NIGHT BEAT

FLIGHT FROM FEAR 
Chicago - Thursday, July 31, 1952 
"Flight from Fear" uses the aftermath of the 1952 
Chicago political conventions as its backdrop. 
It opens with the mystery of why a printer omits 
part of a reporter's article (a device which Hite would use again 
in Rogers of the Gazette a year later).  Before long, Stone finds himself 
involved in intrigue and the political complications of the Cold War. 
Kathleen Hite ably evokes the summer 
that nominated Adlai Stevenson, Eisenhower, Nixon, 
and picked Estes Kefauver over John Kennedy. 
There is good narrative patter that shows Hite wasn't unfamiliar 
with a newsroom, the night beat, or Night Beat. 
Sports fans and warm-up enthusiasts may get a kick from 1952 
when Hite describes someone as 'going through some limbering-up exercises.' 
Copy boy! 


POLICY WHEEL RACKET 
Chicago - Thursday, September 18, 1952 
Is the organ the only thing that Brother James plays 
at his mission in Skid Row?  Is Kathleen Hite anticipating 
the bizarre city zoning of Gunsmoke 
by placing a 'saloon' in front of the Welcome Mission? 
Where would a gambling wheel be more likely to be found-- 
the saloon or the mission? 
If you jump at the obvious, then you haven't boned up 
on the history of bingo nor interviewed 
the colorful denizens of this would-be dry 
urban desert prairie--the blind Spender, who can read men's souls 
by the sound of their footsteps, 
Mama Rizzo who wheels around a pizza car in the Row, 
and a baddie named Victor...  Meano. 
There are no simple truths when you're on the Skids, 
and you never know when somebody's gonna throw a pineapple at you. 
Pineapple?  Hite knew how to walk the 50s talk. 
It's gang slang for 'hand grenade.' 
Copy boy! 


THE BUG KILLINGS 
Chicago - Thursday, September 25, 1952 
Here we go again--Kathleen Hite plays closer 
and writes the last episode of a series. 
Nothing ear-shattering here, except some random elements that may 
ring some bells:  More than 20 years before the Son of Sam 
and Jimmy Breslin, a media-savvy serialist named Bug 
phones Randy Stone.  For those who love tv clichés, 
suspects were already eluding telephone traces in 1952 radio. 
Blues in the Night plays in the Copper Bar on Clark St. 
For those who follow what Matt and Chester drink in Gunsmoke, 
Randy Stone orders bourbon, water on the side. 
Lest it hasn't occurred to us that the Gunsmoke folk 
were not so far removed from WWII, 
Hite in these last two episodes uses the term H-Hour 
(the counterpart of D-Day). 
And halfway through this show, there is a public service announcement 
about the need for 'blood plasma' for soldiers in Korea. 
Copy boy! 




May 16, 2006 



Copyright © 2006-2011 E. A. Villafranca, Jr. 
All Rights Reserved