Dick Tracy In B-Flat

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Label: Curtain Calls

One memorable program of Command Performance, No. 162, a 55-minute musical adaptation of Dick Tracy, was broadcast on February 15, 1945. Bing Crosby had the title role in Dick Tracy in B Flat with Dinah Shore as Tess Truheart and Jimmy Durante as The Mole. The supporting cast included Judy Garland, Cass Daley, Frank Sinatra, Frank Morgan, Bob Hope, Harry von Zell, Jerry Colonna, Lou Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, the Joe Lilley Chorus, and Harry Von Zell (narrator). The show managed to do what Tracy’s creator, cartoonist Chester Gould, had never done - marry Tracy to Tess. The act opened with a Tracy - Tess wedding scene and song - “Oh Happy, Happy, Happy Wedding Day” which faded into the sound of an auto, the squeal of tyres, a machine gun burst and three pistol shots. Subsequent wedding scenes were interrupted by a bank robbery, a kidnapping and a hold-up with 13 people killed. "Most of the songs were clever parodies and the entire show was one big laugh from beginning to end."

Command Performance was a radio program which originally aired between 1942 and 1949. The program was broadcast on the Armed Forces Radio Network (AFRS) with a direct shortwave transmission to the troops overseas. It was not broadcast over domestic U.S. radio stations.

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