Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher (1943)

An amateur detective and a janitor try to find a kidnapped heiress.

Director:

James Tinling

Writers:

Walter Gering (original story and screenplay), Michael L. Simmons (screenplay),

Stars:

Edgar Kennedy, Richard Cromwell, Gale Storm

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Edgar Kennedy	...	Police Chief Murphy
Richard Cromwell	...	Sgt. Pat Flanagan
Gale Storm	...	Susan Fleming
Mantan Moreland	...	Eustace Smith
Frank Graham	...	Professor Cosmo Jones
Gwen Kenyon	...	Phyllis Blake
Herbert Rawlinson	...	Mr. James J. Blake
Tristram Coffin	...	Jake Pelotti
Charles Jordan	...	Biff Garr
Vince Barnett	...	Henchman 'Gimp'
Emmett Vogan	...	Police Commissioner Gould
Maxine Leslie	...	Mrs. Jake Pelotti
Mauritz Hugo	...	Tony Sandol - Gangster
Sam Bernard	...	Gangster

Storyline

Cosmo Jones, a correspondence-school detective from a small town, comes to the big city to offer his services to the police. He happens by where a gangster is killed by an opposing gang. Socialite Phyllis Blake is running around with gang member Tom and the opposing gang plan on kidnapping her. Cosmo is with Sergeant Flanagan when the attempt is made in front of a night club, where a bystander is seriously wounded in the gun-battle. Police Chief Murphy blames Flanagan for the shooting and demotes him. Cosmo, with the aid of a porter, Eustace and Flanagan's fiancée, Susan, tries to find the killer. Phyllis is finally kidnapped and Cosmo decides the act was committed by one of the two gangs. He has her father place an ad in the newspaper that contact has been made with the kidnappers. Each gang thinks the other is pulling a double cross, and one gang wipes out the other.

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Plot Keywords:

detective | police | kidnapping | gang member | double cross | 

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Taglines:

NEW! HILARIOUS! Radio's delightfully dippy detective is a riot in his first screen hit! (original poster)

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Romance

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 January 1943 (USA)

Also Known As:

Cosmo Jones

Company Credits

Production Co:

Monogram Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

62 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Frank Graham had previously played Cosmo Jones on a CBS radio show, which he also wrote.

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Connections

Referenced in American Masters: Sidney Poitier: One Bright Light (2000)

User Reviews

Cosmo didn't last all that long on radio, either.

"Cosmo Jones" was a country-bumpkin type radio character detective created by writer Walter Gereing in 1941, that featured long-time CBS radio announcer Frank Graham in the title role. The character was originally introduced on a CBS series called "Nightcap Yarns", except in the eastern states of the U.S. where it was known as "Armchair Adventures."

CBS broadcast it as a network show in eleven western states, but not in the rest of the country. There, it was a 15-minute transcription show offered to radio stations on a sustaining basis for only the cost of the transcription records...until it could be sold to local sponsors. One of the reasons it may not have lasted very long was because some of the local stations may not have bothered to tell the producers of the program when they picked up a sponsor. It was offered as either a twice-weekly or three times weekly program, which meant some stations ran through the series 33% faster than others.

Frank Graham was the announcer in 1943 on the CBS program "Tommy Riggs and Betty Lou", which featured in regular roles well-known radio (and film) names such as Ken Christy, Verna Felton, Mel Blanc, Elvia Allman and Bea Benaderet.

In 1949, when Jack Webb left the CBS radio program "Jeff Reagan, Investigator" to play "Sergeant Joe Friday" on a new program called "Dragnet", he was replaced in the title role by Frank Graham. Webb had a little more success with "Dragnet" than Graham did with "Jeff Reagan, Investigator."

It didn't matter what the character of "Cosmo Jones" looked like on radio---television without pictures---but in this movie he was costumed nearly exactly as Bob Burns was in Universal's "Alias the Deacon", and his character makeup had him looking a little like "Abner Peabody" on the "Lum and Abner" program.