Box 13

Box 13 was a syndicated radio series about the escapades of newspaperman-turned-mystery novelist Dan Holiday, played by film star Alan Ladd. Created by Ladd's company, Mayfair Productions, Box 13 premiered in 1947. In New York City, it first aired December 31, 1947, on Mutual's New York flagship, WOR.

To seek out new ideas for his fiction, Holiday ran a classified ad in the Star-Times newspaper where he formerly worked: "Adventure wanted, will go anywhere, do anything -- write Box 13, Star-Times." The stories followed Holiday's adventures when he responded to the letters sent to him by such people as a psycho killer and various victims.

Sylvia Picker appeared as Holiday's scatterbrained secretary, Suzy, while Edmund MacDonald played police Lt. Kling. Supporting cast members included Betty Lou Gerson, Frank Lovejoy, Lurene Tuttle, Alan Reed, Luis Van Rooten and John Beal. Vern Carstensen, who directed Box 13 for producer Richard Sanville, was also the show's announcer.

The dramas featured music by Rudy Schrager. Russell Hughes, who had previously hired Ladd as a radio actor in 1935 at a $19 weekly salary, wrote most of the scripts, sometimes in collaboration with Ladd. The partners in Mayfair Productions were Ladd and Bernie Joslin, who had previously run the chain of Mayfair Restaurants.

Primary Cast

• Alan Ladd as Dan Holiday
• Sylvia Picker as Suzy
• Edmund MacDonald as Lt. Kling
• Vern Carstensen as the Announcer

Episodes

1. The First Letter
2. The Insurance Swindle Adventure
3. Blackmail Is Murder
4. The Radio Actress Murder Case (a.k.a. Actor's Alibi)
5. Extra! Extra!
6. Shanghaied
7. Short Assignment
8. Double Mothers
9. A Book of Poems by Sir Walter Scott
10. The Great Torino
11. Foreign Correspondent (a.k.a. Suicide or Murder)
12. Triple Cross
13. Damsel in Distress
14. Diamond in the Sky
15. Double Right Cross
16. Look Pleasant, Please
17. The Haunted Artist
18. The Sad Night
19. The Hot Box
20. The Better Man
21. The Professor and the Puzzle
22. The Dowager and Dan Holiday
23. Three to Die
24. The Philanthropist
25. Last Will and Nursery Rhyme
26. Delinquent's Dilemma
27. Flash of Light
28. Hare and Hounds
29. Hunt and Peck
30. Death Is A Doll
31. One One Three Point Five
32. Dan and the Wonderful Lamp
33. Tempest in a Casserole
34. Mexican Maze
35. Sealed Instructions
36. Find Me, Find Death
37. Much Too Lucky
38. One of These Four
39. Daytime Nightmare
40. Death Is No Joke
41. The Treasure of Hang Li
42. Design for Danger
43. The Dead Man Walks
44. Killer at Large
45. Speed to Burn
46. House of Darkness
47. Double Trouble
48. The Biter Bitten
49. A Perfect Crime
50. Archimedes and the Roman
51. The Clay Pigeon
52. Round Robin

External Links

• Box 13 episodes at the Internet Archive