Word: whodunitism
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Amazing Mr. Malone* (Fri. 9 p.m., NBC) rings a few changes on that tired radio perennial, the evening mystery show. Based on a character created by Whodunit Writer Craig Rice, Malone deals with a Chicago criminal lawyer whose avowed hobby is "collecting cliches." Malone has other off-beat mannerisms: he avoids fights, employs a masseur, and dislikes guns because "they remind me of weddings." Currently unsponsored, Malone had some fast-paced dialogue by Scripter Eugene Wang, is packed with such novelties as an effeminate gunman, a strait-laced gambler fretting about his daughter's morals, a policeman...
...first term as president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. The academy, like the St. Louis Police Laboratory, which he now heads, was founded as the result of Dr. Gradwohl's early determination to make responsible Americans conscious of the importance of forensic medicine. Few whodunit fans would tolerate a corpse unless the concentration of poison, time of death, incident angle of bullet, knife or blunt instrument and other relevant factors had been measured and determined by precise scientific methods. Yet in real life, there is seldom such thoroughness...
...High Ground (by Charlotte Hastings; produced by Albert H. Rosen) would be a better whodunit if it were more of one-if it kept its mind on murder. It has a certain novelty of atmosphere and attack: it tells of a gifted young painter (Leueen MacGrath) who has been condemned to hang for poisoning her brother, and who is forced by floods-while being taken to prison-to spend some time at a convent. A nursing sister (Margaret Webster) has a fierce conviction that the girl is innocent, and works at the case till she finds the right solution...
...have its points. But it swamps them in high-toned irrelevancy. It insists on becoming emotional, even spiritual. It prefers tear jerking to spine-tingling. It keeps slowing down to exhibit one of those suspicious half-wits that, by now, only another half-wit would suspect. As a whodunit, it suffers partly from not knowing its business, partly from not knowing its place...
...pretty lumbering conveyance. The Scotland Yard man furthermore insists on going over every inch of the way; and the lovers, both of whom are understandably suspect, become understandably and loquaciously suspicious of each other. The whole thing is blameless enough. But it remains a terribly staid, genteel British whodunit that almost never sets the brain aracing, the spine atingle or the mouth agape...