Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons

Show Information based on John Dunning's book "On The Air"

Detective melodrama (1937 - 1955)

Mr. Keen was one of radio's longest running detective series, a prime-time mystery with serious soap opera trappings. Coming from the radio fiction factory of Frank and Anne Hummert, it employed all the stereotypes, heavy dialogue, and the trite plotting of its daytime cousins. Like the later Mr. Chameleon, Mr. Keen solved his cases with a minimum of logic, often through coincidence, twists of fate, slips of the tongue, and guilty knowledge expressed by the culprits.

In the beginning, Mr. Keen lived up to his billing, a sage old tracer of missing persons. But the half-hour series was strictly murder. Mr. Keen's partner, Mike Clancy, was of the dumb-Irish school. "Saints preserve us, Mr. Keen, do you mean…?" Mike would ponder in case after case. And Mr. Keen, kind old investigative genius, would say, "Yes, Mike," and explain some point of business that listeners had already figured out for themselves. Keen and Clancy seemed to have no official position: they were simply called in, whenever people were murdered, to help solve the mystery. "We usually work along with the police, ma'am," Clancy might say, explaining their presence. They seemed to have vast powers of arrest: they barged into homes without search warrants, ignored official procedure, shunned due process, and cared little for the rules of evidence. Keen was charming and persuasive, but his voice took on a mean edge when confronting a killer. And in the style of Hummert soaps, the dialogue was simplistic, identifying each speaker and subject fully in each utterance:

"Before I open this door, Mr. Keen, let me tell you something. No one in this house right now had anything to do with the murder of young Donald Travers, my niece's husband.

"That remains to be proven, Miss Martha."

"My niece Jane Travers should never have sent you here."

"Jane Travers only wanted to help you prove your innocence, Miss Martha."

As such, it appealed to a lowest common denominator, and enjoyed a run of 17 years.

CAST: Bennett Kilpack as Mr. Keen, a kind-sounding but much-feared master detective.
Phil Clarke as Mr. Keen later in the run. Arthur Hughes also as Mr. Keen.
Jim Kelly as Mike Clancy, Mr. Keen's strong-arm assistant.

ANNOUNCERS: James Fleming, Larry Elliott, etc.

ORCHESTRA: Al Rickey.

PRODUCERS: Frank and Anne Hummert.

DIRECTOR: Richard Leonard.

WRITERS: Dialogue attributed to Frank Hummert; actually turned out under his supervision by
Hummert staffers Lawrence Klee, Bob Shaw, Barbara Bates, Stedman Coles, etc.

SOUND EFFECTS: Jack Amrhein, CBS.

THEME: Someday I'll Find You.