George Ludlam was hired to write the scripts, based on 14-page plot summaries by Laurie York Erskine, who had no time to write two drafts of a weekly half-hour radio script. Ludlam, an experienced script writer with such credits as For Men Only and Spy at Large under his belt, would eventually go on to establish The Adventures of Superman for radio in early 1940. Without the continuation format of a daily serial, these half-hour stories were superior on many levels.
The adventures dramatized during the half-hour rendition of Renfrew of the Mounted consisted of both single-episode adventures and multi-episode story arcs. A number of recurring characters bridged continuity even when Renfrew was solving cases within one radio broadcast. Some of the half-hour adventures were adaptations of short stories written years prior by Erskine, others recycled material from short stories with revisions, and a number of them were originals. The episode “Redheads Won’t Stay Down,” broadcast February 18, 1939, was adapted from a story in Renfrew Rides North (1931). The episode “Signals in the Dark,” broadcast June 29, 1940, was inspired by the seafaring stories of the ships that mysteriously wrecked in the fog at San Francisco Bay — one in particular that disappeared without a trace but today is assumed to have wrecked and sunk.
Despite all the publicity, however, the radio program expired after the broadcast of October 12, 1940, with Renfrew riding the range on the silver screen courtesy of second-run theatres. The final movie in the franchise was released nationally back in July. On October 3, 1940, L.H. Titterton, manager of the Script Division at NBC, wrote to Douglas Storer with an official verdict: “Renfrew has been with us through thick and thin for several seasons now and much effort and time on everybody’s part has been expended to find a sponsor. We have not succeeded and for this we are very sorry. However, time is so precious on the air that we feel that we will just have to kiss Renfrew goodbye and make the last broadcast October 12. I want to thank you for your courtesy during the long months of the Renfrew programs and tell you that we want to be able to work out another program arrangement with you sometime in the future.”
According to production and call sheets in the NBC files, every half-hour episode was recorded. Sadly, like the fifteen-minute radio serial before it, recordings of the radio broadcasts were subject to the ravages of time. Fewer than half a dozen recordings from the 1939–1940 series are known to exist in collector hands, and the transcription discs for the remainder of the broadcasts are presumed “lost.”
The following are plot summaries gleaned from review of the radio scripts, filling in the gap that “lost” recordings would not be able to provide.
EPISODE #63, “THE CLASH IN THE BRAMBLES”
Broadcast March 23, 1940
CAST: Roger DeKoven, Sean Dillon, James McCallion, Jose Perez, and Elliot Reid.
PLOT: Winslow, the head of the Northern Star Mining Company, has discovered the tradeoff to making his fortune when subjected to threats and blackmail. His son, Denny Winslow, proves to be a tenderfoot when he sets out for a three-week vacation near the Arctic with Todd Gordon, son of the mining company’s superintendent. Todd proves to be a thoroughly experienced woodsman as they start roughing the countryside on a prospecting trip. Mac and Reno, having tailed the company plane, find the boys and kidnap Denny in the hopes of collecting a tidy ransom. Three weeks later, Denny returns to the company to report the kidnapping of Todd, who’d been mistaken for Denny by the kidnappers. Hoping to find the hideout, Renfrew flies up to Retribution and starts exploring every lake within 50 miles. After finding the location, Renfrew jumps back into the plane when he observes the kidnappers attempting to flee. In what could be described as minor aerial combat, Renfrew shoots both motors on their plane, then covers the men when they are forced to land. In desperation, the kidnappers threaten to shoot Todd, until Renfrew points out the obvious: doing so will only mean they would hang inside a month. Realizing their position, the men surrender only to discover how they’d given away their position to Renfrew so quickly… when Todd was forced to go out and fetch firewood for the stove, he’d spelled his name in the sand by the lake. And imagine their surprise when they discover they’d kidnapped the wrong person in the first place!
EPISODE #64, “THE CASE OF DAN CHESTER”
Broadcast March 30, 1940
CAST: Lester Chambers, Dennis Hoey, Fred Knight, Eric Rolf, and Eddie Wragge.
PLOT: Inspector Renfrew is on the trail of Jake Grenstadt, an outlaw who’d headed a gang of ruffians wanted for breaking into stores and camps and robbing up and down along the border. Dressed in plain clothes, Renfrew ventures to the new mining fields along the Tawney River, far up in the northern mountains. Along the way he meets Jim Chester and his son Dan, who are venturing north to open a store; they have a wagon full of provisions they intend to sell to millionaire miners. When Jake Grenstadt shows up, he demands Jim Chester pay for a license to operate a business in the area — a rule he himself had created. Regardless of Jim’s rudeness to the disguised Renfrew, the Mountie overpowers the criminal and throws him into a barrel of molasses, damaging Grenstadt’s ego. The criminal later plans to smash up Chester’s tent of provisions by starting a stampede with beef cattle, while Renfrew is asked by the town residents for help — the town’s been under Grenstadt’s thumb for long enough. Regardless of the fact that Jim Chester has treated Renfrew with disrespect, young Dan agreed to follow instructions and keep tabs on the local cattle. When Grenstadt and his men show up to start a stampede, Dan blows his whistle to alert the law. Renfrew arrives, along with a local who has been deputized, to thwart the scheme and place the racketeers under arrest for robbery and attempted murder. Jim Chester makes a mental note: In the future he will be kind to strangers.
EPISODE #80, “SPARE THE ROD!”
Broadcast July 20, 1940
CAST: Charita Bauer, Ray Bramley, Jean Dillon, Frank Lovejoy, and
Clementine Turrell.
PLOT: Corporal Sheehan is assigned to investigate a daylight holdup of the Marvale Bank, involving a stolen car left wrecked beside a main highway that runs through the Canadian Rockies. The bandits have vanished into thin air, making their escape in an area studded with summer resorts. Renfrew offers assistance, suspecting the robbers are hiding out by playing the part of vacationing guests — riding the trails, out on the golf course, or taking a plunge in the pools. At one summer resort in particular, Sheehan falls victim to a practical joke in a mudhole, masterminded by tourists Connie Gordon and her sister Sheila. After Renfrew reminds Connie that any action calculated to destroy respect for the uniform reduces the strength of the law, Connie throws a tomato at Renfrew in disgust. Later, Connie and Sheila befriend Charley Pierson, the leader of the bandit gang. Unaware of Pierson’s real identity, she soon realizes that her life is in danger. When Renfrew discovers the situation, he and Sheehan employ a couple of additional Mounties to help apprehend the bandits — teaching Connie a lesson not to shame the very men responsible for protecting her.
NOTES: It was instructed that the character of Jumbo, one of the bandits, was to be played like James Cagney.
NOTE: Plots are reprinted with permission from Renfrew of the Mounted: A History of Laurie York Erskine's Canadian Mounted Franchise by Martin Grams, Jr.
