Night Beat - May 18, 1951

Did you know that, at one time, bars and other locations had a "jukebox" that contained no records?  You might have never heard of it, but these jukeboxes were connected by wire to a central location where an operator would pull records you requested.  You could talk to the operator through the jukebox.  This type of music device is at the center of this blog post, "Juke Box Romance", an episode of "Night Beat" from May 18, 1951. Reporter Randy Stone, in this noir look at a big city paper, investigates a store robbery that takes several plot turns.  I won't give any of it away, but it does involve a self-inflated actor played by the hardest working man in old time radio, William Conrad. The show was transferred from an original lacquer line check from an unknown local NBC station.  The show includes the NBC chimes and catchy singing promotional announcements for the network.