Sam Spade: "The Death Bed Caper" 6/20/48
Before solving the case, Sam takes part in two real death bed statements and one fake death bed statement.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Showing posts with label Sam Spade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sam Spade. Show all posts
Friday, September 27, 2024
Friday, October 15, 2021
Friday's Favorite OTR
Sam Spade: "Sam and Psyche" 8/2/46
Sam's client is murdered. The key clue at first seems to involve when a certain character first enters stage in a production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream." But the real clue turns out to involve an aspect of Mosaic Law.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, March 20, 2020
Friday's Favorite OTR
Sam Spade: "The Prodigal Panda Caper" 12/29/50
The episodes with Steven Dunne always lack something, because the role of the radio version of Sam so thoroughly belonged to Howard Keel. But this episode is a lot of fun nonetheless, involving a rash of stolen stuffed panda bears.
Click HERE to listen or download.
The episodes with Steven Dunne always lack something, because the role of the radio version of Sam so thoroughly belonged to Howard Keel. But this episode is a lot of fun nonetheless, involving a rash of stolen stuffed panda bears.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, November 3, 2017
Friday's Favorite OTR
Sam Spade: "The Farmer's Daughter Caper" 9/3/50
Sam stops overnight in a small town while travelling home to San Francisco. But no famous detective ever spends a quiet, uneventful night anywhere & Sam is soon dealing with a dead body in a cave, while someone lurking in the dark repeatedly tries to kill him.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Sam stops overnight in a small town while travelling home to San Francisco. But no famous detective ever spends a quiet, uneventful night anywhere & Sam is soon dealing with a dead body in a cave, while someone lurking in the dark repeatedly tries to kill him.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, March 3, 2017
Friday's Favorite OTR
The Adventures of Sam Spade: “The Missing Newshawk Caper” 7/18/48
Sam’s hired by the publisher of a newspaper to find a missing reporter who’d been working on an expose of organized crime. Sam’s worried the reporter has been killed by the mobsters he was writing about, but it soon turns out the guy has his own reasons for not wanting to be found. Before long, a couple of people turn up dead. Spade’s missing person case quickly evolves (as his cases nearly always do) into a murder investigation.
As is typical of this top-notch show, the plot is a solid mystery in the hard-boiled tradition, while Howard Duff’s portrayal of Sam Spade perfectly treads the line between treating the story seriously while also parodying the genre. Duff spouts out rapid fire narration and truly funny one-liners without missing a beat.
Well, actually, he might have missed a beat, but I’m not sure. One of the many pleasures of the show is always Spade’s banter with his secretary Effie at the beginning and end of each episode. At the end of this one, Spade is explaining who had killed whom and why, but it having a hard time getting Effie to understand it all. Partway through this scene, he mispronounces the name of one of the people involved. I THINK Duff blew the line during the original live broadcast, but Lurene Tuttle (playing Effie) simply goes with it, tossing in remarks about the guy using an alias and allowing this to add to Effie’s confusion. Duff, in turn, plays along with this.
I suppose this might have been scripted, but if not, then it’s an example of just how skilled and professional Duff and Tuttle were, improvising their way past a mistake and staying in character the whole time. Whether they stayed on script or improvised, the two actors meshed perfectly together. The Adventures of Sam Spade was great radio for its writing, direction and production values as well, but none of it would have clicked as well as it did without Howard Duff and Lurene Tuttle to bring it all to life.
Click HERE to listen or download
As is typical of this top-notch show, the plot is a solid mystery in the hard-boiled tradition, while Howard Duff’s portrayal of Sam Spade perfectly treads the line between treating the story seriously while also parodying the genre. Duff spouts out rapid fire narration and truly funny one-liners without missing a beat.
Well, actually, he might have missed a beat, but I’m not sure. One of the many pleasures of the show is always Spade’s banter with his secretary Effie at the beginning and end of each episode. At the end of this one, Spade is explaining who had killed whom and why, but it having a hard time getting Effie to understand it all. Partway through this scene, he mispronounces the name of one of the people involved. I THINK Duff blew the line during the original live broadcast, but Lurene Tuttle (playing Effie) simply goes with it, tossing in remarks about the guy using an alias and allowing this to add to Effie’s confusion. Duff, in turn, plays along with this.
I suppose this might have been scripted, but if not, then it’s an example of just how skilled and professional Duff and Tuttle were, improvising their way past a mistake and staying in character the whole time. Whether they stayed on script or improvised, the two actors meshed perfectly together. The Adventures of Sam Spade was great radio for its writing, direction and production values as well, but none of it would have clicked as well as it did without Howard Duff and Lurene Tuttle to bring it all to life.
Click HERE to listen or download
Friday, December 30, 2016
Friday's Favorite OTR
Sam Spade: "Critical Author Caper" 8/15/48
A simple missing persons case becomes complicated when the girl Spade is hired to find both claims to be a potential murder victim AND has a tendency to slug Spade over the head when he's not looking.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, February 19, 2016
Friday's Favorite OTR
Sam Spade: "The Rushlight Diamond Caper" 7/4/48
Sam is hired to guard the wedding gifts at a swanky wedding. Considering how this sort of thing usually works out for him, it's really no surprise that someone is soon murdered.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Friday's Favorite OTR
Sam Spade: "The Lawless Caper" 8/29/48
Sam is a pretty good private detective, so losing the body of a recent murder victim is particularly embarrassing.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Sam is a pretty good private detective, so losing the body of a recent murder victim is particularly embarrassing.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Friday's Favorite OTR
Sam Spade: "The Champion Caper" 8/7/49
The Adventures of Sam Spade was a show that kept its tongue firmly in its cheek much of the time, but this superbly written and acted episode is an out-and-out tragedy that generates a lot of honest emotion. It is perhaps my favorite of the series.
Click HERE to listen or download.
The Adventures of Sam Spade was a show that kept its tongue firmly in its cheek much of the time, but this superbly written and acted episode is an out-and-out tragedy that generates a lot of honest emotion. It is perhaps my favorite of the series.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Friday's Favorite OTR
The Adventures of Sam Spade: “The Mad Scientist Caper” 7/25/48
Sam is hired by a scientist to investigate a patent infringement. Trouble comes in two ways. First, the scientist just might be nuts. Second, someone starts blowing up those involved in the case with time bombs. It’s all so nuts that even Sam briefly gets committed.
The sound on this one is a little whobbly in a few places, but it’s such a fun episode I’m posting it anyways.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Sam is hired by a scientist to investigate a patent infringement. Trouble comes in two ways. First, the scientist just might be nuts. Second, someone starts blowing up those involved in the case with time bombs. It’s all so nuts that even Sam briefly gets committed.
The sound on this one is a little whobbly in a few places, but it’s such a fun episode I’m posting it anyways.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Friday's Favorite OTR
Sam Spade: “The Fairley Bright Caper” 10/31/48
Sam is hired to do security at a swanky Halloween costume party in which twenty guests have been invited to come without costumes. Not surprisingly, someone gets murdered before the party is over.
The Adventures of Sam Spade was well-known for combining good storytelling with a tongue-in-cheek attitude and populating its episodes with quirky characters. This time around, I think writers Bob Tallman and Gil Doud really outdid themselves in quirkiness, making the episode pure fun from start to finish. Of course, Howard Duff’s rapid-fire characterization of Sam helps make it all fit together.
Click HERE to listen or download.
Sam is hired to do security at a swanky Halloween costume party in which twenty guests have been invited to come without costumes. Not surprisingly, someone gets murdered before the party is over.
The Adventures of Sam Spade was well-known for combining good storytelling with a tongue-in-cheek attitude and populating its episodes with quirky characters. This time around, I think writers Bob Tallman and Gil Doud really outdid themselves in quirkiness, making the episode pure fun from start to finish. Of course, Howard Duff’s rapid-fire characterization of Sam helps make it all fit together.
Click HERE to listen or download.
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