Episode 470 - If You Want It Dunne Right (Sam Spade & Deadline Mystery)
Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)
Jack Mooney
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2022
⏱️ 101 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Steve Dunne had big shoes to fill when he was cast as Sam Spade. Dashiell Hammett's private eye had been thrilling listeners since 1946 in weekly adventures starring Howard Duff, but accusations of Communist sympathies cost Duff the gig. Dunne played a younger-sounding, less serious Sam for the final run of episodes. We'll hear two of them - "The Soap Opera Caper" (originally aired on NBC on February 16, 1951) and "The Sinister Siren Caper" (originally aired on NBC on March 16, 1951). Plus, we'll hear him as crime-solving reporter Lucky Larson in Deadline Mystery (originally aired on ABC on August 10, 1947).
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 |
| 0:30.4 | America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator. |
| 0:33.0 | Yours truly, Johnny Deller. And the Hello and welcome to Down These Mean Streets and more crime solvers from the golden age of radio. |
| 1:05.2 | This week will hear actor Steve Dunn in a pair of adventures of Sam Spade. |
| 1:11.8 | Dunn took over the role of Dashall Hammett's private eye on radio after |
| 1:16.5 | actor Howard Duff was fired from the program. Duff, along with Hammond himself, took hits to his career after he was branded a communist |
| 1:26.6 | sympathizer at the height of the red scare, and the scandal was enough to temporarily cancel the adventures of Sam Spade. |
| 1:36.3 | The show was one of radio's most popular detective programs, and a deluge of letters from Sam's devoted fans persuaded NBC to bring the gumshoe back to the airwaves. |
| 1:49.0 | But when Sam returned in November of 1950, Howard Duff was gone and there was no mention of |
| 1:56.9 | Hammit as Spades creator. Steve Dunn joined Lorraine Tuttle who stayed on as Sam Secretary Effie Perine and |
| 2:05.9 | starred as Spade for 24 episodes. |
| 2:10.3 | Steve Dunn, born January 13th, 1918, had previously been heard as a crime-solving reporter in the ABC series Dead Line Mystery. |
| 2:20.0 | He also started as a criminologist and amateur sleuth in the syndicated detective show Danger Dr. Danfield. |
| 2:28.0 | He made appearances on Family Theater, Richard Diamond, and The Lux Radio Theater while appearing in supporting roles in movies throughout the 40s. In fact, it was his performance in a 1946 B movie called Shock Shock a film co-starring Lynn Berry and Vincent Price |
| 2:47.0 | that caught the attention of Sam Spade producer and director William Spear |
| 2:52.0 | and it led Spear to Tapp Dunn to replace Howard Duff as |
| 2:56.3 | Spade. Unfortunately, the consensus among radio historians is that Steve Dunn couldn't fill Howard Duff's shoes. |
| 3:06.0 | Duff, who started playing spade in 1946 was a master at tongue-in-cheek comedy |
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