Lum and Abner Abroad

The boys from Pine Ridge win a trip to Europe. There, they help a Yugoslavian dancer reunite with her boyfriend, get unwittingly involved with a smuggling ring, and finally have a broke duchess try to ruin them at the roulette table.

If that sounds episodic, it's because it's three pilots shot for the boys to move from radio to television. It didn't happen, even though it's well executed, with scenes shot in Europe, and some nice camerawork in each episode to open it up. Chester Lauck and Norris Goff play their roles with the easy, bickering camaraderie of two friends who have known each other since they were boys together, based on the people they grew up with. Perhaps it was the ill health Goff suffered from a couple of years earlier, leading to their ending the radio show after a third of a century that stopped the transition. In any case, it's a pleasant presentation, even if the stories are hackneyed.... which is a good description of the radio show.