A continued look at our twisted six degrees of separation as I look at radio detectives connected to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade. This week a look at Hammett’s own short story adapted for radio on Suspense. Stuart Erwin (right) plays a police lieutenant who like Hammett’s Continental Op rises above the corruption of police authority to solve the crime. A well written play by the great mystery writer, John Dickson Carr.
Music under is “Grover’s Tune” by Excellent Adventure from the Podshow Music Network.
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I return from my recent hiatus with a look over the next few weeks at radio detectives that have some connection to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade. This podcast begins with a look at a story from writer and scripter Jo Eisinger, whose book The Walls Came Tumbling Down was adapted into a radio play for the radio series Suspense. Listen to the podcast to find out what the connection is to Sam Spade! This episode starred a young and upcoming Keenan Wynn (right).
100th podcast of this series! This week I want to return to two series with detective elements as well as what I call radio noir aspects in their productions. A special double-header focusing on the writing, the darkness and the pulse of two of the better radio series with crime detection themes. Night Beat with its gravel-voiced character played by Frank Lovejoy (right) and its use of darkness through the writing and images and Broadway Is My Beat with its haiku-style narration, dark jazzy undertones and layered sound effects both combine to create a sizzingly summertime and dark feel to the big city “beat.” Both of these series were excellent examples of evoking the dark side of city life.
The reporter as investigator! This series was based upon real-life incidents in which a newspaper reporter played an important part in solving a crime. The reporter was presented with the Pall Mall Award at the end of the show. These reporters showed the best side of their investigative skills – something shared by the radio detectives featured in this podcast series. The series began in April 1947 sponsored by the American Tobacco Company, which made Lucky Strike and Pall Mall Cigarettes. While the series was anthologized with no single starring actor, it did feature a regular announcer – Ernest Chappell (right) who would later be heard on the Wyllis Cooper series, Quiet, Please.
A detective serial of the modern southwest. What Dragnet was to Los Angeles, this serial is to Texas. Starring Joel McCrea as Ranger Pearson, the series takes place in the thirties and focuses on the CSI style investigations of crimes as Pearson guides his men and himself through the maze of investigation of crime. When I first heard of the radio series Tales of the Texas Rangers years ago, I thought it was a western series based in the historic old west. Obviously, never having heard it, I soon discovered it was in fact a modern detective series that mostly took its queue from Jack Webb’s Dragnet series.
This week a detective story that comes from within the genre of science fiction! Based upon a story by science fiction author Frank M. Robinson, this radio version from Dimension X is very much a hardboiled detective story, but with science-based concepts. Starring George Petrie (right) who could have played a very good Johnny Dollar. A hardboiled detective story but with time travel implications!
Something a bit different in radio detectives. 
This week parts 2 & 3 of our look at a somewhat different group of detectives. Adventures by Morse is about Captain Bart Friday and Skip Turner, two detectives who are born more out of the pulp traditions than the hardboiled school. Carlton E. Morse (right) created these series of adventure-mysteries. You’ll hear part two & three of three this week.
A revisit to the hardboiled world of Dashiell Hammett (right) with a special broadcast of the 