The Fat Man

One of the charms of old time radio thrillers is their simplicity compared with their cousins of today.

The whodunits of the bygone era had straightforward reasons for murder: money, a woman or revenge. There was no psycho-babble, no soul-searching: a murder was committed and twenty-nine minutes and thirty seconds later, the guilty party was either arrested or dead.

The gumshoe (the only detectives in those days were policemen, it seems) had to deal with lies, false leads and roadblocks of assorted sizes and types. But in the end, he got his man ... or woman.

All of this was accomplished in roughly twenty-four minutes, allowing about a minute for the show's opening and the sign-off after the riddle was solved. At about the twenty-four minute mark, the gumshoe explains how he knew who did it and the mistakes the perpetrator made that lead to his or her downfall.

Most scripts were written to precise formulae and, despite the twists and turns of the plot, we pretty-much knew what to expect. That was part of the appeal: the plot was a mystery but the unfolding of it was not, and we were comfortable with that.

The Fat Man, the 1945-50 ABC Radio series starring the rich voice of J. Scott Smart as Brad Runyon, is a good example of the genre.

Each program started the same way, with the voice of the announcer appearing to let us into a secret. "He's walking into that drugstore. He's stepping onto the scales." The sound of a coin dropping, and then a mechanical voice: "Weight 237 pounds. Fortune: danger." The music rises, then fades. "Who is it? ... The Fat Man!"

(J. Scott Smart was actually about 30 lbs heavier than the character he played.)

Creation of The Fat Man is credited to Dashiell Hammett, best known for creating Sam Spade, the archetypical private detective in The Maltese Falcon and also Nick and Nora Charles, the husband and wife sleuths from The Thin Man movies.

What is not known is how much Hammett actually had to do with The Fat Man. He may simply have rented his name to the series.

Speaking of The Thin Man and Sam Spade series in Martha's Vineyard Gazette in September 1949, he confessed: "My sole duty in regard to these programs is to look in the mail for a check once a week. I don't even listen to them. If I did, I'd complain about how they were being handled, and then I'd fall into the trap of being asked to come down and help. I don't want to have anything to do with the radio. It's a dizzy world ... makes the movies seem highly intellectual."

Dialogue in The Fat Man was corny, but then it was supposed to be. That was part of the suspense factor: a tough detective (sorry, gumshoe) doing a tough job with tough people. This was pure storytelling, not art.

In the episode Murder Squares the Triangle, we learn: "The Fat Man, also known as Brad Runyon, was broiling himself a brace of double loin lamb chops when his doorbell rang at about half past six. He answered the door, and when she told him her name he let the chops burn. Her husband, Mr. John C. Skinnard, was famous as a hot-headed but well-heeled gentleman who could write a check with six zeros. And he always says, rich or poor it's good to have money, so he asked her in."

We learn more about The Fat Man's character in Murder Plays the Horses. "Fat Man's belt can cover a multitude of things such as hard muscles and maybe a soft heart. He goes for the first himself as they pay off better. Crime and soft hearts don’t mix, but that doesn't mean he can't make a nice gesture once in a while, even in the midst of a considerable amount of murder."

And so the scene is quickly set for the next exciting episode, and we settle back curious about what he will be soft-hearted about, who will be murdered, and whodunit.

We get a lesson in detective work in the introduction to Murder Sends a Christmas Card. "In the business of solving crime the detective runs into two types of criminals: the old time pro and the first offender. The old-timer with his records, fingerprints and well-known pattern of procedure is always at a disadvantage, and by hard work and the help of a stool-pigeon he is usually caught. Your amateur, on the other hand, becomes the detective's $64 question. He has no record, no pattern, and is unknown in the underworld. That makes it real tough because you've got to work in the dark. And that's not fun, especially when you're dealing with murder."

How will Brad Runyon, The Fat Man, deal with this puzzle? We cannot know the answer to that, but we can listen to all the facts and see if we can come up with the culprit in less than the twenty-three minutes - the time left before he or she is exposed by the famous sleuth. That, in itself, is one of the thrills of old time radio thrillers.

"Well, that's done!" were the words with which Runyon ended each case. "It seems I spend my life in getting into trouble and getting out of it. But, at the same time, I generally manage to get some other people in and out of trouble, too. Be seeing you again. So long!"

Happy listening my friends,