Billboard Vs Jimbo: Big Town

Billboard has it right. This review from 1943 is a year too late for the series of the the same name that included Edward G. Robinson and Claire Trevor.

"Wallop-packers"

That series named Big Town (1938-1942) has very few surviving entries but they are wallop-packers and they pretty much go to the head of the class (or close to it.)

I'm not sure how many Warner Brothers' films you have seen in the late 1930's but there is an air to them that defies explanation; they are fast, short, powerful films usually about a hoodlum or a newspaper.

Big Town prior to 1943 is about a newspaper with Robinson the cigar-sucking editor and Trevor the Lois Lane-type. The stories are hard-hitting, realistic and fast as lightning.

Adding to the realism is that many of the surviving Big Town episodes (again don't be suckered in by the 1943+ version) are only avilable because the rehearsal exists - and this is what we hear. Man, that's some really, really good radio.

The other series with the same name has very little in common and (while they may not actually be two different shows) are two different shows, entirely.