G-Men at Work
Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives) - A podcast by Mean Streets Podcasts
G-Man crime drama This is Your FBI premiered on April 6, 1945. Hailed as “the finest dramatic program on the air” by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the show featured dramatizations of actual Bureau case files. Of the many FBI-themed programs on the air, This is Your FBI was the only one endorsed by the agency. Hoover himself made an appearance on the program’s first episode to lend his seal of approval. (The long-running The FBI in Peace and War was based on Frederick W. Collins' book of the same name, but it was not sanctioned by the Bureau.) The series was created and produced by Jerry Devine, a former comedy writer who switched to drama. Before he entered the world of the FBI, Devine wrote scripts for Mr. District Attorney. He was welcomed with open arms by Hoover, and he was granted a two-week crash course at the FBI academy before he launched the program. Devine stayed abreast of new developments in FBI techniques with regular visits to headquarters in Washington. Stacy Harris (above), a frequent player on Dragnet and Gunsmoke, starred as FBI Special Agent Jim Taylor, dispatched all around the country in pursuit of fraudsters, spies, counterfeiters, and robbers. The radio’s G-men were on the air until January 30, 1953.
