Welcome to Down These Mean Streets, bringing you the best of detectives from the Golden Age of radio. Welcome back to down these mean streets and another one of old Time Radio's greatest detectives. Today we'll hear again

from Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlow. A few months ago we listened to Gerald Moore

as Marlow, but today we'll hear from the first actor to play him in a weekly radio series, Academy Award winner Van Heflin.

Heflin was tapped to play Marlow in an NBC 1947 summer series sponsored by Pepsident as a replacement for Bob Hope.

It was a prestige production with a strong supporting cast assembled from the best West Coast talent and some of Raymond Chandler's own stories adapted for scripts.

And the show had a great star in Hefflin. He'd won an Oscar as best supporting actor in Johnny Eager in 1942 and he brought a commitment

and enthusiasm to the role.

To prepare, Heflin went on ride-alongs with the Los Angeles Police Department, familiarizing himself with their procedures, call signs, and routines.

By all accounts, Heflin was very invested in the role, and his efforts to absorb and understand the darker side of Los Angeles

must have put him in the right frame of mind to play Philip Marlow.

Heflin starred as Marlow in 13 episodes during the summer of 1947. Although the series was well received,

future installments were derailed by Heflin's film career,

as MGM had bigger plans for him than starring in a weekly radio series.

Philip Marlow would be off the air for almost a year before CBS revamped the character

in a new series starring Gerald Moore.

Raymond Chandler, who by all accounts was a big fan of Gerald Moore's portrayal,

found Heflin's Marlow to be thoroughly flat.

Now personally, I think Chandler was a little harsh.

It's true that Heflin and Moore have very different styles but then so did Dick

Powell and Humphrey Bogart.

Both managed to do the character of Philip Marlow Justice when they played him on screen.

There are many more Gerald Moore episodes in circulation.

...