Adam Graham
113 episodes listed below
Vintage spy radio with a hard left turn.
The Great Detectives Presents The Man Called X preserves brisk radio thrillers where Mr. Thurston follows treason, murder, sabotage, and false trails across dangerous settings. Adam Graham frames each installment with original air dates, listener notes, and a steady old-radio context.
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The Great Detectives Presents The Man Called X is a modern feed for a vintage radio spy serial. The core attraction is Herbert Marshall's The Man Called X, where Mr. Thurston keeps walking into plots that are already dangerous. There is rarely a slow entry. A freighter can carry dynamite, a mysterious passenger, a dead cat, and a poisoner before the dinner table has settled. An apartment building can turn from creepy to fatal in the time it takes to strike a match. A desert landing field can be a trap made from portable lights. The stories move by clues, names, postmarks, aliases, and sudden reversals. They like hard locations. The Indian Ocean, the Orient Express, Japan, New York, Strasbourg, Schenectady, Mirchwa, and burned trading posts all become part of the pressure. The style is theatrical but compact, with danger delivered through clipped exchanges rather than long narration. Pagan Zellschmidt often punctures the suspense with nervous comedy, which keeps the tone nimble without making the stakes disappear. Murders happen. Treason is suspected. Mines, messengers, submarines, raids, crashes, and routes all sit inside the same adventure grammar. Adam Graham supplies the current presentation, introducing episodes from Boise, Idaho, giving original air dates, handling listener support notes, and closing with Great Detectives housekeeping. The feed therefore works both as story delivery and as an archive of broadcast texture. Old sponsor language, NBC framing, and references to RCA Victor and Anacin are not incidental; they help place the drama in its original listening world. Some episodes also arrive with modern ad reads before or after the vintage material. The result is less a polished contemporary thriller than a preserved weekly case file with its edges intact. It is brisk. It is sometimes dated. It is often atmospheric in the old radio way, where a door, a match, a body, and a scrap of paper can do a lot of work. For PlayNext listeners, the appeal is clear: quick-moving espionage fiction with a theatrical pulse, recurring comic relief, and enough danger in every room to keep the next scene earning its entrance.
Made for: Best for listeners who enjoy old-time radio, compact spy plots, theatrical mystery acting, and serialized adventure without modern true-crime framing. It also fits anyone curious about broadcast-era thrillers with sponsor copy, host context, and period atmosphere left in place.
What sets it apart: The feed pairs Adam Graham's present-day Great Detectives framing with intact Man Called X broadcasts, so the experience feels framed rather than merely uploaded. Its signature charge comes from fast peril, comic nervousness from Pagan Zellschmidt, and clue work compressed into radio-drama scenes.
Beginning in World War II, the Man Called X (Herbert Marshall) fought for freedom, solving mysteries and battling Nazism, Post-War profiteering, and Communism. Suave, sophisticated and ready for action and mystery. Before there was James Bond, there was the Man Called X. Join him in every old time radio adventure as he fights evil and tries to avoid getting cheated by his erstwhile "friend" Pegon Zellschmidt.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Herbert Marshall's Ken Thurston turns distant ports, suspicious accidents and small physical clues into brisk, dialogue-driven detective fiction.
The Great Detectives Present the Man Called X (Old Time Radio) lets each case announce itself at full vintage-radio pitch. Adam Graham supplies the introduction and sign-off, then Herbert Marshall's Ken Thurston enters a world of poisoned freighters, false landing lights,…
A dead cat, five tons of dynamite, and Herbert Marshall: your bedtime just acquired passport stamps.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Shipboard suspense in the Indian Ocean, with dynamite, a mysterious passenger, and a submarine in the dark.
The episode follows an Indian Ocean freighter carrying five tons of dynamite, a mysterious passenger, a dead cat, and a poisoner, and the setup keeps the tension tight as the Bangalore heads south.
A brisk old-time-radio mystery where suspicion, a burned trading post, and shifting loyalties keep the story in motion.
An old-time-radio mystery that moves on smoke, suspicion, and hard travel. A burned trading post, a mine blamed for destruction, and a trail party whose loyalties keep shifting give the piece its shape.
A brisk, shadowy mystery built from one dead body, one scrap of paper, and a lot of bad timing.
A dark apartment-house sequence gives this Man Called X outing its pull. The case moves through a dead concierge, mailbox names, and a tiny scrap of paper tied to New York, so the mystery keeps tightening through small, useful details rather than speeches.
A desert landing goes wrong and turns into a brisk search for answers.
The episode centers on a desert landing gone wrong, with portable lights strung out in the sand setting the trouble in motion. The energy comes from the pressure building around it: X keeps pressing for answers, Pagan keeps bristling, and the clipped back-and-forth gives the…
A brisk Rangoon intrigue where business polish keeps slipping toward threat.
Rendezvous with Death gives The Man Called X a Rangoon-set intrigue built around a business dinner, a wary broker, a sharp hostess, and a warning that shifts the talk toward life insurance.
Cincinnati talk radio with sharp elbows.
Classic Jack Benny, week by week.
American radio history, wired in detail.
The Bangalore pushes south through the Indian Ocean with five tons of dynamite aboard.
This episode of the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio podcast features the classic 1951 radio drama 'The Man Called X: Orient Express' starring Herbert Marshall, with host Adam Graham providing introductory context and listener support information.
This episode features the 1951 radio show 'Man Called X' titled 'Japan Underground', starring Herbert Marshall, as part of a detective and mystery series.
This episode features a classic 1951 radio detective show called 'The Man Called X' titled 'Five Ounces of Treason', focusing on espionage and mystery.
This episode features a 1951 radio drama called 'Operation 50' from the series 'The Man Called X', starring Herbert Marshall as a detective in a mystery and spy story.
The trail starts in smoke.
The Man Called X episode "Red Messenger" opens with the series' usual mix of mystery and danger, then drops into a dark apartment house.
A plane comes down in the sand.
Ken Thurston lands in Rangoon and walks into a room full of polished smiles and quiet threats.
This episode features a lost 1947 radio detective drama called 'Man Called X: Ashes to Ashes' from the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio podcast.
This episode introduces the podcast 'Great Detectives of Old Time Radio' with host Adam Graham, focusing on listener support and contact information.
This episode features the classic radio detective show 'Man Called X' from 1947, titled 'All the Glitters', introduced by host Adam Graham with sponsorship acknowledgments.
This episode introduces and plays a 1947 episode of the classic radio detective series 'The Man Called X' as part of the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio podcast.