THE GREEN HORNET: A Brief History

During the thirties, forties, and fifties, when dramatic adventure radio programs attracted a juvenile audience craving blood and thunder, parents deplored them as unwholesome trash. (It is ironic that when compared to today’s television programs, they are about as violent as the puffed cereal they peddled.) The Green Hornet, for example, felled his adversaries with a harmless gas squirted from a gun that only the masked man carried. He scared miscreants and knocked them unconscious so the police would find the crooks with possession of the goods and cinch convictions. Like The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet never killed or permanently injured anybody. Variety described it best when it commented how The Green Hornet program was “aimed for young teeners and it dishes out the kind of excitement that should take them away from their comic book literature for the twice weekly tune-in.” This did not stop concerned parents from writing letters of complaint to sponsors, however, making the program a hard sell on a national coast-to-coast hookup from 1936 to 1952.

The premise was simple: Britt Reid played the militant newspaperman by day, putting his principles into action by night, when, as The Green Hornet, he struck at every phase of crime fostered by a racketeering syndicate. Under cover of night and known only to one other living person as The Green Hornet, Reid waged a one-man fight to bring law breakers to his self-made justice. Through police circles and his own reporters, Britt Reid was familiar with crime and racketeering and this source of information gives him first-hand opportunity to enact the secret role of “The Green Hornet.” 

 

Kato, his faithful valet, was the only person who knew Britt Reid to be The Green Hornet and he rendered valuable assistance in the crusade against crime. Kato usually remained in the shadows, ready to shoot the lights out should a situation become dangerous, or remained behind with the getaway vehicle to apply assistance when the risk was too dangerous for The Green Hornet to act alone.

 

Britt Reid’s father, a retired financier, believing that his dilettante son should find a serious mission in life, turned over the publishing of The Daily Sentinel to Britt, with carte blanche opportunity to handle the newspaper. That was in 1936. Also, the senior Reid, knowing of possible pitfalls to any exuberant young man, assigned as a personal bodyguard Michael Axford, a former police detective. Axford was put on the payroll as a reporter and took his duties seriously, especially when The Green Hornet began his one-man raids upon “law breakers within the law.” As publisher, Reid offered a huge reward for the capture of The Green Hornet, keeping people from suspecting he was, himself, the notorious masked man. This circumstance allowed for highly interesting plots and situations and yet furthered the success of his fight against crime.

 

The Green Hornet debuted on radio two years before Superman premiered in comic books and was among a number of notable airwave heroes to originate from radio station WXYZ, Detroit, Michigan, such as The Lone Ranger, Ned Jordan, Secret Agent, and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. “It had the best ingredients,” recalled George W. Trendle, the co-creator of the masked avenger. “It was a mystery, really, a melodrama. All the stories were based on common things that you read in the newspapers.” 

 

In truth, the radio program was primarily created by Fran Striker (with Trendle’s request for a modern-day crime thriller to replace Warner Lester, Manhunter). It was Striker who borrowed elements from The Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1914), a pulp fiction hero written by Frank L. Packard. Jimmie Dale was a wealthy playboy by day, but at night put on a costume and became The Gray Seal, who enters businesses or homes and cracks safes, always leaving a diamond shaped, gray paper "seal" behind to mark his conquest, but never taking anything. In Striker’s rendition, The Green Hornet left behind a green seal at the scenes to taunt the police and remind the racketeers who was responsible for betraying their partnership, an element that would be dropped from the program by 1940. It was Striker who decided to replicate The Lone Ranger formula which he himself also created, that of a minority sidekick. Instead of a white horse speeding away, The Green Hornet and Kato sped away from crime scenes in a black roadster known as the Black Beauty. 

 

During World War II, the radio plots were tweaked to feature black market racketeers and fifth column spies as villains. In 1947, due to an ever-growing criticism of The Green Hornet program from concerned parents, the plot device was changed so that The Green Hornet worked alongside Commission Higgins of the police, was cleared of all charges and no longer considered a wanted criminal, and even his secretary, Lenore Case, was brought into Britt’s confidence. During this four-month transition on the program, Britt’s father, Dan Reid, learned of his son’s secret and chuckled in response. Calmly, Dan revealed he once rode alongside a masked man on a white horse… Britt’s great uncle was the masked man known as The Lone Ranger!

 

By 1952, during the final year of the radio program, The Green Hornet found himself exchanging fisticuffs with Communist spies. But after a 13-week revival, the radio program ceased any chance of returning to the major networks. Trendle himself confessed the program had always been a “tough sell,” even after the major revision of the character.

 

Still, the radio program was popular enough to generate a series of comic books beginning in 1940, running for a span of 47 issues through the summer of 1949. These were followed by one Four-Color issue in 1953 and three Gold Key issues tying in to the television series in 1967. 

 

During the course of World War II, The Green Hornet and Kato battled Japanese saboteurs and Nazi fifth columnists as well as racketeers and gangsters. Historically, issue No. 13 was the first Green Hornet comic book to depict a Nazi on the cover. Issue No. 20 featured a two-page text story with a plot involving Japanese who take charge of an old, unused movie studio on Fisherman’s Sound to rig up a television set and demoralize the American people with fraudulent images. That same issue featured “Terror From the Past,” a 10-page comic story about a mad Japanese who seeks revenge against Americans with a Tyrannosaurus Rex, still alive and awakened from its slumber in a cave on Long Island. Not the type of stories children expected to hear on the radio program, but that is what makes the comic books so unique and sought after.

 

Careful review of the publisher’s production files reveals that the first issue had a print run of 213,169 copies, and the comic book reached a peak of 480,000 printing with issue No. 21 (November 1944). While print runs should dictate the scarcity and value of the comic books today, the condition of the issues now also makes a major difference. 

 

In the same year the comic books premiered on newsstands, The Green Hornet made the transition to motion pictures. Universal Pictures produced and released a series of 13 film shorts based on the radio program, a cliffhanger serial in the studio’s finest tradition of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, and with the same production values. Gordon Jones played the title role of Britt Reid, alias The Green Hornet, with radio’s Al Hodge reprising the role of The Green Hornet whenever the mask was covering Jones’ face. The role of Kato was played by Keye Luke, known then for his recurring role as Lee Chan in a series of Charlie Chan movies. 

 

There has long been a common myth circulating that Kato switched from Japanese to Filipino the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In truth, Kato was referred to as Filipino on the radio program months prior to the attack. For the cliffhanger serial, Universal Pictures had its own solution: Kato’s nationality was disclosed in the very first chapter of the serial as Korean, avoiding any possible reference to the Japanese.

 

The cliffhanger was financially profitable for the studio, which produced a second serial, released a year later in 1941. The Green Hornet Strikes Again starred Warren Hull (replacing Gordon Jones) and Keye Luke. Like the first serial, the second recycled plots from radio scripts. Trendle would later attempt to make a TV series cut from the serials. Unable to sell the proposed series by 1951, though, he chose to film a 25-minute TV pilot with Steve Dunne in the title role. (To date, that 1951 pilot is considered “lost” due to a lack of preservation.) 

 

In the summer of 1965, producer William Dozier (of Batman) approached George W. Trendle for the rights to produce a weekly television program based on The Green Hornet. Trendle was open to the idea but negotiations took long months because Trendle insisted that he had all rights of refusal for television scripts. As a result, throughout production, Trendle found multiple flaws in every script and even when it looked like the rewrites were satisfactory, he still found reasons to lodge complaints. Trendle expected the program to resemble the radio rendition, while Dozier was shooting for something to cash in on the James Bond craze, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and his own popular Batman series. 

 

Trendle never liked the gimmick of the fireplace going down to a lower level of the house like a secret passage, nor Kato alongside The Green Hornet. Trendle rationalized that if anyone saw an Asian – also referred to as Kato – standing alongside a masked man, they would be able to put one and one together and identify the Green Hornet as Britt Reid. Dozier assured him that this was television and therefore viewers applied a suspension-of-disbelief aspect. 

 

This did not stop from Dozier having to negotiate for colorful plots such as having John Carradine play a notorious Jack-the-Ripper style killer known as “The Scarf,” who owned a wax museum, or a two-part adventure involving aliens from outer space, despite Trendle’s protests. Having learned the valuable lesson of having two of every prop made for the television series, auto customizer George Barris produced two of the Black Beauty, both of which appear on the same screen in one episode where a counterfeit Green Hornet roamed the streets in his own black speedster. 

 

Today, The Green Hornet television program is best known for having had Bruce Lee in its cast. Before his untimely death in 1973 at the age of 32, the Chinese-American martial arts fighter also played the lead in a handful of international hit films produced in Hong Kong. As The Green Hornet series was his first role for American film studios, his salary was $400 per episode – a mere pittance compared to that of Van Williams, who played the title role, for $2,000 per episode. (By comparison, guest stars on the episodes were paid more.) Overseas in some countries, the program would be re-titled The Kato Show, while Bruce Lee confessed that he had no qualms regarding salary because the program boosted his name status and popularity. In the mid-seventies, three episodes of the TV series were edited into a motion picture and released in theaters. In some countries, including the United States, the movie was not titled The Green Hornet, but instead promoted as Kato. 

The ABC network expected the same popularity from the show as Batman, but the ratings were not as strong, nor was the fan mail. This did not stop ABC-TV from renewing the initial 17-episode contract for an additional nine episodes, for a total of 26. First run episodes of The Green Hornet aired for only half a year and it was never renewed for a second season. By that time, producer Bill Dozier had filmed a five-minute Wonder Woman pilot (starring Ellie Wood Walker) as well as a 25-minute Dick Tracy pilot, neither of which would be bought by the network heads.

 

When Dozier noticed the ratings slipping, he theorized: “I think there was a great deal of curiosity about it at first, particularly because of the great success of Batman, and apparently now that the audience has sampled Green Hornet, they are more inclined to prefer what they see on Wild, Wild West and Tarzan. My personal feeling is that our shows have all looked pretty much the same and that our format is much too narrow.”

 

In desperation, after an exchange of letters, Trendle relinquished script approval to Dozier and granted permission for a Green Hornet crossover on a two-part Batman adventure. The crossover was meant to draw in a ton of fan letters from viewers to convince the network to renew The Green Hornet for a second season. Alas, it was not meant to be. The expected large volume of fan letters totaled four.

 

Over the years, the commercial property has been marketed through a series of short story collections, comic book revivals, and Funko Pops, and even the original radio episodes continue to be released two or three times a year on CD through Radio Spirits. The television program, however, has yet to be released commercially on DVD or Blu-ray, giving fans a practical reason to buy homemade DVD sets from the remastered Action telecasts on the “grey” market. 

 

In January of 2011, a big screen movie of The Green Hornet was produced and released through Sony Pictures, with Seth Rogen in the lead. The film received generally mixed reviews from critics and grossed $227.8 million against a $110–120 million production budget. (Which is not bad when you consider that many eagerly-anticipated movies released this summer never even grossed half the money it cost to produce.)

Rare Old-Time Radio Photographs

Over the past two decades, I made it a habit of scanning photographs of old-time radio personalities from every archive I had access to. Recently cataloging the tens of thousands of photographs, labeling each photo accordingly, I came across a number of them that are truly rare and more than likely never seen in decades. So I wanted to take a moment to share them with you. 

Alice Frost

Abe Burrows

Alice Frost

Betty Allen

Barbara Jo Allen

Bill Johnstone, radio's The Shadow,
circa 1910.

Yes, that is Bob Crane.

Bud Collyer (radio's Superman program)

Deanna Durbin laughs with Charlie McCarthy.

Dorothy Lamour

George M. Cohen

A very young Frank Lovejoy.

Gracie Allen

BEAR MANOR MEDIA BOOK REVIEWS: Cary Grant, James Cagney, Joe E. Brown, and Boris Karloff

Another box arrived on my doorstep from Bear Manor Media, containing biographies of such luminaries as Cary Grant and Boris Karloff. The publishing company has been hard at work cranking out the equivalent of a book a week and many of them are so unique and well-written that they deserve mention. 

CARY GRANT: TAKING THE LEAD

By Gene Popa

In 1937, it seemed as if Cary Grant had it all: the fame and fortune of being a leading man for one of Hollywood’s biggest studios, with a life of luxury that was a world away from the hardship and misery he knew growing up in Bristol, England. But all that glitters is not gold. Grant felt that he had no say in the development of his own career, and he was seeing signs that the studio was losing interest in him…other than to just be a handsome face. He yearned for better roles to prove himself as an actor. And so, he did the inconceivable… he left the safety of his studio and struck out on his own as a freelance actor. Over the next four years, against tremendous odds and formidable opposition, he guided his own destiny.

As amazing as the story of Archie Leach forging a new life for himself as Cary Grant is, the tale of these four crucible years, 1937 to 1940, is equally as important. For it was during these years that Cary Grant became more than a movie star… he became a timeless icon.

 

Author Gene Popa explored those four years and pressure and professional commitments Cary Grant had to undergo to establish his name status for top billing with productions that were not always assigned to him by the studio heads. This makes for fascinating reading – especially if you are a fan of vintage cinema.

 

 

BORIS KARLOFF: THE MAN REMEMBERED

By Gordon Shriver

Since his death in 1969, Boris Karloff has remained one of Hollywood's most famous performers, having shot to fame and entering film history as the Monster in Frankenstein, the 1931 Universal classic. He is still revered for his commitment to the craft of acting, his personal warmth, his professionalism, and performances in all phases of show business in a career lasting five decades. 

 

This is Gordon’s biography of the actor, the result of numerous years of interviews and extensive research, and examines Karloff the person, as well as the actor. Gordon took his book from many years ago and revised it, with expanded trivia and recollections from those who worked with Boris Karloff. If someone attending a convention to sign autographs for fans worked with the actor, Gordon took a moment to ask them about Karloff and those added quotes make this expanded edition worth reading. (Note: make sure you get the purple cover for the expanded edition, not the red-orange cover.) 

 

Karloff’s work in movies, radio, television, and the theater is explored in depth, and highlighted by those who knew and worked with him in all stages, as well as personal friends. Among those honoring Karloff, whose lives he made a difference in, are actors Julie Harris, Eli Wallach, Teresa Wright, Tom Bosley, Chita Rivera, Christopher Lee, Susan Strasberg, and Roddy MacDowall, directors Peter Bogdanovich, George Schaefer, and Robert Wise to authors Robert Anderson, Robert Bloch, and Ray Bradbury. With the support of the Karloff family, Gordon Shriver honors the life and career of this much-loved and respected performer.

 

 

THE JOE E. BROWN FILMS

By James L. Neibaur

Joe E. Brown was the most popular movie comedian in the 1930s, his films being bigger moneymakers than those featuring Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, or The Marx Brothers. A regrettable business decision in the middle of the decade resulted in indie productions that relegated Joe to second-feature status. After losing a son in World War Two, Joe became a tireless entertainer for servicemen all over the world, resulting in his becoming one of two civilians during that time to be awarded the Bronze Star. 

 

His movie career effectively over by the 1950s, Joe took a supporting part in Billy Wilder's Some Like it Hot, which ended up becoming the movie by which he remains best known. This book is a film-by-film look at his movies, basically from a “critical analysis” aspect and not historic, from his early 1930s heyday through his B movies in the late 30s and early 40s, and finally his film career's conclusion, only to be reborn with a handful of small parts in the 50s and 60s. Along with his work, this book will deal with Brown's baseball enthusiasm, his kindness to others, and his lasting legacy.

 

 

CONVERSATIONS WITH CAGNEY: THE EARLY YEARS

By Bill Angelos

This book is one of those relished treasures. The author, Bill Angelos, met James Cagney and convinced the actor to consent to a number of interviews regarding his screen career. The author taped all of those conversations and was in the process of transcribing them to text when he fell victim to a house fire. The result are the interviews as he recalled them, and the surviving transcripts that survived the flames. 

While purists might contemplate speculation based on interviews from “recollections,” and not straight dictation from recordings, the author discloses this fact and made sure not to deviate from the facts. Fans of James Cagney will find this book of particular interest because it focuses on his early years, the crime capers he produced for Warner Brothersstage fright, dance school, Zanuck, and Public Enemy.

 

Even more fascinating are the behind-the-scenes photographs, his WWI draft card, playing baseball at Wrigley Field, 1922 marriage license, playbills, clippings from Cagney’s scrapbook and more.

 

 

The Lone Ranger: New Deputy

For fans of The Lone Ranger, here is a PDF of a children's book featuring the character, one of thousands of premiums sold in the stores during the 1950s, and the only Sandpiper book produced. This hardcover is also available with an orange hardcover. The dust jacket it comes with is extremely rare. This retro classic will only be available for a few weeks so be sure to grab this today. Enjoy! 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7gtp8pbgichhozc/The%20Lone%20Ranger%2C%20The%20New%20Deputy.pdf?dl=0

Lux Radio Theater: A Most Unique Hollywood Prop

Many years ago, when I was in California, I was given a tour of Frank Bresee's house. Frank was a producer, actor, announcer and board game designer. Among his collection was a Hollywood prop known to historians as "The Oh S--t Bar." I was in awe of that prop. It was historical in nature. And I told Frank, "If you ever want to part with that, drop me a line." He gave me some reassurance that he would drop me a line. But years later it was donated to a museum and now being preserved. Good for him.

Never heard of the prop? Well, you are about to get a two-minute crash course on this unique prop. 

For two decades (1930s to the 1950s) one of the highest rated radio programs was The Lux Radio Theater. The weekly program had a huge budget. Practically everyone in Hollywood appeared on the program at one time or another. Adaptations of big screen movies were presented -- many with the original screen cast reprising their roles. But with high prestige came a sense of panic -- many of the Hollywood stars inadvertently grabbed the mike stand during the broadcast. This reaction could be carried over the radio broadcast. So someone on the technical side decided to create a bar that would keep the actors from grabbing the mike. Soon after, the microphones were arranged to be hung from above. The bar continued to give celebrities something to hold on to while at the same time, kept them the proper distance from the microphone.

When I say everyone in Hollywood, that is an understatement. Lana Turner, Clark Gable, Edward G. Robinson, Debra Paget, Bette Davis, Wallace Beery, Van Heflin, Donna Reed, James Stewart, Henry Fonda... you name them, they were on the program. Which means almost everyone in Hollywood touched that prop.

When I returned to Hollywood to attend a SPERDVAC convention, a reenactment on stage for an episode of The Lux Radio Theater was performed on stage. The producers of that event arranged for the museum to loan them "The Oh S--t Bar" so they could feature it on stage. After the performance, and the dinner banquet, people rose from their chairs, applauded, and then adjourned to the hotel bar or chatted amongst themselves. I, on the other hand, went over to the bar (then placed in the corner off stage) to have my photo taken with the prop. I was amazed that when the event was over, no one had gone over to take a photo of the prop. Not surprisingly, my action must have been observed. A minute after I had my photo taken with the prop, there was a small line of people who gathered to have their photo taken with the same. 

The photo of me holding the prop is from that event. The photos that followed are with various celebrities and the same prop in the photos. 

Barbara Hale, Al Jolson, and William Demarest

Victor Mature

Barbara Stanwyck

Bette Davis and Glenn Ford

Joan Fontaine and Burt Lancaster

Cary Grant

Charlton Heston

Fred MacMurray

Glenn Ford

Greer Garson

Cary Grant

Joan Crawford

Kirk Douglas

Margaret O'Brien

Richard Conte

Veronica Lake

William Powell and Myrna Loy

   

GENE AUTRY and the THIEF RIVER OUTLAWS (1944)

There were a number of Gene Autry hardcover novels published by Whitman throughout the 1940s and 1950s, but none were more fascinating than Gene Autry and the Thief River Outlaws. Published in 1944, the 249-page novel was written by Bob Hamilton, a pseudonym for Fran Striker -- the same man responsible for the creation of The Lone Ranger. (Hamilton was Striker's middle name, incidentally.)

The novel was published twice, each with a different dust jacket. For collectors who enjoy reading these children's novels, it comes as no surprise that the dust jackets (more fragile than the books) are worth more than the hardcover books. You can purchase the hardcover novel for $7 easily, but with the dust jacket you can expect to pay at least $20. This should give you an idea of what is a good deal if the book comes with a dust jacket in beautiful condition.

While the first page of the novel claims this to be an original novel, Striker borrowed the premise from the novel that appeared in the 1937 Lone Ranger pulp magazine, "Heritage of the Plains." In that novel, Bart Hempstead, falsely mistaken of being the notorious Trig Marsden, is released after serving two weeks in jail. His imprisonment had been by design. Vince Fenton was attempting to prevent Hempstead from completing the construction on a bridge for which Hempstead was the designer. Fenton worked for an opposing company competing for a railroad bound west. Trig Marsden went under the alias of Pete Morgan and was hired by Fenton to prevent the completion of the bridge. The Lone Ranger would ultimately find himself framed for an attempted act of sabotage. The same story would later be recycled for use in the 1942 Better Little Book, The Lone Ranger and the Great Western Span. 

For the Gene Autry novel of 1944, Jim Farnsworth works for Old Tennessee to complete the construction of the bridge over Thief River Canyon. Gene Autry was warned by Trig Marsden to leave the territory, but our hero proves he is determined to stay and prevent bloodshed and acts of sabotage. Interestingly, Fran Striker chose to borrow elements from Lone Ranger radio plots to make up the meat and potatoes of this western epic, beyond the premise from his 1937 novel. The final scene in the novel, whereupon Gene Autry forces T.J. Hind to remain on board the train that was bound to cross the completed bridge, knowing Hind ordered his men to sabotage the bridge and thus gave away his guilt when he wanted to escape the train, was borrowed from the radio broadcast of December 26, 1934. On The Lone Ranger incarnation, the masked man forced Manuel to cross a bridge -- and like Hind, Manuel did not know that the act of sabotage was fixed soon after the crime was committed.

Fran Striker would later use his "Bob Hamilton" pseudonym once more for Gene Autry and the Redwood Pirates, recycling the story arc for a three-part Lone Ranger radio adventure, broadcast on December 13, 15 and 17, 1943. The Gene Autry novel would later be revised again for Tom Quest and the Mystery of the Timber Giant in 1955, as part of a series of Tom Quest adventures written by Fran Striker.  

The Legend of The Lone Ranger (1981) Photos

I was probably ten or eleven years old when I first saw The Legend of The Lone Ranger (1981). The movie aired on a Saturday afternoon from a television station originating from Philadelphia. Our antenna was able to pick up that station from far away on good weather days. As a kid, I enjoyed the film. Upon realizing I had never seen the film since then, I took time one night recently to re-watch the western and I have to admit, it is not bad. The film is not without its flaws, but all things considered those are minor gripes. Recently I had the good fortune to scan archival behind-the-scenes photographs that have NEVER been published. Based on the source, I would not be surprised if these photos were never seen by anyone in three decades. So enjoy the eye candy.

Click to enlarge. Use arrow keys to scroll through them.