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BRIDE WANTED

·38 min·2 clips

Ann Rogers proposes using Spritely Poole as bait for a suspected murderer.

1. Hot Copy Radio Theater recreates "Bride Wanted," a 1944 Hot Copy radio mystery about a newspaper reporter investigating a marriage advertisement. 2. Ann Rogers is the fictional newspaper reporter, Sprightly Poole is her assistant, and Lieutenant Mike Flanagan supplies police support for the investigation. 3. The episode asks whether a romance advertisement seeking a wife is connected to a woman murdered after answering a similar notice. 4. Juliette Bellefontaine tells Inspector Collins that she wants to marry but fears one advertisement was placed by a murderer. 5. Ann learns that Nina, a former manager at Juliette's West 9th Street apartment building, answered a similar advertisement and went to California. 6. California police found a woman matching Nina's description murdered in Los Angeles approximately six months earlier. 7. Investigators believe fingerprints found on Nina's handbag may help identify the person behind the advertisements. 8. Ann proposes that Sprightly answer the local advertisement and meet the unknown man under police observation. 9. Juliette agrees to identify the suspect at a restaurant by saying, "Very hot tonight, isn't it?" 10. Sprightly meets Pete Thompson, who says he inherited a tourist lodge in Arizona that needs repairs. 11. Pete asks whether Sprightly would contribute money toward the lodge after marriage, presenting the request as a shared team effort. 12. Pete says his Uncle Bud must approve the marriage because Pete's parents are absent. 13. Uncle Bud urges Pete and Sprightly to marry quickly and travel west by train. 14. Sprightly delays the proposed departure by saying her money is locked in a bank until the following morning. 15. Sprightly gives investigators a photograph that may carry Pete's fingerprints after Pete asks to keep or enlarge her picture. 16. A California fingerprint report arrives before Sprightly's planned meeting at the Davis Hotel, changing the investigators' certainty about Pete. 17. The production combines an announcer introduction, acted dialogue, restaurant scenes, telephone calls, and a mid-episode sponsor segment. 18. Rhonda Sigler Ware, Samantha Thompson, Jerry Kokich, and the supporting cast perform the script with heightened 1940s radio-drama diction and comic exchanges. 19. Vintage radio mysteries, newspaper investigations, and staged detective plots. 20. Listeners seeking contemporary realism or unscripted conversation may skip.

As heard by us

A marriage question at police headquarters leads into a carefully staged restaurant rendezvous.

A young woman walks into police headquarters with a question for Inspector Collins about marriage, but the odd request soon turns into something more deliberate.

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Why you'd press play

You can settle in for a recreated 1944 radio mystery where a marriage request at police headquarters opens into a carefully managed date.

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