Posted by1 year ago
Archived
Hello all!
This has been really driving me crazy for quite some time. I'm looking to find the entire collection of an Imagination Theater Radio drama called 'The Adventures of Harry Nile' by Jim French Productions. Back in the day, you could purchase it from their website, but for some reason they no longer take any orders. I've purchased all of the collections available on Audible.com (6 collections, they don't seem to be available there anymore) and I really would love to have the entire catalog of episodes. I have checked everywhere including Amazon, eBay, and my public libraries.
Here's the listing of all of the collections along with every episode and more about the show: https://www.old-time.com/otrlogs2/hrynl_sw.log.pdf
As you can read from this PDF:
As of 03/31/2017 Shows can no longer be purchased through Jim French Productions. THESE SHOWS ARE STILL PROTECTED UNDER COPYRIGHT LAW and should be purchased only from authorized dealers.'
And here's the main website where you used to be able to purchase the collection: http://jimfrenchproductions.com/
Can anyone help me find who an 'authorized dealer' might be? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
2 comments
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Radio/TheAdventuresOfHarryNile
Go To
A radio drama series that operates as a more modern take on the 40s/50s Private Detective, first created in 1976 by Jim French and primarily aired in Seattle.
The series features the eponymous Harry Nile (played by Phil Harper and Larry Albert), a former internal affairs police officer turned private investigator who operates in Los Angeles and, later, Seattle, in a time frame that goes from shortly after WWII to the 1950s. While beginning the show with a partner, he's since gone solo—that is, alongside his loyal and strong-willed secretary, Murphy (played by Pat French). He frequently finds himself in debt—though his gambling days are behind him, he doesn't attract much work and his good-natured heart often leaves him doing jobs for free or on pocket change.
Advertisement:
Each episode is about 20 minutes long, with breaks for radio advertisements. Despite a twelve year hiatus from 1978 to 1990, new episodes were being made as of 2010. In 1996 the series was syndicated nationally, and has since become international. In addition, a select number of episodes over the course of the show's run have been made into cassette tapes and CD sets, which can be obtained on the Jim French Productions website.
Advertisement:
This series features examples of:
- Berserk Button: Harry really doesn't like Domestic Abuse. He physically threatens an abuser in 'The Fine Art of Murder.'
- Deadpan Snarker: Harry gets into this on occasion, most notably when dealing with rude clients or uncooperative police officers.
- Detective Patsy: On occasion, as Harry doesn't outwardly appear that competent. In 'This Corpus Ain't Habeas Anymore', a sorority girl hires Harry to find out why a schoolmate that she threatened's body is in her trunk. Turns out she thought that she'd killed her, stuffed her in the trunk, then hired Harry to try and establish a cover story for herself.
- Hard Boiled Detective: Harry is a deliberate aversion of this. Despite living a life that would make such a man bitterly cynical (sees corruption and incompetence in the police force, a dead wife, terrible gambling debts and being targeted by the mob on a few occasions), he remains a steadfast champion of justice, rarely uses force to get his way, and genuinely cares about many of his clients.
- Implied Death Threat: In the first episode, where Harry was told by a mob boss to whom he was up to his eyeballs in debt to go kill a man on the West coast. An associate he sent over to make sure Harry did it tells him, 'I'm your doctor. I'm telling you to go west for your health.'
- Inspector Lestrade: There are several policemen Harry occasionally works with that qualify, such as Lou Butterfield who in one episode arrested him for a crime that Harry himself reported without even bothering to check if the victim was dead.
- Knight In Sour Armor: Harry, on occasion. He's seen too much corruption and organized crime not to get a bit world weary. But he still believes in doing the right thing and protecting the innocent.
- Perfect Poison: One episode has a pretty amusing aversion—once the culprit poisons Harry Nile with rat poison, he comments that he's feeling funny and sighs, while talking to the culprit, as he points out they've just poisoned him. Then he goes to get his stomach pumped.
- Plucky Office Girl: Murphy.
- Police are Useless: Varies—sometimes Harry has to investigate because the police are corrupt, sometimes it's because they won't listen to reason, sometimes there isn't enough evidence to get the police involved, and sometimes they're perfectly reasonable and good at their jobs but really dislike having a private eye poking his nose in criminal investigations.
- Private Detective: Harry is this, having quit from the Chicago police force after discovering corruption in one of the precincts.
- Private Eye Monologue: Harry frequently narrates his cases, though as a pointedly non-cliched version of a private eye his are a little bit brighter than is typical for this trope.
- Sassy Secretary: Murphy.
- Shed the Family Name: A variant—Harry changed his name from Niletti to Nile so that it would be harder to associate him with his family once he got on the police force, to avoid mob retaliation directed at them.
- Sickbed Slaying: In The Judge From Whiskey Dick Harry is almost killed with a shotgun blast, and then when he's in the hospital the murderer slips in and tries to overdose him on horse tranquilizers.
- The Gambling Addict: Harry, in his backstory—after losing his wife and leaving the police force he started gambling to try and ease the pain. This leads to him being Trapped by Gambling Debts.
- Trapped by Gambling Debts: In the first episode, Harry owes a gambling debt to a mob boss and is sent to kill a guy to pay it back.
Advertisement:
Index
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Adventures of Harry Nile is aradio drama series created by veteran radio writer and producer JimFrench. It has been in continuous production since 1991 and issyndicated nationally as part of the Imagination Theater package. Theseries made its original debut on January 1, 1976 over Seattleradio station KVI and continued for 24 episodes before French leftthe station to pursue other interests. In the late 1980s, Jimreturned to broadcasting joining the staff of the local CBSaffiliate KIRO. In 1990 he was asked if he knew who owned therights to the Nile shows. Through a bit of foresight in the 1970s,Jim retained the rights to all of his scripts and characters, andit wasn't long before the original 24 episodes along with two thathad been produced but never aired were running on Sunday nights. In1991 Jim began writing and producing new Nile shows with one newepisode playing every month, first only locally and then in 1996nationally. As of this writing, over 190 installments have beendone.
From his 1976 debut until his death in October 2004 the part ofHarry Nile was played by Phil Harper. Since Harper's passing, theshow has starred Larry Albert.
Seriesdescription
From The Adventures of Harry Nile broadcast log. Seeexternal link below.
Harry Nile, a fictional private detective in Los Angeles andSeattle during the 1940s and 1950s, is the title character of thisNew-Time Radio detective series. Like many private eyes, Harrystarted out as a cop. Harry's real last name is actually Niletti;he changed it before he joined the force to protect his family frompotential retaliation by the Mob. As a rookie on the Chicago PoliceDepartment, Harry was recruited by the department's InternalAffairs Division.
When his blues singer wife is killed in a night club shooting,Harry's life hits the skids. He turns up precinct-wide policecorruption and is eventually forced to resign from the Chicagopolice force. After he runs up substantial gambling debts and isunable to pay them, Harry agrees to travel to L.A. to do a 'littlefavor' for the holder of his markers, a Windy City casinoowner/crime boss. The 'little favor' involves the murder of a LosAngeles crime boss. Harry manages not to do the deed and ends upstaying on the West Coast, working as a private eye, first in LosAngeles, and later, in Seattle.
Harry is definitely not a hard-boiled P.I. He seldom uses hisgun or gets into a fight, but he's no wimp. This guy can be toughwhen necessary. Here's a detective who is a real human being. He'llnever be rich or have a fancy office; he's usually one step aheadof the bill collectors. Even after years in the business, he's notcompletely cynical. He cares about his clients and his greateststrength is his humanity.
He's aided in his investigations by his associate Murphy, ared-haired, former librarian played by Pat French, who made herdebut in the episode 'The Twenty Dollar Trackdown.' Murphy is notthe stereotype P.I.'s secretary; this lady is no dummy. She wasinitially enamored by the supposed glamour of the P.I. business andsometimes accompanies Harry on cases. For several years, she wasHarry's unpaid assistant. Now she's basically Harry's partner andgreat at finding important information. While she has always beeninfatuated with Harry, she's smart enough not to push it.
References
- French, Jim. The Adventures of Harry Nile: America'sGreatest Radio Detective Mysteries ISBN 978-1931102513
Externallinks
Jim French/Imagination Theater closing down (features ErimemFeb 21, 2017 18:57:43 GMT
![Download Download](/uploads/1/2/3/7/123705733/754273199.jpg)
- Member
Post by fitzoliverj on Feb 21, 2017 18:57:43 GMT
Surprising and unpleasant news that Jim French Productions/Imagination Theater are closing down next month. No more radio, no more CDs, no more downloads, no more Audible.
Big Finish's M J Elliott cut his teeth writing for them, and Ian McLaughlin wrote their 'Kerides the Thinker' series, which included one episode that featured Erimem-from-Big-Finish-Doctor-Who's ghost possessing a not-quite-so-ancient Egyptian. Last chance to buy!
jimfrenchproductions.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=0&products_id=1346
Big Finish's M J Elliott cut his teeth writing for them, and Ian McLaughlin wrote their 'Kerides the Thinker' series, which included one episode that featured Erimem-from-Big-Finish-Doctor-Who's ghost possessing a not-quite-so-ancient Egyptian. Last chance to buy!
jimfrenchproductions.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=0&products_id=1346
THEBEST FREE AUDIODRAMA INTERNET SITES
Selectedby Mark Leeper, last updated September 27, 2015
Online version of this list: http://leepers.us/radio.htm
Please send comments and suggested additions to [email protected]
Thoseof you who have read the MT VOID for a while know that I have a special interest in audio drama. It is particularly convenient to download it from the Internet. Different users will record programs in different ways. These days most people download from iTunes or download MP3s. Below are the best Internet sites I have found providing audio drama. The sites I list offer radio drama without charge.
I am pleased to say that there has really been an explosion in the number of sites offering free drama radio drama. There are several that offer radio from the Golden Age, roughly 1940 to 1960, but many sites are creating their own new radio drama.
Thereare really two types of site. There is PC radio. These just broadcast 24 hours a day from what is usually a non-published schedule. The listener can sample it at random times or can just record an interval of time and then go back and choose what he likes. There are also download sites where you choose a program and listen on your PC, record to tape, or download it to an mp3 player. iTunes also offers a wide variety of audio drama.
Lookfor the notations GEM: and NEW ENTRY:
Pleasenote the 'Of Related Interest' sites at the end. It is not exactly radio drama when you get readings of stories and entire novels free from the Internet, but it will be of interest to many of the same people. Having listened to Old Time Radio for many years some of the old sources are getting repetitive. But there is so much new media of interest I really cannot keep up.
Pleaselet me know if you find discrepencies, particularly sites going away. And like I say above sendcomments and suggested additions to [email protected].
Andthanks for your help.
And by the way, if you are looking for a particular classic radio series or even a particular episode of a series, you very likely can find it by asking for it in Google looking under archive.org. If you want to see episodes of the radio series 'Perry Mason' you just have to give Google the string 'archive.org Perry Mason'. If you want to find the radio play 'Sorry, Wrong Number' you can just search on 'archive.org Sorry Wrong Number'. Archive.org is a powerful resource and Google is a powerful search tool.
Contents:
WEEKLY/DAILYSOURCES FOR RADIO DRAMA DOWNLOADS
PCRADIO STATIONS PLAYING CONTINUOUS OLD TIME RADIO DRAMA
Thefirst five are much the same as each other. Yesterday USA has more original programming and longer musical interludes. That is not to my taste, but the programs are good.
--TreasureTrove ACB Radio: ACB is the American Council for the Blind. This site was established as entertainment for the blind, but I can imagine they have a lot of other listeners as well. It has a really good selection of old time radio including some BBC science fiction. You might want to also make a small contribution to the ACB. They have made it a little harder to get to their Treasure Trove radio channel. When they ask you to open trove-broadband open it in iTunes. (As I say above it is free, but you need to open it in iTunes to play it.)
http://acbradio.org/sites/default/files/streams/trove-broadband.m3u