Mr. District Attorney
Show Information based on John Dunning's book "On The Air"
Crime drama..(1939-1953).
Mr. District Attorney was for many years the nation's best-liked crime show. It was inspired by the exploits of Thomas E. Dewey, New York's racket-busting DA of the late '30s, whose front-page war against racketeers and corruption swept him into the governor's office and culminated in two serious runs for the presidency.
The radio character was created by Ed Byron, one-time staffer at WLW, Cincinnati, who had given up law studies for a career on the air. Phillips H. Lord, venerable radio man and producer of Gang Busters, had coined the Mr. District Attorney title and had worked with Byron on a serial based on Dewey's colorful career. Byron then bought the title, agreeing to credit Lord and pay him royalties on the subsequent series. Throughout the long run, the DA remained unnamed: he answered to the title "Mister District Attorney" or, in conversation with his sidekick Harrington and his secretary Miss Miller, to "Chief" or "Boss." The show was a dynamic departure, propelled by Byron's almost uncanny instinct for scooping the news.
Some of this, he explained, was just coincidence. But Byron was a student of crime, with a library of 5,000 books on the subject, and played crime trends with a sure hand. Con games occurred most often in the spring; juvenile delinquency in the summer; husbands and wives killed each other in the fall; burglaries were most common in winter. Byron had statistics to prove this, but he went beyond dry facts. Weekly for more than ten years he donned the clothes of a working man and plunged into some of the roughest bars in town, He rubbed elbows with thieves, lackeys, and off-duty cops in his search for material. At 40, he was an expert on con games. Interviewing him, Newsweek found his speech roughedged, "as if he mixes with no one but gangsters." A "Gladys" to Byron was a "nice girl"; a "double-domer" was a criminal well-versed in science; "Warner Brothers" were old-fashioned machine guns; and the "Morris" was the denouement, the necessary evil of telling listeners at the end what the story had all been about.
The result was a show of startling realism for its day. It had the air of a front-page newspaper story. At first NBC was nervous over his predictions of major crime waves; then, when they came to pass, the network took pride in his accuracy. Both the network and the government were uneasy when Byron's DA began foiling Nazis. On the show of June 17, 1942, Byron ran a story about Nazi submarines dropping spies along the Atlantic coast. G-men had arrested real spies that same week and were preparing to break the news themselves. Byron got a "visit" from the FBI after his show.
But his show was continually topical. He wrote of gasoline hijackers and black marketeers. He acknowledged the government's "loose lips sink ships" campaign in The Case of the Whispered Word, about a young sailor who died rather than tell the Nazis what they wanted to know. His DA raided a fake sanitarium on the day of a real raid, though his script had been written weeks before. When a berserk war vet walked through the streets of Camden, New Jersey., shooting people, Byron had a chillingly similar piece ready for the air that night. He supplemented his pub-crawling by reading five newspapers a day.
The show won many awards for excellence, offering plays on racial intolerance and other social ills. By January 1943, Mr. District Attorney had built a rating of 28.3, almost unheard-of for a show of its type. It was a year-round operation. In the summers, when such comics as Jack Benny and Bob Hope were on vacation, Mr. DA often soared to the top of the ratings; it was seldom out of the top ten, even in midseason. As owner, Byron packaged it and collected $10,000 a week from his longtime sponsor, Bristol Myers. After expenses, he made $50,000 a year.
The opening signature was vivid and long-remembered, with a thrilling theme and a gusty "Voice of the Law" giving the hero's credo:
Mister District Attorney!
Champion of the people!
Defender of truth!
Guardian of our fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!
ORCHESTRA: Theme, up full.
VOICE OF THE LAW (from echo chamber): …
and it shall be my duty as district attorney not only to prosecute to the limit of the law all persons accused of crimes perpetrated within this county but to defend with equal vigor the rights and privileges of all its citizens...
BROADCAST HISTORY:
April 3-June 16, 1939, NBC. 15m, weekdays at 7.
June 27-Sept. 19, 1939, NBC. 30m, Tuesdays at 10. Summer replacement for Bob Hope. Pepsodent.
Oct. 1, 1939-April 7, 1940, Blue Network. 30m, Sundays at 7:30. Pepsodent.
April 11, l940-Sept. 19, 1951, NBC. 30m, Thursdays at 8 through June 1940, then Wednesdays at 9:30. Bristol Myers (Vitalis).
Sept. 28, 1951-June 13, 1952, ABC. 30m, Fridays at 9:30. Vitalis.
1952-53, 30m transcribed syndication, Frederick Ziv.
CAST:
Dwight Weist as Mr. District Attorney (serial version, 1939), a fearless crusader for justice and truth.
Raymond Edward Johnson as Mr. District Attorney, ca. 30m shows, 1939.
Jay Jostyn as Mr. District Attorney Ca. 1940-52.
David Brian as Mr. District Attorney, 1952 Ziv syndication.
Vicki Vola as the DA's secretary, Miss (Edith) Miller, 1939-52.
Walter Kinsella in various police roles in the early run, then as Len Harrington, the ex-cop turned DA's investigator.
Len Doyle as Harrington from ca. 1940.
Eleanor Silver and Arlene Francis as Miss Rand.
Maurice Franklin as the "Voice of the Law" that opened the show.
Jay Jostyn also as the "Voice."
Supporting players from New York radio: Frank Lovejoy, Joan Banks, Paul Stewart, etc.
ORCHESTRA: Peter Van Steeden (who composed the stirring theme); also: Harry Salter.
CREATOR-WRITER-DIRECTOR: Ed Byron.
CO-CREATOR-WRITER: Phillips H. Lord.
WRITERS: Jerry Devine, Finis Farr, Harry Herman, Robert J. Shaw, etc.