Episode 438 – Here's to Hammett (Sam Spade & Suspense)
Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)
Jack Mooney
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 May 2021
⏱️ 93 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Dashiell Hammett put pen to paper, he forever changed the genre of detective fiction. He created characters and stories that popularized the hard-boiled school, and those tales still entertain readers today. Hammett's works were adapted for successful films, television shows, and radio dramas. In this birthday salute to the author, we'll hear a pair of radio mysteries starring his master private detective Sam Spade: "The Quarter-Eagle Caper" starring Howard Duff (AFRS rebroadcast from November 28, 1948) and "The Shot in the Dark Caper" with Steve Dunne (originally aired on NBC on February 23, 1951). Plus, we'll hear a Suspense adaptation of Hammett's short story "Two Sharp Knives" (originally aired on CBS on December 22, 1942).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Get this and get it straight. Crime is a suckers road and those who travel it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave. |
| 0:07.0 | The story you are about to hear is true, only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. |
| 0:18.0 | The Adventures of Sam Spade Detective. |
| 0:22.0 | The Adventures of the Saints starring Vincent Prize |
| 0:25.4 | Bob Bailey in the exciting adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account |
| 0:30.6 | America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator. |
| 0:33.0 | Yours truly, Johnny Deller. And the Hello and welcome to down these mean streets with more old-time radio crimes and |
| 1:02.0 | crime fighters. Today we're saluting the creator of some of the |
| 1:07.0 | best detectives of the radio era, some of the best detectives of all time. |
| 1:13.0 | They sprang from the mind of writer Daschle Hammett. |
| 1:17.0 | Born May 27, 1894, |
| 1:20.0 | Hammett drew on his experiences as an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency when he wrote his novels and short stories. |
| 1:28.0 | Those tales of tough men and treacherous women helped to popularize the hard-boiled school of detective fiction. |
| 1:36.0 | Hammit's writing influenced contemporaries like Raymond Chandler and James M. Kane, |
| 1:42.0 | and it continues to influence writers today. |
| 1:45.0 | Among his classic works are the Maltese Falcon |
| 1:49.0 | and Withid the character of Sam Spade, |
| 1:52.0 | Red Harvest, the Glass Key, and the Thin Man, which introduced |
| 1:57.3 | married Detective Duo Nick and Nora Charles. |
| 2:01.8 | Hammett's stories and characters were adapted for the big screen in hit films and on the air in |
| 2:08.4 | immensely popular radio shows. Nick and Nora enjoyed a long radio run on the Adventures of the Thin Man and |
| 2:17.8 | Hammett created the character of Brad Runyon, aka the Fat Man. And of course, Sam Spade was the star of one of the best |
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