Let George Do It

"Personal Notice: Danger is my stock-in-trade. If the job is too tough for you to handle, you've got a job for me, George Valentine. Write full details."

For George Valentine, the lead character in the Old Time Radio detective series Let George Do It, that newspaper ad brings plenty of adventure. George is an ex-cop-turned-private-investigator who uses his brain as much as his brawn when it comes to catching and stopping a constant stream of standard issue 1940's baddies.

The long-running series shows the evolution of the main characters. In early episodes, George's deductive powers and scientific skills are emphasized over his brawn, and Claire Brooks, "Brooksie", is the typical Girl Friday. As the show evolved, however, George can mix it up with the best of them and Brooksie sets her sights on George.

The secretary-as-jilted-lover was a staple of radio's detectives appearing also in the Adventures of Sam Spade amoung others. The constant back and forth between George and Brooksie sounds a great deal like an old time radio version of much-later TV series like "Hart to Hart," "Moonlighting" and "Remington Steele."

Bob Bailey (Pictured to the left), later became much loved as "the man with the action-packed expense account", Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, plays the lead with Francis Robinson and later Virginia Gregg playing his secretary, Brooksie. They were helped often by Lieutenant Riley (Wally Maher) and Lieutenant Johnson (Ken Christy). The newspaper-ad-to-get-adventures idea would be used later as the opening for Box 13, a radio series starring Alan Ladd.

414 episodes of Let George Do It were produced between 1946 and 1955, and 199 episodes are in circulation, though others are thought to exist in private collections.

This is an exciting crime series that should be in everyone's library. Bob Bailey is perhaps the best of the Old Time Radio tough guys and is as excellent here as he is in Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. 

The Internet Archive has many of the circulating shows available -- but you will have to work a little bit to get all of them. The shows are grouped on separate pages by the broadcast year.  To download them, click on the following links, each of which opens in a new window -

• Let George Do It - 1948
• Let George Do It - 1949
• Let George Do It - 1950
• Let George Do It - 1951
• Let George Do It - 1952

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