The Man Called X

 

 

Wherever there is mystery, adventure, intrigue, in all the strange and dangerous places in the world, there you will find -- the Man called X!"

 

The Man Called X was created by Jay Richard Kennedy and depicted Herbert Marshall as Ken Thurston, an Intelligence Agent working for "The Bureau".

Fans of the spy game will certainly appreciate the dialogue of this seminal radio show, with its world-weary and world-wary comments delivered by Marshall with clipped certainty. The plots deal with smuggled guns, explosives, drugs, art, radioactive material, murders, kidnappings, rogue scientists, leaked secrets, sabotage, secret documents, notorious politicians, corpses, wetbacks, revolutionaries, foreign portsÉ even zombies!

In each 30 minute stand-alone adventure, Thurston works diligently to make the world a safer place by thwarting Cold War enemies and cooling off hotspots of unrest wherever they may be. He is aided (? or thwarted) by his ever-present chiselling "sidekick" Pegon Zeldschmidt, played by Leon Belasco. Fine Hollywood-based radio actors such as Cathy Lewis, Peter Leeds, Lawrence Dobkin and William Conrad fill out a constantly shifting cast of shady characters.

The genesis of this radio show was a 1944 presentation of The Globe Theatre.

A regular CBS series followed and was sponsored by Lockheed with:

 

"the man who crosses the ocean as readily as you and I cross town"

 

After an 18 month hiatus, Marshall was back as Thurston this time with Frigidaire as sponsor in 1947. With award-winning music by Johnny Green, Jack Johnstone directed this production before a live audience. It added glamour to the proceedings, although suspense purists might feel the secretive ambiance of tales of intrigue wasn't right for an audience (who do tend to laugh at Pegon's malapropisms).

This series folded in September 1948 but was resurrected again in 1950 by rival network NBC (with RCA and others as sponsors)

 

 

Want to check out an episode? - why not "taste & try"?

 

This episode can be freely downloaded to your computer - just right button click on any link below and chose "Download Linked File" (or words to that effect). The file is on an average about 17Mb - download time will depend on your (broadband) speed

 

MCX_1947-04-03 Antarctic Expedition.mp3

 

 

In all, 104 thirty minute episodes have survived and they are contain on these 3 MP3 Discs, grouped as follows:

 

A.  The Globe Theatre - the single presentation within this anthology series

                  Globe Theatre 1944 A Man Called X.mp3

 

 

B.   CBS (Lockheed) - the 3 surviving episodes

1.           MCX_1944-09-30 A Letter.mp3

2.           MCX_1944-xx-xx Smuggling Diamonds for the Nazis.mp3

3.           MCX_1946- 07-23 Stolen Lavaliers.mp3

 

 

C.  CBS (Frigidaire) - the 45 surviving episodes

1.           MCX_1947-04-03 Antarctic Expedition.mp3

2.           MCX_1947-04-17 Acme Oil Refinery.mp3

3.           MCX_1947-04-24 Mr Messler and the Insurance Policy.mp3

4.           MCX_1947-05-15 The Stamp Story.mp3

5.           MCX_1947-06-05 Swindle in Honolulu.mp3

6.           MCX_1947-06-19 The Silver Scarab.mp3

7.           MCX_1947-06-26 Rembrandt in Rio.mp3

8.           MCX_1947-07-24 Destination Manila.mp3

9.           MCX_1947-08-07 Will You Marry Me.mp3

10.       MCX_1947-08-21 The Lost Ones.mp3

11.       MCX_1947-09-18 The Throne of Tay Ninh.mp3

12.       MCX_1947-10-02 No One Wins on Zero.mp3

13.       MCX_1947-10-09 All That Glitters.mp3

14.       MCX_1947-10-16 Timber Country.mp3

15.       MCX_1947-11-02 Ashes to Ashes.mp3

16.       MCX_1947-11-09 Written in the Sand.mp3

17.       MCX_1947-11-16 Journey to Xenephon.mp3

18.       MCX_1947-11-23 Report from the Arctic.mp3

19.       MCX_1947-11-30 Checkmate in Tahiti.mp3

20.       MCX_1947-12-07 Shipment Condemned.mp3

21.       MCX_1947-12-14 Delta Concerto.mp3

22.       MCX_1947-12-21 From a Starlit Hill.mp3

23.       MCX_1947-12-28 Assignment -- Naples.mp3

24.       MCX_1948-01-04 Spot the Eight Ball.mp3

25.       MCX_1948-01-11 Spirit of the Snows.mp3

26.       MCX_1948-01-19 Ranee of Shalakar.mp3

27.       MCX_1948-01-25 Carbon Fourteen.mp3

28.       MCX_1948-02-01 One Way to Macassar.mp3

29.       MCX_1948-02-08 A Tiger for the Lady.mp3

30.       MCX_1948-02-15 Guns on the Niger.mp3

31.       MCX_1948-02-22 Operation Silver.mp3

32.       MCX_1948-02-29 Storm over the Alps.mp3

33.       MCX_1948-03-07 Passport to Danger.mp3

34.       MCX_1948-03-14 The Pickled Chemist.mp3

35.       MCX_1948-03-21 One Sailor Died Twice.mp3

36.       MCX_1948-03-28 A Ruby for Pearl.mp3

37.       MCX_1948-04-11 Turtle Island Vacation.mp3

38.       MCX_1948-08-08 Mekong River Dam.mp3

39.       MCX_1948-08-15 The Girl Who Couldn't Remember.mp3

40.       MCX_1948-08-22 Burma Peninsula.mp3

41.       MCX_1948-08-29 Contraband.mp3

42.       MCX_1948-09-05 Worth Her Weight in Gold.mp3

43.       MCX_1948-09-12 Kangaroo Bay, Australia.mp3

44.       MCX_1948-09-19 Dangerous Island.mp3

45.       MCX_1948-09-26 The Laughing Lady.mp3

 

D.   NBC - the 55 surviving episodes

1.           MCX_1950-10-13 Custom Cigarettes.mp3

2.           MCX_1950-10-20 One Way to Macassar.mp3

3.           MCX_1950-10-27 Journey to Xenephon.mp3

4.           MCX_1950-11-03 Professor Chaney has Disappeared.mp3

5.           MCX_1950-11-11 Rendezvous with Death.mp3

6.           MCX_1950-11-18 Warm Welcome, Sudden Death.mp3

7.           MCX_1950-11-25 A Beautiful Woman, Important Foreign Agent

                                                     and a Submarine.mp3

8.           MCX_1950-12-02 Dr Alvarez's Laboratory.mp3

9.           MCX_1950-12-09 Mr X Goes to Syria.mp3

10.       MCX_1950-12-16 Red Messenger.mp3

11.       MCX_1950-12-23 Thurston's Christmas Story.mp3

12.       MCX_1950-12-30 Rhythm of Death.mp3

13.       MCX_1951-01-06 Operation Fifty.mp3

14.       MCX_1951-01-13 Five Ounces of Treason.mp3

15.       MCX_1951-01-20 Japan Underground.mp3

16.       MCX_1951-01-27 Orient Express.mp3

17.       MCX_1951-02-03 Pirates off the Coast of India.mp3

18.       MCX_1951-02-10 The Black of Diamonds.mp3

19.       MCX_1951-02-17 North of Thirty Eight.mp3

20.       MCX_1951-02-24 Tiny Bit of Microfilm.mp3

21.       MCX_1951-03-03 Dope Smuggling.mp3

22.       MCX_1951-03-10 Cargo Confidant.mp3

23.       MCX_1951-03-17 University of Leiden.mp3

24.       MCX_1951-03-24 Missing Witness.mp3

25.       MCX_1951-03-31 The Blue Unicorn.mp3

26.       MCX_1951-04-07 India.mp3

27.       MCX_1951-04-14 Treason at White Sands.mp3

28.       MCX_1951-04-21 Race Against Death.mp3

29.       MCX_1951-04-28 Terror across the Nation.mp3

30.       MCX_1951-05-04 Monte Carlo.mp3

31.       MCX_1951-05-11 Knocked Off His Feet.mp3

32.       MCX_1951-05-18 Enough Intrigue to Fill a Book.mp3

33.       MCX_1951-05-25 A Man, a Girl and a Plot.mp3

34.       MCX_1951-06-01 Stalin Plus Seven.mp3

35.       MCX_1951-06-08 Grain Black Market in India.mp3

36.       MCX_1951-06-15 Amazon River.mp3

37.       MCX_1951-06-22 Vienna.mp3

38.       MCX_1951-06-29 Death and Treasury March Hand in Hand.mp3

39.       MCX_1951-07-06 The Casbah.mp3

40.       MCX_1951-07-13 Flying Trip to Indonesia.mp3

41.       MCX_1951-10-01 Invitation to a Murder.mp3

42.       MCX_1952-01-01 Petroleum Sabotage in Lima.mp3

43.       MCX_1952-01-08 Flying Trip to Nowhere.mp3

44.       MCX_1952-01-15 Icy Slopes of the Matterhorn.mp3

45.       MCX_1952-01-22 Casablanca.mp3

46.       MCX_1952-01-29 Dirty Racket.mp3

47.       MCX_1952-02-05 The Clicking Buddah.mp3

48.       MCX_1952-02-12 Italy.mp3

49.       MCX_1952-02-19 The Half Penny Stamp.mp3

50.       MCX_1952-02-26 Orinoco River Basin.mp3

51.       MCX_1952-03-04 Alaska Weather Station.mp3

52.       MCX_1952-03-11 Plan to Kill NATO Pact.mp3

53.       MCX_1952-05-13 Rescue from Czech Uranium Mine.mp3

54.       MCX_1952-05-20 Ancient Byzantine Bible.mp3

55.       MCX_1952-05-27 Operation Cabal.mp3

        

 

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