It’s A Crime Mr. Collins

A mystery/detective drama, first broadcast in August of 1956, It’s a Crime Mr. Collins cast Mandel Kramer as Greg Collins, the "infamous private eye" of San Francisco. Collins was a handsome and popular sleuth who traveled all over the world solving crimes – from an island in Florida to the French Riviera and beyond.

Collins traveled with his wife, Gail, who was the narrator telling of the exploits of her famous crime-fighting husband. She tells the story to her Uncle Jack, supposedly offering insights that only a wife would know.

Mandel Kramer previously played Lieutenant Tragg in radio’s Perry Mason, and Gail Collins is the name of the actress who plays her namesake in the series, Gail Collins. Each week, Gail is described as "the gumshoe’s gorgeous spouse – with green-eyed predilections emerging as curvaceous damsels in distress frequently petitioned her husband – shared his investigative exploits with her Uncle Jack and thereby the listeners at home."

Richard Denning played Uncle Jack and had once played Jerry North in radio’s Mr. and Mrs. North. Kramer had also played in the Mr. and Mrs. North radio series as the taxi driver, Mahatma McGloin.

Gail has to ward off women from her handsome husband everywhere they travel and it’s obvious that she grows weary of seeing her husband dodge bullets, collect fans from fan dancers and finding herself unable to interest him in romance even when she wears her best perfume.

Each show in the series had a "colorful" title. Such shows as Bullet Gray Cottage, Green Eyed Divorce and Pink Elephant tweaked interest in this one-season show.

Many claimed that It’s a Crime, Mr. Collins was an exact copy of The Adventures of the Abbots, a detective show starring Claudia Morgan (a previous actress in The Thin Man) and Les Damon, who was a popular cast member of The Falcon.

The Adventures of the Abbots also combined love and crime and a husband and wife team also originating in San Francisco. Frances Crane wrote the books from which the series was formed and which were very popular from the 1940s to through the 1960s.

It’s a Crime, Mr. Collins was broadcast weekly from the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1956 until 1957 as a half-hour program.

Happy listening my friends,