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BOLD VENTURE

Adventure

Broadcast History:

• 1951-52, transcribed syndication by Frederic W. Ziv Company; 78 30m episodes produced with a release date March 26, 1951.

Cast:  Humphrey Bogart as Slate Shannon, owner of a small "quasi-respectable" Cuban hotel "tenanted by a motley, shifting cast of characters" (Newsweek). Lauren Bacall as his sidekick and "ward" Sailor Duval, "a smart-talking, tender­hearted" young woman played by Bacall "with sultry, sexy monotones."  Jester Hairston as King Moses, the calypso singer.
Music:  David Rose.
Producer:  Bogart's Santana Productions.
Director:  Henry Hayward (or Haywood).
Writers:  Morton Fine and David Friedkin.

Humphrey Bogart was finally lured to series radio by the new wonder, tape recording.  He had always been firm in his refusal to commit him­self to a live microphone every week, but he was interested when writers Morton Fine and David Friedkin approached him with a syndication proposition.   He could do the show in takes and have music and sound effects added later.    Three or four shows a week could be done, a whole season produced in a short time, leaving the Bogarts free for the rest of the year.

Bold Venture was designed to fit the stars' screen images.  It was set in Havana, although, as Newsweek noted, it "could as easily be Casablanca."  It was "a pure Bogie-and-Baby script."  In addition to owning the hotel, Slate Shannon also owned a boat, the Bold Venture, "ever ready to roar to the rescue of a friend or the search of an enemy."  The hotel was a perfect setting for all kinds of Caribbean adventures: a crossroads for modem pirates, treasure hunters and revolutionaries.  A calypso singer named King Moses provided the musical bridges, in­corporating storylines into his songs.  It was never adequately explained why Sailor Duval was Shannon's ward:   she sounded quite able to take care of herself and spent the series trying to breach that patented Bogart brush-off when she wanted to get romantic.