Episode 639 - Maltese Falconers (Suspense, Inner Sanctum, Nero Wolfe, Bold Venture, & Screen Guild Theatre)

Down These Mean Streets (Old Time Radio Detectives)

Jack Mooney

Arts, Performing Arts, Mystery, Detectives, Old, Radio, Time, Tv & Film, Oldtimeradio

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2025

⏱️ 152 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Maltese Falcon premiered in movie theaters eight eighty-four years ago this month, and we're celebrating the anniversary of one of Hollywood's best mystery pictures with a showcase for its stars - Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet. We'll hear each of them headline a radio mystery, and all four of them together as they recreate their roles in a radio adaptation of the film. Lorre stars in a locked room mystery from the pen of John Dickson Carr - "The Moment of Darkness" from Suspense (originally aired on CBS on April 20, 1943). Ms. Astor may be a murderess in "The Silent Hands" from Inner Sanctum Mysteries (originally aired on CBS on May 13, 1944). Greenstreet is Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe in "The Case of the Impolite Corpse" (originally aired on NBC on December 8, 1950). And Bogart co-stars with Lauren Bacall in an episode of their syndicated mystery drama Bold Venture (known as "Forged American Pasports"). Finally, all four stars reunite to present The Maltese Falcon on The Lady Esther Screen Guild Theatre (originally aired on CBS on September 20, 1943).

Transcript

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0:00.0	Get this and get it straight.
0:02.1	Crime is a sucker's road.
0:03.9	And those who travel
0:04.6	it wind up in the gut of the prison of the grave.
0:12.3	The story you were about to hear is true.
0:15.2	Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
0:18.6	The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective.
0:21.7	The Adventures of the Saints,
0:23.5	starring Vincent Price.
0:25.5	Bob Bailey, in the exciting adventures
0:27.7	of the man with the action-packed expense account.
0:30.6	America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator...
0:33.4	Yours truly, Johnny Dollar.
1:02.2	... Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. Hello and welcome to Down These Mean Streets and more old-time radio detectives and crime solvers.
1:09.9	This month marks the 84th anniversary of the release of one of the best detective films ever made.
1:13.7	John Houston's adaptation of Dashachal Hammett's novel,
1:19.5	The Maltese Vulcan, and it featured one of the best casts in Hollywood history,
1:26.8	anchored by Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, Mary Aster as Bridget O'Shaughnessy, Peter Lorry as Joel Cairo, and Sidney Green Street as Casper Gutman.
1:30.3	Today, in celebration of that classic film and its cast, we'll hear each of those actors in an old-time radio mystery, and then we'll hear all four of them together in a radio version of the movie. First up is Peter Lorry, who played the
1:47.0	sniveling but sinister Joel Cairo. He stars in the moment of darkness, a mystery written by
1:54.2	John Dixon Carr presented on suspense on April 20, 1943. A man is murdered in the middle of a seance, but at the moment of the
2:05.0	crime, everyone in the room was holding hands, so who done it? Laurie co-stars with Wendy
	...

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