Audiences can see Sojin today only in the silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., The Thief of Bagdad.

January 1, 1946
Sam Spade, the creation of Dashiell Hammett, makes his debut on CBS radio in The Adventures of Sam Spade starring Howard Duff as Spade. The program became very popular and Duff guest-starred as Spade on many comedy programs including the Maxwell House Coffee Time program starring George Burns and Gracie Allen. [Duff also had a window cameo on the 1960s tv program Batman].

This month, see the transcribed script for Maxwell House Coffee Time: Gracie Sends Sam Spade To Jail.

January 3, 1952
The popular radio program Dragnet makes its debut as a television program, on NBC-TV. (The 'pilot' had aired in December, but this is the 'official' start of its first season.)

Read our article about this in the January issue: The Big Webb.

In our January issue, we review the first Asey Mayo mystery: The Cape Cod Mystery.

January 12, 1976
Agatha Christie, creator of Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, writer of the longest running play (The Mousetrap) in history, dies today at the age of 85.

In our January issue, we review the Hercule Poirot short story collection: The Labors of Hercules.

January 13, 1928
Murderers Ruth Snyder and Henry Gray go to the electric chair today. [The Snyder-Gray killings are mentioned by Inspector Piper in the Miss Hildegarde Withers movie, The Penguin Pool Murders, 1931, starring Edna May Oliver and James Gleason].

Visit our gift shop, Bogie's at Three O'clock and four, and five, or whenever you want to watch a Bogie!

See our editorial in the January issue: Remember Elizabeth Short.
Read a review of a fictionalized version of this case:Angel In Black by Max Allan Collins.

January 15, 1968
The Man From UNCLE airs its final episode on NBC-TV.

Go to our January article: Superman Comes To Your City.
Read our January book review of Superman: The Dailies 1939-1940.

January 16, 1944
I Wake Up Screaming, starring Victor Mature, Betty Grable, and Laird Cregar, is released. The novel feautured an insider's view of Hollywood, but producer Darryl Zanuck forced a setting change to New York City.

January 18, 2003
Gavin Lyall, died on this Saturday, aged 70. [Daily Telegraph obit] Although for the last 20 years his work had been set in the world of espionage and counter-terrorism, Lyall made his reputation in the 1960s as a writer of adventure stories. He was able to draw on a background in both the Armed Forces and journalism, and his early writing was distinguished mainly by the verve and tension which, as a former RAF pilot, he brought to his descriptions of flying. His heroes were often charter pilots.

Lyall published some 15 books in 40 years. As a body of work, his writing was not especially original, as he himself acknowledged. "I'm really just an old pro," he wrote, "turning out the same book over and over again, but trying to make it better."

Gavin Tudor Lyall was born in Birmingham on May 9, 1932. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, where he was taught to play rugby by a boy identified as Colin Figures (later Sir Colin and Chief of MI6). In 1951, Lyall did his National Service with the RAF. He then went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read English. He trained on the Birmingham Gazette before landing a job at Picture Post in 1956. Among his colleagues was Katharine Whitehorn, who became a columnist for the Observer for more than 35 years. They married in 1958. After a year working as a film director at the BBC, Lyall returned to print journalism in 1959 as Air Correspondent of the Sunday Times, where he would remain until 1963. By then he had enjoyed considerable success with his first novel, The Wrong Side of the Sky (1961).

His second and third novels, The Most Dangerous Game (1964) and Midnight Plus One (1965), both won the Silver Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association, of which he was chairman in 1966-7. Midnight Plus One was later made into a film starring Steve McQueen.

By 1980, the ground rules for thrillers had changed. Terrorism had become a grave threat, while Mr. Le Carre had delineated with a new realism the politics of Intelligence. Lyall responded by creating a new hero, Harry Maxim, an SAS officer given special missions by Downing Street, who would become the first of Mr. Lyall's protagonists to feature in more than one book. The change of setting to Whitehall brought a new maturity and air of credibility to his work, and his quartet of Maxim novels perhaps represents the peak of his writing. The first of the books, The Secret Servant (1980), was adapted for television.

A man of civilized tastes, he enjoyed cooking, building scale models, and exploring the Thames on his motor cruiser. He was survived by his wife and two sons.

January 19, 1921
Patricia Highsmith is born in Texas. She is the author of such books as The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Strangers on a Train.

January 23, 1975
Barney Miller premieres on NBC-TV.

January 28, 2000
Sarah Caudwell, creator of Hilary Tamar and the author of four novels, dies of cancer. Her books are Thus Was Adonis Murdered, The Sirens Sang of Murder,