Imagine a mild-mannered white guy who takes on a non-white identity to fight crime. Wouldn’t 1939 radio producers do an amazing job with that? Listen to find out!
Passage to the Orient, episode 140 of This Gun in My Hand, was smuggled into your ears by Rob Northrup. This episode and all others are available on Youtube with automatically-generated closed captions of dialog. Visit http://ThisGuninMyHand.blogspot.com for credits, show notes, archives, and to buy my books, such as Sisyphus, Eat Your Heart Out, available in paperback and ebook from Amazon. What martial art is even more deadly than ninyutsu? This Gun in My Hand!
Show Notes:
1. “Castello” means castle in Italian, “Lupo” means wolf, and “roccia” means “rock.” In German it would be something like “Wolfenstein.”
2. Raymond Tokutaro Muramoto, the voice actor who originated Kato on the Green Hornet radio show, was a Japanese immigrant. In real life, he was sent to an internment camp during World War II. Here’s a short bio I wrote about him:
https://archive.org/details/the-first-kato
http://dayjobspodcast.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-first-kato.html
3. Read more about the young political firebrand Nguyễn Ái Quốc after whom Harlan plans to name his radio hero:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh
4. As always, listeners should be skeptical of any claims made by characters in the show, especially if they’re trying to define a term like “code-switching” that hadn’t been coined and wasn’t in use in 1939. The opinions of these clowns do not necessarily reflect my own so I’m off the hook for any lies or mistakes they make.
5. This episode was inspired by Straight Arrow, a radio show broadcast from 1948-1951. An Apache orphan raised by a white couple maintains the identity of “Steve Adams” until it’s time to fight crime as Apache warrior “Straight Arrow.” Elements were ripped off from The Lone Ranger, like the cavern full of gold that funds his crime-fighting. Only his trusted friend “Packy” the crusty miner who sounds like Gabby Hayes knows the truth. Lots of talk about his innate Apache abilities, his keen Indian eyesight, and Straight Arrow drops his voice and speaks haltingly, although not quite in broken English like Tonto.
https://www.radioechoes.com/?page=series&genre=OTR-Western&series=Straight%20Arrow
Credits:
The opening music clip was from The Sun Sets at Dawn (1950), and the closing music was from Killer Bait (1949), both films in the public domain. Most of the music and sound effects used in the episode are modified or incomplete versions of the originals.
Sound Effect Title: Matkustajakone / Passenger plane DC-3 (Dakota) - Sisällä / Inside by YleArkisto
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
https://freesound.org/s/406952/
Sound Effect Title: FOLEY_Footsteps_Metal_002.wav by conleec
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/149454/
Sound Effect Title: Wind shaking a tree, loud and muffled gust of wind recorded in Nebraska by felix.blume
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/657003/
Sound Effect Title: Cracking wood by JappeHallunken
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/501302/
Sound Effect Title: dry branches cracking.aiff by SoundCollectah
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/109357/
Sound Effect Title: Foley_Natural_Wood_Barks_Crush_Mono.wav by Nox_Sound
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/558380/
Sound Effect Title: Rustling leaves by giddster
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/437356/
Sound Effect Title: Walking Through Tall Grass by naturenotesuk
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
https://freesound.org/s/698895/
Sound Effect Title: dawn_birds.wav by paul.h
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/557332/
Sound Effect Title: Usignolo - Nightingale by danygdanyg
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/234169/
Sound Effect Title: Tuscan Birdsong.wav by gazsound
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/156002/
Sound Effect Title: G57-05-Creature Getting Stabbed.wav by craigsmith
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/438891/
Sound Effect Title: G24-01-Warner Brothers Body Fall.wav by craigsmith
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/438300/
Sound Effect Title: School door with metal latch inside.aif by timonunderwater
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/532788/
Sound Effect Title: Footsteps Dress Shoes Wood Floor.wav
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/allrealsound/sounds/161756/
Sound Effect Title: Dropping Body on Hard Ground.wav by jjhouse4
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
https://freesound.org/s/203039/
Sound Effect Title: footsteps cellar.wav
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/gecop/sounds/545030/
Sound Effect Title: S16-06 Light wooden door open & close.wav
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/people/craigsmith/sounds/675878/
Sound Effect Title: Kicking rock wall and almost falling. by Edelhanie
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
https://freesound.org/s/594623/
Sound Effect Title: Air raid siren in Kyiv by Romaner66
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
https://freesound.org/s/676589/
Sound Effect Title: 22lr Caliber Rifle Shots and Reloading
License: Public Domain
https://freesound.org/s/717133/
The image accompanying this episode is a modified detail of the back cover of Terry and the Pirates (Big Little Book #1156) released in 1935, art and text attributed to Milton Caniff, public domain.
Image Alt text: Colorful line art drawing from the perspective of a pier. In the foreground is a white boat with red cabin. The sail on a single mast is lowered and furled. A man lounges in a wooden chair, tipped back behind the ship’s wheel, his feet propped on the rail of the boat with a fan in his hand. Judging by the small smokestack over the cabin, it has an engine, or maybe it’s a vent for a stove. Close to the front of the boat, we can see the aft and steering oar of a Chinese junk. Both vessels appear to be moored to the pier. A bay with distant strips of land stretches toward the horizon with two junks a short distance away, their sails yellow and green and red. Massive white clouds take up almost half of the view.
