Adventures by Morse was a 52-episode syndicated adventure series produced, written and directed by Carlton E. Morse shortly after NBC canceled his I Love a Mystery series.
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Captain Bart Friday was a globe-trotting San Francisco-based private investigator, portrayed during the series by Elliott Lewis, David Ellis and Russell Thorson. Friday's sidekick from Texas, Skip Turner, was played mostly by Jack Edwards and occasionally by Barton Yarborough. The tales covered such areas as espionage, kidnapping and murder, along with secret Nazi bases, snake worshipers and voodoo.
The 52 30-minute episodes (and two sales pitches) were produced in the mid-1940s. Dates of production and the earliest broadcasts are uncertain: several Internet sites mention that the entire series was broadcast in 1944, but in the final two chapters of It's Dismal to Die, it is clearly stated that the Second World War has ended. Advertisements have been found for broadcasts in 1946 and 1949.
The series was presented in 13-episode blocks (each containing two stories), with each ten-chapter story ending with a teaser for the following three-chapter story. The City of the Dead and A Coffin for the Lady are mentioned in the promotional recordings as the first and second story respectively. The order used below is the one found most often on the Internet.
Adventures in a cemetery
An Army Intelligence officer contacts Captain Friday's San Francisco office, looking to hire a pair of operatives for a mysterious mission. Transported to a small, isolated cove off the coast of Canada, Friday, Turner, and a Major Lawrence find a speedboat waiting for them, which they use to get to Marmaduke Island. Warned by Lawrence that the duo will need to be "ready for action" at any given moment, three hours pass, then, suddenly, an Army GI appears out of the underbrush carrying a heavily bound and gagged woman in his arms. Friday and Turner quickly observe that the man has been mortally wounded - a knife is sticking out of his back - and his last words before dying are to instruct the men to get the woman to shore immediately.
Adventures in Cambodia
While traveling from French Indo-China to Australia, the engine on Bart and Skip's plane conks out, forcing them to land on a small island in the South China Sea. Initially, they believe themselves to be alone, but it isn't long before they witness the murder of a British sailor, one of a small number of castaways who recently survived a deadly hurricane at sea. The murder has been committed by a Spanish pirate, complete with bandana, who seems mighty proud of his skill with a gun. In addition to the mayhem on this supposedly deserted island they experience the strange allure of a cockney serving girl named Gracie, who seems to be the object of much jealousy and intrigue.
Adventures on a small island near San Francisco
Skip and Captain Friday are called to Hollywood to meet with a woman named Eve Carson who, with her brother Wesley, inherited over a million dollars from her late father. Shortly after the death of their last living relative, Eve and Wesley moved to California where they lived happily for a time. Then, one morning, Wes loses consciousness and, after consultations with many doctors and specialists, is told that he has but one week left to live. Rather than be depressed at the news, Wesley chooses instead to live it up for the time he has left, but "living it up" has come to mean an association with gangster Blackie North and his gang of thugs. Eve begs Skip and Captain Friday to watch over her brother to see that he comes to no harm...but soon after, they find themselves engaged in a vicious barroom free-for-all with North and his henchmen.
Adventures in the Chilian jungle
Skip Turner (Jack Edwards) has always been a sucker for a beautiful woman in distress, and no woman is more beautiful or more in distress than Julie Lane, a black-haired, blue-eyed beauty who calls for help from Turner and Captain Bart Friday (Russell Thorson) when her young husband is lost in Dismal Swamp near Lake Drummond, South Carolina. Finding themselves piloting a flat-bottomed boat through dark, dank, weed-infested waters, the trio searches for the missing husband and quickly discovers that he isn't dead but instead has been kidnapped.