Episode 123 - Trouble is His Business (Adventures of Philip Marlowe)

Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

Jack Mooney

Arts, Performing Arts, Tv & Film

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2015

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Philip Marlowe made his way from the pen of Raymond Chandler to the big screen and then to radio in some of the best private eye crime drama of the era. In honor of Chandler's birthday, we'll hear his legendary shamus in two radio mysteries voiced by Gerald Mohr. First, Marlowe tackles the case of "The Eager Witness" (originally aired on CBS on August 27, 1949), and then "The Deep Shadow" (originally aired on CBS on March 21, 1950).

Transcript

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0:00.0	The When it comes to hard-boiled private eyes, Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlow stands at the top of the heap.
0:29.0	Tough, resourceful, and living by his own moral code, Marlow has been a nearly constant presence in books, films, and on television since his first appearance nearly 80 years ago.
0:42.0	Like many of his brother detectives, Marlow spent some time
0:45.6	cracking cases on the air in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Last week
0:51.2	marked the anniversary of Raymond Chandler's birth and to celebrate we'll hear today from Philip Marlow in two radio mysteries. Chandler introduced the character of Marlow in his 1939 novel The Big Sleep,
1:06.0	a book that was drawn from ideas and characters that had appeared in some of Chandler's earlier stories for Pulp magazines. That was Chandler's
1:14.4	his novels to cannibalize previously written stories. Chandler followed the
1:20.4	big sleep with several novels and short stories featuring Marlow, many of which are undisputed classics of the genre.
1:28.0	By the time Philip Marlow arrived on radio, his adventures had been adapted several times for the big screen.
1:35.6	In 1944, Dick Powell starred in Murder My Sweet, an adaptation of Chandler's Farewell My Lovely.
1:43.0	The acclaim he won for his performance helped Powell reinvent his career
1:48.0	and it paved the way for his run on radio as Richard Diamond, private detective.
1:54.0	In 1946, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall
1:58.0	headlined the film adaptation of the Big Sleep.
2:02.0	Bogart remains the only actor to have played both Sam
2:05.1	Spade and Philip Marlow on the screen.
2:08.7	1947 saw the release of two Marlow pictures. The first was Lady in the Lake, directed by and
2:16.1	starring Robert Montgomery. The film is remembered today for its experimental technique of showing
2:21.9	all of the action from Marlow's point of view.
2:25.6	A few months later, the Brasher-Dibloan, an adaptation of Chandler's The High Window, was released
2:31.8	in theaters, that starred George Montgomery, no relation to Robert, as Philip Marlow.
2:38.0	All of this meant that the timing for a Marlow radio series was perfect when it was launched on NBC in July of
	...

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