I've listened to more CBS Radio Mystery Theater episodes. (The Sherlock Holmes episodes most often star Kevin McCarthy and Court Benson, but according to Russell's comment here they use different actors in some episodes. These adaptations are written by Murray Burnett (I think the same guy who co-wrote the play that was the basis for the movie Casablanca). Burnett makes some minor changes in each story, like changing Mrs. Barrymore to Mrs. Harrison, and cutting some other characters from Hound of the Baskervilles. That seems somewhat logical, to cut a novel-length story down, but other changes are weird, and the comments by the host E. G. Marshall are sometimes eccentric and wrong. For example, at the end of Sign of Four, Marshall claims that Doyle never killed off Watson's wife Mary. Technically he may be right that Watson never makes clear what his "bereavement" was in "Empty House", but Watson then moves back into Baker Street by the next story, so something tragic must have happened.
There are some good edits, like dropping the Mormon plot from A Study in Scarlet, changing Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson to members of a gambling club. Burnett also cuts out mentions of the Baker Street Irregulars from both STUD and SIGN, and he cuts Jonathan Small's confession from SIGN. The description of Tonga is made to be a little less racist, though he's still called a savage. At the end, Holmes even comes to tell Watson that Small dumped the treasure, and he actively encourages Watson to propose to Mary Morstan. But in the "Red-Headed League," there's a strange subplot added about Jabez Wilson falling in love with a woman, and also being told by letter that he must go to Surrey for the League to debate whether to ban him because he's not married. These might be interesting, but the story ends abruptly with no resolution to whether the woman was in on John Clay's plot.
These are overall very quirky adaptations, just like the "Speckled Band" one I listened to before.
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