The Man Called X

International Spy Series (1944 - 48, 1950 - 52)

Sponsored by Frigidaire and later General Motors, this spy series starred Herbert Marshall as Ken Thurston, Intelligence Agent. Marshall, British by birth, starred in films with many of the greatest, especially Detreich in Blonde Venus, Bette Davis in The Virgin Queen, Vincent Price in The Fly, and a great cast in The Razor's Edge, where he portrayed W. Somerset Maugham. He played mainly English professional types, as his style seemed naturally cerebral and aloof.

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Thus he's perfectly suited to play a British operative in The Man Called X. It's certainly tailored on Maugham's book Ashenden, Or The British Agent, which was based on Somerset Maugham's own work with British intelligence.

Of course, this kind of stuff lead directly to Bond, James Bond, and certainly Ian Fleming admired The Third Man, and perhaps The Man Called X. Of course, Agent OO7 is still very much with us, but so is The Man Called X. It's a fine show. The music is excellent, as composed and conducted by Johnny Green.

Herbert Marshall, 1942

Jack Johnstone directs the production before a live audience, which adds glamour to the proceedings, although suspense purists might feel the secretive ambiance of tales of intrigue isn't rogjt for an audience. Lux Radio Theater didn't seem to suffer from that problem.

Fans of the spy game will certainly appreciate the dialogue, 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 ports even zombies! Except for the zombies, the entire list seems to be ripped from today's headlines.

Leon Belasco is Thurston's "sidekick" Pagon, a young and often timorous assistant who serves a variety of tasks. Fine Hollywood-based radio actors such as Cathy Lewis, Peter Leeds, Lawrence Dobkin, and William Conrad (Escape, Gunsmoke) fill out a constantly shifting cast of shady characters.

For more spies and undercover types, you can also see The Silent Men, Spy Catcher, Cloak and Dagger, Counterspy - David Harding!, Dangerous Assignment, The Adventures of Frank Race, Top Secret, Harry Lime (The Third Man),Secret Agent K7 Returns, and I Was a Communist for the FBI. Of course, there are many spy adventures to be found among the Escape episodes, and many private investigators are available. To follow up on them, you can start with the classic Sam Spade and follow the clues at the end of the introduction.