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Mystery, Crime & Detective · NBC/Mutual

Rogue's Gallery

June 23, 1945 – September 28, 1947 · 82 broadcasts

Richard Rogue is a private detective with one occupational hazard nobody else in the business has: roughly once a week somebody hits him on the head, and he wakes up on Cloud Eight. Waiting there is Eugor -- Rogue spelled backwards -- his own cackling alter ego, who needles him, argues with him, and eventually points out the clue he walked straight past. Then Rogue wakes up and goes and solves the case. Dick Powell played Rogue, and the casting was the whole idea. He had just reinvented himself as a screen tough guy in Murder, My Sweet after a decade as a singing juvenile, and F.W. Fitch -- the shampoo company behind The Fitch Bandwagon -- built a summer replacement series around the new persona in 1945. It was supposed to run fourteen weeks. Instead Mutual signed it for a full season, NBC took it back for two more summers, and ABC revived it in 1950 with a different Rogue. Barry Sullivan took the lead in 1947; Paul Stewart in the final run. Peter Leeds played Eugor for years and was never once credited for it -- the program seems to have kept his identity quiet on purpose. Ray Buffum wrote it, Dee Engelbach produced and directed, Leith Stevens scored it, and Jim Doyle announced every Fitch season. Powell would carry the same wisecracking voice straight into Richard Diamond, Private Detective, which is the show he is remembered for -- but Rogue is where he worked it out.

Collection status: 27 of 82 held (33% complete)
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Episode Spine

Grouped by year. Jump to the full list below, or open a season on its own page.

1945

June 23, 1945 Mcdonald Murder Case Listen (MP3)
June 30, 1945 (untitled)
July 7, 1945 (untitled)
July 14, 1945 Angela Mullens Listen (MP3)
July 21, 1945 (untitled)
July 28, 1945 (untitled)
August 4, 1945 (untitled)
August 11, 1945 (untitled)
August 18, 1945 (untitled)
August 25, 1945 (untitled)
September 1, 1945 (untitled)
September 8, 1945 (untitled)
September 15, 1945 (untitled)
September 27, 1945 Murder On The House
October 4, 1945 Blondes Prefer Gentlemen Listen (MP3)
October 11, 1945 Murder in Drawing Room 'A' Listen (MP3)
An elderly woman asks Rogue to look after her granddaughter; he goes to the girl's apartment and finds a body. (Note: the source assigns this account to 11 October, a date the Digital Deli log disputes -- see the show's ISSUES.)
October 18, 1945 Blondes Prefer Gentlemen Listen (MP3)
Mrs. Eccle reminds Rogue of his own grandmother, so he takes her worried request about her granddaughter -- and walks into the girl's silent apartment to find her dead. (Note: the same source carries this account on its 11 October page as well, and this date's title is disputed -- see the show's ISSUES.)
October 25, 1945 Murder with Muriel Listen (MP3)
Joe Layton is killed over his share of a map valued at twenty-five thousand dollars, and Rogue is waiting on the matching piece. Notable for one thing above all: nobody knocks Rogue out this week.
November 1, 1945 Photo-Finish
November 8, 1945 Little Drops of Rain Listen (MP3)
A wealthy wife hires Rogue to confirm that her husband is meeting his secretary at a friend's house. Rogue arrives to find the husband dead, and the rain-soaked tire tracks outside turn out to be the whole case.
November 15, 1945 House of Fear Listen (MP3)
The Somaliland diamond vanishes from a reclusive collector's country mansion. The insurance company sends Rogue; the collector refuses to discuss it; and Rogue gets as far as the lawn before somebody puts him out.
November 22, 1945 Last Race
November 29, 1945 Little Old Lady Listen (MP3)
Conchita Morales wants her old love letters recovered. A sweet old woman offers Rogue a cup of tea. Only one of those two things is what it appears to be.
December 6, 1945 Eve and the Apple
December 13, 1945 Blood on the Sand Listen (MP3)
Rogue goes to the L7 Dude Ranch intending to take a vacation. He gets a murder instead.
December 20, 1945 Fortune in Furs Listen (MP3)
Down to his last dime, Rogue is offered proof that a fur warehouse fire was arson -- a thousand dollars for the story, ten thousand from the insurer for a conviction. His informant is shot dead on the way out of the building, leaving Rogue to work it out alone.
December 27, 1945 Hot Rubber Racket

1946

January 3, 1946 Murder at Minden Listen (MP3)
Stark McVeigh hires Rogue and is murdered for his trouble. The trail runs to a counterfeiter's hideout.
January 10, 1946 As the Twig Is Bent
January 17, 1946 Suspicious Will Listen (MP3)
Anson Leeds dies and leaves behind a will nobody can make sense of. A judge asks Rogue to find out why.
January 24, 1946 Murder Habit
January 31, 1946 Carlotta, the Magnificent Listen (MP3)
Somebody wants a thoroughly unpleasant circus acrobat dead, and Rogue has to solve it under the big top.
February 7, 1946 A Girl, A Boy, and A Gun
February 14, 1946 The Case of the Eager Murderer
February 21, 1946 The Alibi Master Listen (MP3)
A newspaper's managing editor is murdered not long after tangling with the shady lawyer they call the Alibi Master.
February 28, 1946 Alias Harold Halloway
March 7, 1946 (untitled)
March 14, 1946 The Cat Dies Once
March 21, 1946 A Date with Tangerine
March 28, 1946 Callahan's Hat
April 4, 1946 Favor for a Condemned Man Listen (FLAC)
A man half an hour from the electric chair asks to see Rogue, and will not say why. Rogue walks the death-house corridor with no idea what he has been summoned for.
April 11, 1946 A Little Piece of Paper
April 18, 1946 Stormy Knights
April 25, 1946 Headline Murder
May 2, 1946 The Case of the Forgetful Blonde
May 9, 1946 Snowbound Listen (MP3)
A woman Rogue meets on an unwanted mountain vacation, and the husband who suspects her, earn him a cracked skull, a shoulder wound and a trip off a cliff. Then the blizzard closes in.
May 16, 1946 The Impossible Murder Listen (MP3)
Judge Colin Baker is threatened and hires Rogue to guard him for a single day. Rogue does not manage it -- Baker turns up strangled.
May 23, 1946 The Latin Type Listen (MP3)
May 30, 1946 Blue Eyes Listen (MP3)
June 6, 1946 Weekend Guest Listen (MP3)
Somebody has tried twice in a fortnight to kill Patricia Flynn, and she cannot think of a single reason why anyone would want to.
June 13, 1946 Redhaired Stranger Listen (MP3)
Rogue stops by an old friend's place on a hot Sunday and finds him shot dead on the white living-room rug -- then gets knocked cold, and then gets accused of the killing by two people he thought were friends. He is unconscious barely two minutes into the program.
June 23, 1946 Star of Savoy (rehearsal) Listen (MP3)
A man walks into Rogue's office with a bullet in him and dies there. The question is who shot Charles McDonald, and the answer is a very valuable diamond. It opened the 1946 NBC summer run, reworking a script the program had already used in June 1945.
June 30, 1946 Lady with a Gun (rehearsal) Listen (MP3)
Matt Webb picks a fight with Rogue in a nightclub; the next day Mrs. Webb tries to hire Rogue to investigate her husband. He turns her down, and then Webb's body turns up. Surviving as a rehearsal recording, complete with Powell fluffing a line and carrying on.
July 7, 1946 Cabin on the Lake (rehearsal) Listen (MP3)
At a lakeside resort, a guest named Janice Cole turns up dead in her own room. Her body vanishes while Rogue sleeps off his weekly blow to the head -- and then the killing is pinned on him.
July 14, 1946 Where There's a Will, There's Murder (rehearsal) Listen (MP3)
Told she had a weak heart, Angela Mullins made a will; her heart held out, and now the will is gone -- so if she dies today her money goes to the two relatives she cannot stand. She hires Rogue to find the thief, and is dead almost before he can start.
July 21, 1946 Murderer's Apprentice
July 28, 1946 Fight
August 4, 1946 Lovely Alibi
August 11, 1946 The Coin
August 18, 1946 Play with Fire
August 25, 1946 Vacation with Murder
September 1, 1946 Impatient Patricia
September 8, 1946 Lullaby with Blackjack
September 15, 1946 Ace in the Hole
September 22, 1946 The Restless Corpse

1947

June 8, 1947 Ambush
June 15, 1947 350 Pounds of Protection
June 22, 1947 2 Hours to Vegas
June 29, 1947 Phyliss Adrian Is Missing Listen (MP3)
July 6, 1947 Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Got
July 13, 1947 Vacation with Homicide
July 20, 1947 Buried Treasure
July 27, 1947 The Case of the Dangerous Uncle
August 3, 1947 The Star of Savoy
August 10, 1947 The Combination
August 17, 1947 Riptide
August 24, 1947 Murder Habit
August 31, 1947 Death Tells a Fortune
September 7, 1947 Eye Witness
September 14, 1947 Hideout
September 21, 1947 Blackmail
September 28, 1947 Confession
The Story

Richard Rogue is a private detective with one occupational hazard nobody else in the business has: roughly once a week somebody hits him on the head, and he wakes up on Cloud Eight. Waiting there is Eugor -- Rogue spelled backwards -- his own cackling alter ego, who needles him, argues with him, and eventually points out the clue he walked straight past. Then Rogue wakes up and goes and solves the case. Dick Powell played Rogue, and the casting was the whole idea. He had just reinvented himself as a screen tough guy in Murder, My Sweet after a decade as a singing juvenile, and F.W. Fitch -- the shampoo company behind The Fitch Bandwagon -- built a summer replacement series around the new persona in 1945. It was supposed to run fourteen weeks. Instead Mutual signed it for a full season, NBC took it back for two more summers, and ABC revived it in 1950 with a different Rogue. Barry Sullivan took the lead in 1947; Paul Stewart in the final run. Peter Leeds played Eugor for years and was never once credited for it -- the program seems to have kept his identity quiet on purpose. Ray Buffum wrote it, Dee Engelbach produced and directed, Leith Stevens scored it, and Jim Doyle announced every Fitch season. Powell would carry the same wisecracking voice straight into Richard Diamond, Private Detective, which is the show he is remembered for -- but Rogue is where he worked it out.

Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
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