I love The Whistler. Even the movies they made were pretty good; two were based on Cornell Woolrich stories.
The movies don't quite match the (as you said) doomed nature of the poor saps on the radio, who got caught up in their own traps. It's such fun to hear the narrator (the "Whistler" himself) egging them on with talk like "And it was all working out so well, wasn't it?" when you know it's all going to end badly.
It's often hard to tell who wrote what on radio because so few shows actually credit the writers verbally.
Day Keene did a lot of radio writing, but not crime shows, per se. He cowrote most of the Kitty Keene soap opera, and he was on the Little Orphan Annie staff.
>
>From: Bill Crider <macavityabc@gmail.com>
>To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
>Sent: Fri, March 12, 2010 10:38:40 AM
>Subject: RARA-AVIS: Radio
>
> >
>>
>
>Speaking of things noir, the radio shows of the late '40s and early '50s
>>were very dark stuff, indeed. Shows like "The Whistler" and "Suspense" and
>>"Inner Sanctum" and many others had plenty of doomed protagonists whom
>>nobody could love, and most of them met bad ends. I've been listening to a
>>lot of these old shows on satellite radio. If you did a series like any of
>>these shows today, it would have to be on cable. Is cable the Gold Medal of
>>television?
>
>>Bill Crider
>
>>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 12 Mar 2010 EST