This Is Your FBI - "Extortion" (08-03-45)

Extortion aka: The Seagull Shakedown (Aired August 3, 1945)

Stacy Harris had the lead role of Special Agent Jim Taylor. Others in the cast were William Conrad, Bea Benaderet and Jay C. Flippen. This Is Your FBI was sponsored during its entire run by the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States (now AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company). This is Your FBI had counterparts on the other networks. The FBI in Peace and War also told stories of the FBI, although some were not authentic. Earlier on, Gangbusters, and the previously mentioned Mr. District Attorney gave the authentic crime treatment to their stories. And Dragnet, and Tales of the Texas Rangers, took the idea on as well. Crime, especially true crime, was a genre in the magazines early on, with the Police Gazette and its predecessors in England printing lurid true crime stories prior to radio. This is Your FBI took the idea, and made it realistic, exciting and even informational.

THIS EPISODE:

August 3, 1945. Program #387. ABC network. "Extortion" aka: The Seagull Shakedown". Sponsored by: The Equitable Life Assurance Society. A typewriter is the clue that enables the FBI to solve a case of extortion and nab a blackmailer who dabbles in murder. Frederick Steiner (composer, conductor), Stacy Harris, Victor Rodman, Larry Keating (announcer), William Woodson (narrator), Dick Beals, Georgia Ellis, Betty Lou Gerson, Lou Merrill, Vernon Rich. 30:26. Episode Notes From The Radio Gold Index.