Boxcars711 Overnight Western "Frontier Gentleman"
"The Actress" (Aired March 23, 1958)
Any new Radio western--no matter how novel--was pretty much doomed at the outset during the late 1950s. Television was already in reruns of the twenty to thirty western adventures that proliferated on TV during the 1950s. And it was stiff competition, to be sure. Gunsmoke had achieved off the chart ratings for years, and Have Gun, Will Travel was very much a thinking person's western. This takes nothing away from either John Dehner or Ben Wright's performances in the least. They were consistently top notch. But we'd venture to say that Frontier Gentleman is heard today by far more listeners than ever heard it when it was first broadcast. Be that as it may, it's the listeners of today that matter now. Frontier Gentleman consistently offers a wonderful variation on the western theme. Antony Ellis' scripts are well devised, historically accurate, and fully developed, given the imposed 30-minute formula. The atmosphere provided by both sound engineering and a young Jerry Goldsmith's magnificent musical background also places this program a notch or two above its peers.
THIS EPISODE:
March 23, 1958. CBS network origination, AFRTS rebroadcast. "The Actress". A British actress in the old West meets death; Kendall learns her strange secret. AFRTS program name: "Sagebrush Theatre." John Dehner, Antony Ellis (producer, director, writer), Jeanette Nolan, Lawrence Dobkin, Harry Bartell, Jack Moyles, James Nusser, Wilbur Hatch (composer, conductor), John Wald (announcer). 24:24. Episode Notes From The Radio Gold Index.
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