A female lead detective and her gay best friend circa 1949
As someone who has been listening to Old Time Radio noir detectives for over 20 years, I will have to admit, I had never heard of Miss Candy Matson. The only female detectives I knew of were always part of a crime fighting couple like in our episode of The Adventures of the Thin Man or a similar set up, Mr. and Mrs. North. Certainly during the time of the great radio detectives, it was heavily populated by men. But I can’t fault sexism for Candy’s lack of representation. The plain fact-of-the-matter is, only fourteen of the 92 episodes originally produced have survived. That is a sad tale of many of the radio dramas of the 30s-50s. All shows were performed live until the 1950s upon the invention of reel-to-reel magnetic tape. Before then, shows could only be recorded onto actual records. The quality of the record-recordings was deemed too poor to allow the shows to pre-record their material, forcing actors to perform their entire show twice each time (once for the East Coast, once for the West Coast). The records were made for preservation, but many of those recordings do not survive to this day, or they weren’t made at all. Candy Matson YUkon 2-8209 is an example of that.
It has been misunderstood by many OTR fans that Candy Matson only had a fourteen episode run and, as a female detective, not popular enough to garner the audience of her male counterparts. But 92 episodes in 3 years actually is more episodes than many of the men. Most recurring female characters in noir fall into the dumb, bumbling personal assistant who the detective tolerates, or the sexy-voiced girlfriend who always has to be rescued and tries to pressure him into marriage (which he skillfully rebuffs while still keeping her hanging around). Then add in the femme fatales and the innocent young helpless girls and it really gives you a window into men’s attitudes towards women in this era. So Candy is definitely a unique entity from that time. Was she flawless? Oh, no. She was still written by a man. She’s a former model (has to be gorgeous, right?) and is only doing the job to support her shopping habits. And, while it’s nice to have her match wits with Inspector Ray Mallard, and outsmart the many male criminals, ultimately the male writer failed his female audience by ending the series with Candy finally roping Mallard into marriage and happily, willingly, throwing away her P.I. status for that of a “loving wife.” But, hey, for the time, it’s more than most shows offered their female audiences.
Now what about Rembrandt? Mr. Rembrandt Watson is considered by radio historians to be the first recurring gay character. Limited by sensors and public perception, Rembrandt had a sort of “Liberace” existence. As long as no one says it, we can leave that up to everyone’s imaginations. And imaginations being what they were at the time, only audiences already in the know… knew. Rembrandt was mostly Candy’s comic relief. He was useless in a fight, but quick with the necessary opera tickets and knowledge about the most esoteric of subjects. A working photographer with tastes often exceeding his pocketbook, having Candy pay his way was a good trade for his loyal assistance. The show was set in San Francisco, so it is believed Rembrandt was intentionally written as a nod to the gay community there who supported the show.
Overall, Candy was a major step for mid-Century women. With so many women stepping out of traditional roles during World War II, it was inspiring to showcase a smart go-getter career woman who could go toe-to-toe with any male detective of the era, and was never shaken by the most hardened of male criminals. You can stream the fourteen surviving episodes on Archive.org
A big thank you to Jim Goodluck over at Forgotten News Podcast for sharing Candy Matson with me! Do you have a favorite OTR show you’d like Madison to visit? I absolutely take suggestions from listeners! Drop your fave show(s) in the comments below!
