I Love a Mystery Old Time Radio Free MP3 Downloads »

Serialized radio and movie adventures of three soldiers of fortune. First aired over NBC Pacific stations on January 16, 1939 with the sponsor Standard Brand's product Fleischman's Yeast. The show was so popular — taking a minor Pacific Coast station’s unpopular timeslot and a 3.0 Hooper rating to over 12 — it went coast to coast on October 2, 1939.

Three adventurous men who met in an Oriental prison Jack Packard (the leader and brains of the trio) played by Michael Raffetto (until 5-15-44), Jay Novello (until 8-21-44), and then John McIntire until the end of the Hollywood run; Doc Long (a Texan who loves the ladies and fighting) played with great humor and fun by Barton Yarborough and Reggie York (British with enormous strength) played by Walter Paterson.

In the carefree early days the stories were basically rough and tumble pulp action stories as the trio literally stumbled into adventure just for the fun of it. As Jack put it, "we simply weren't cut out for regular working hours we like to move around too much." Later, the emphasis was more on mystery, adventure, and the supernatural as the trio took on clients and opened the A-1 Detective Agency in Hollywood; Doc hires Jerry Booker, Gloria Blondell (Joan Blondell's younger sister), as the A-1's super-scrumptious spunky secretary.

On March 22nd 1943, the series moves to CBS, and has a new sponsor, Proctor & Gamble's Ivory soap. The semi regulars were Forrest Lewis playing both Michael (Viennese spy/detective) and Terry Burke (basically an Irish Doc Long). Jerry Booker left the A-1 to join the WACS in WWII, so Mary Kay Brown (played by Cathy Lewis) becomes the A-1's new southern secretary. The series ended December 29th, 1944.

I Love a Mystery (ILAM) was brought to the big screen by Director Henry Levin in three Columbia B movies: I Love a Mystery (1945), The Devil's Mask (1946), and The Unknown (1946). Jim Bannon played a youthful Jack Packard and Barton Yarborough reprised his role as Doc Long. Charles O'Neal wrote the movies.

In 1948, Morse brought out a new updated radio series with Jack, Doc, and Reggie. I Love Adventure ABC Sunday 7:00 P.M. sustained summer series 30-minute format. Starring Michael Raffetto as Jack, Barton Yarborough as Doc, and Tom Collins as Reggie. Jack went solo in the first show. Reggie then joined the second show and stayed on thru show number eight. Reggie then mysteriously disappeared from the series. Doc came on board in show 9 thru the end of the run. The show had very stiff competition pitted against two powerhouses Sherlock Holmes and Gene Autry. The show lasted only thirteen weeks 4-25-1948 to 7-18-1948.

The bespectacled master of mystery Carlton E. Morse wrote the radio stories that were inspired by the Three Musketeers. Morse received a thousand dollars a week to re-do the stories and put them in a little different sequence in 1949.

A second I Love A Mystery series started up in New York on the Mutual Broadcasting System on October 3,1949. This sustained series recreated 45 of the 50 original I Love A Mystery shows and performed an additional show ("The Cobra King Strikes Back") bringing the total to 46. Russell Thorson played Jack Packard (until 10-52) then Robert Dryden until the end of the New York run on December 26,1952. Jim Boles was at his Texas twang best as Doc Long and Tony Randall who later became a movie and TV star played Reggie York.

Director Leslie Stevens who also wrote the script brought ILAM back from the dead in a 1973 NBC TV movie. San Francisco TV talk-show host Les Crane who married Ginger, Tina Louise, of Gilligan's Island fame played Jack. Crane won a Grammy for "Best Spoken Word Recording" of 1971 for the humorous "Desiderata." Good Morning America's David Hartman played Doc and Hagan Beggs played Reggie.

Many radio show fans and collectors have chosen this as the greatest radio show of all time. However, only two complete shows of the 51 have survived. While a few shows have survived in a fragmented partial sacrilege, and two re-enactments were done in recent years, nothing has been able to quench the desire to hear these shows in all their glory once again.

I Love A Mystery: a lost treasure that lives in the wistful hearts of fans everywhere.