The Adventures of Sam Spade

You guys are on a roll with requests this past couple of weeks, and here's another we're happy to update!

The Adventures of Sam Spade was heard for the first time on ABC Radio on 12th July 1946. Based on the character created by Dashiell Hammett in The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade was a tough private investigator.

The new genre of hard boiled detective was growing in popularity, and after the success of the 1941 Warner Bros film with Humphrey Bogart playing a tough guy character - Sam Spade started showing up all over.

Then the master of the already popular mystery radio show, Suspense, got involved... 

William Speir created a special one hour Sam Spade episode called The Khandi Tooth Caper on Suspense, to try and encourage fans to listen to the new radio series he had created, called The Adventures of Sam Spade.

Howard Duff played the lead character, and each case was unfolded as a report dictated to his secretary, Effie, played by Lurene Tuttle, who was always flustered and secretly in love with him. 

In each 'caper', the investigation began with Sam quoting his license number, and the report being dated with the actual broadcast date, and what followed included murder, mayhem, kidnap, and lots of pretty obscure storylines - but it was a hit! 

The show ran for 13 episodes on ABC in 1946, before switching to CBS between 1946 and 1949, and finally on NBC between 1949 and 1951, and won an award for Best Radio Drama in 1947. Of all the episodes broadcast, we have 67 on RUSC available to listen right now, and I'm adding lots more right now for you!

If you love listening to hard boiled detective stories, you might also want to check out, in addition to Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe, Richard Diamond, Johnny Dollar, The Fat Man, The Falcon, and Michael Shayne to name a few.

Happy listening my friends,