Hopefully you got to listen to one or the other or both versions of the "Contemporary Christmas Carol" from the "Richard Diamond, Private Detective" radio show!
I think it's a lot of fun having the characters from the show playing the characters in the story, with the setting updated to (then) present-day NYC.
The idea of the characters knowing they're performing the story for us is a bit meta and different from the usual TV/radio take-off in which a character is imaging him/herself into the story or else the characters run into a Scroogey character and try to reform him/her.
Lionel Barrymore's show "The Mayor of the Town" would break with its usual format at Christmas to present "A Christmas Carol," but it was Lionel Barrymore playing Scrooge, not Mr. Barrymore playing the mayor playing Scrooge.
In any event, I really like this take a lot, and as Diamond's girlfriend Helen points out, it still has a lot of heart. I can see why they decided to reuse the script for that second broadcast.
It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of old-time radio and I think "Richard Diamond" is a great show. To me, radio really hit its peak in the late 1940s/early 1950s, ironically when television was really making inroads. Production values, sound effects, music, scripts and acting hitting on all cylinders for a lot of shows.
A huge benefit to the "Diamond" series is its star, Dick Powell, who I think could toss off the hard-boiled wisecracks as well as anybody.
He had been a big star throughout the 1930s as a crooner in a countless succession of musicals from Warner Brothers, including a bunch of those big Busby Berkeley spectacles such as "42nd Street" and "Footlight Parade" and "Gold Diggers of 1933," all from 1933.
He was a terrific singer, but he displayed sneaky acting chops at times and understandably wanted to tackle other kinds of roles and break the type-casting mold.
He didn't just break the mold, though, he shattered it with his performance as Philip Marlowe in 1944's "Murder, My Sweet" from the RKO studio. I think he's great and is my favorite screen Marlowe, even besting Humphrey Bogart in "The Big Sleep" (1946).
"Murder, My Sweet," incidentally, is based on Raymond Chandler's "Farewell, My Lovely," but the story goes that the title was changed because "Dick Powell in 'Farewell, My Lovely'" would sound like a musical to movie-goers!
A fun thing with the "Richard Diamond" show was that Diamond/Powell would always sing a song at the end of the episode, neatly combing Dick Powell's two personae.
Powell's production company later brought the Diamond character to TV for a 1957-1960 series. Perhaps it was best for all that star David Janssen did not sing!
But what about those songs that Diamond/Powell sings on those two "Christmas Carol" episodes?
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