photographer’s “Pick Up” follows Casey as Edith Landau offers to sell him information about jockey Cass Marlin’s killing for $10,000.
Casey, Crime Photographer presents “The Blonde Lipstick,” beginning with Lauren Neely asking Casey to publicize her City Welfare Fund collections.
Casey and Ann investigate Benny Thrush’s murder, a .30-30 rifle shooting that resembles two earlier killings attributed to Bat McCoy.
Casey Crime Photographer follows the reopening of Carlos Domingo’s case after his wife, Mercedes Domingo, reappears alive nearly ten years after he was convicted of murdering her.
Casey, Crime Photographer presents “Too Many Angels,” a radio mystery set during a preview of the musical Angel Face.
Casey, Crime Photographer presents "Tough Guy," in which cab driver Isidore Goldfarb encounters a gray-clad passenger who repeatedly circles the Sutter Avenue Theater and implies he has a gun.
Crime Photographer's “The New Will” begins with Bradford Randall threatening to disinherit Agatha after she plans to marry Count Giuseppe Ranova.
Casey, Crime Photographer follows Casey, Ann Williams, and Captain Logan as they investigate the shooting of former middleweight contender Tug Loftus in Lakeside Park.
Casey investigates Carl Ashby’s apparent suicide after the businessman’s play about suicide is ridiculed and Ashby falls 20 stories from Del High Towers.
Casey, Crime Photographer follows Casey as ex-safecracker Biff Connors reports that two men offered him $5,000 and then $10,000 to open a house safe.
Crime Photographer's "The Fix" follows Casey as Archie Purcell uses his police lieutenant father's name to demand $1,000 a week from Florida gamblers.
In Casey, Crime Photographer’s “Sellout,” Casey investigates a $15,000 offer from Squint Hummel, a member of Harry Fitzroy’s gang who claims to have evidence that city officials accept regular payoffs.
Casey, Crime Photographer follows photographer Casey as actress Sandra Holliday prepares to open Hartley Owens’s new play in a metropolitan theater.
Casey and Ann Williams visit sculptor Andre Higgins in Gedney’s Close, where a costumed art student named Bert Fallon stages a fake suicide before a real killing occurs.
Casey and Ann Williams investigate an anonymous letter predicting the theft of Mrs.
CBS Radio revives Crime Photographer with Stotz Cotsworth as Casey, who investigates the roadside murder of farm-machinery salesman Edward Pierce.
A crime photographer investigates a possible murder after hearing gunshots from a neighbor's shop.
Ken Roberts opens Casey, Crime Photographer's "Snowball" with a blue sedan, a drunken driver, and a blanket-covered woman who turns out to be Mrs.
Casey, Crime Photographer follows Casey and Anne Williams as Burke assigns them to investigate a numbers racket paying 550-to-1 on the last three digits of the Treasury balance.
Ken Roberts introduces Casey, Crime Photographer's "The Disappearance of Mr Dizzel," where Luella and Henry Clarence hear gunshots at Adam Dizell's brownstone bookshop and see three men carry someone into a black sedan.
Shorty Irwin returns $10 on a $100 loan, says his daughter is finally out of the hospital after an operation, and mentions the $5,000 reward for Joe Mosley tied to the Bernstein murder.
["\"Casey, Crime Photographer\" turns New Year's Day 1948 into a warehouse-arson mystery built around a missing professor and a hidden belt code.", "Tony Marvin announces the program, and Stotz Cotsworth stars as Casey, the ace cameraman whose pursuit of Wendell drives the plot.", "The episode asks whether Jake Schultz's fire-insurance racket and Professor Clarence Wendell's disappearance are the same crime.", "Casey, Miss Williams, and Ethelbert start the morning at the Blue Note Cafe with aspirin, coffee, and talk of smoke from a warehouse fire near Chatham Circle."]
Casey, a crime photographer, is approached by an old reporter who claims his life's work has been stolen.
A radio drama episode where crime photographer Casey and reporter Ann investigate a murder case after a tip from a woman named Mrs.