In the other work we do discussions about starting a podcast have come up. We shoot the idea down because we can’t possibly fit anything else into our lives, but the concept got us thinking about things that might be fun to listen to. Above you see a record sleeve for Bold Venture, pressed from a radio series starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Developed by Bogart’s Santana Productions, he and Bacall star as Slate Shannon and Sailor Duvall. He’s the proprietor of a hotel in Cuba where various shady characters, revolutionaries, and all around scalawags wander through, and she’s the woman he promised her dead father to watch over and protect. And by protect, we mean at close quarters. Sounds a bit like To Have and Have Not, right? All we can say is—sold!
The series ran for fifty-seven episodes in 1951 and 1952, and this record contains one episode on each side. If you like podcasts, or listening to stuff while doing stuff, this may be for you. We can give no qualitative info. We haven’t heard it. We’re traveling now for two weeks (we mentioned that preloaded posts thing, right?) and grabbed this to listen to during our wanderings. It may be amazing, or it may be bad. But we very much like Bogie and Bacall, and given all the great work they’ve done together and apart, how can it possibly be bad? Like, seriously. You can have your own copy of the series in a jiffy, because it’s available on Archive.org, the public domain repository, here, or at a dedicated UK website here. Merry Christmas, pulpsters!