That part of what makes the radio series The Adventures of Sam Spade so fascinating; this wasn't a Sam Spade imitator, this was the officially-licensed continuation of the character's adventures (with Dashiell Hammett's name proudly introduced at the top of the program). And yet, The Adventures of Sam Spade didn't take itself too seriously; to be sure, Sam was a bit of a wiseguy in Hammett's novel, but the radio series only occasionally played out as a straight radio detective drama; most of the time, it was a tongue-in-cheek send-up of the entire genre!
The series ran from July 1946-April 1951. It started as an ABC summer series replacing the Woody Herman Show, then moved to CBS (1946-1949) and finally NBC (1949-1951). It was produced by William Spier of Suspense, who had featured a few hardboiled stories by Hammett and the likes of Cornell Woolrich on that series but evidently wanted this show to be a change of pace. Bob Tallman and Gil Doud (both veterans of Suspense) were the chief writers of the program, although John Michael Hayes, E. Jack Neuman, Elliot Lewis were other noted contributors.
Starring as Sam Spade was Howard Duff. I wonder sometimes how much of the show's sardonic humour came from the writers themselves and how much was the writers playing to what Duff wanted to portray. Duff is best remembered as a dramatic actor but he was pretty funny as Sam Spade. Each episode featured Spade narrating his most recent adventure to secretary Effie Perine, along the way dropping all sorts of jokes, asides and sardonic observations.
Effie Perine came from Hammett's Maltese Falcon but there she was a pretty tough and reliable secretary. On The Adventures of Sam Spade, Lurene Tuttle portrayed her as a ditz, an air-head who was captivated by Sam, hung on his every word and reacted literally to his unusual turns of phrase. Tuttle was also heard in virtually every episode as at least one of the characters Spade encountered in the show, usually as a gruff-voiced landlady who sounded nothing like Effie (in one episode she was a witch!). I think I've heard her playing three different roles in a single episode!
There was something about that Duff-Tuttle pairing; for some reason, Duff loved to break character and try to crack up Tuttle at the microphone. In virtually every episode, you can hear him ad-lib (the ad-libs are usually spoken very quickly in-between scripted dialogue, often in a lower register) and Tuttle does her best to keep up with him without breaking character. It adds to the sense that The Adventures of Sam Spade is not a show you need to take too seriously; the actors are having a good time and they want you to settle back and do likewise. Not only would Sam call out characters in his adventures for being "Peter Lorre types" or "Sydney Greenstreet types" (two direct references to the Maltese Falcon) he would also lean on the fourth wall, as at the climax of "The Prodigal Daughter Caper" where Sam and Effie examined their radio counterparts (Duff and Tuttle) in Look magazine.
Apparently the now-lost pilot for the series was called "the Walls of Jericho Caper." It was an adaptation of Jo Eisinger's novel "The Walls Came Tumbling Down," which had also been adapted to Suspense. Eisinger also wrote a two-part story called "the Kandi Tooth Caper" (November 24 and December 1, 1946) which is now lost but was recreated as a one-hour episode of Suspense on January 10, 1948. It featured Sam going up against Joel Cairo and Casper Gutman of the Maltese Falcon but while that should be a big deal it's really just a retread of the Maltese Falcon. Jo Eisinger seemed really hung up on that novel and homaged it again and again throughout his work; I wrote about the Walls Came Tumbling Down on my blog and I also noted in my radio recap for the Cases of Mr. Ace how Eisinger revisited the plot a few times.
My favourite episode of the series is "The Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail Caper" (December 4, 1949). The episode features a dynamic new character, Fritz Crockett, who introduces himself as Sam's new partner (and Effie plays along, much to Sam's chagrin). Crockett likes to go on and on about what abilities are needed to succeed as a private detective and primarily, it seems, he thinks a great private detective is talented at creating different voices and performing impressions. In other words, Crockett thinks private detectives should all be radio actors!
Way at the other end is the episode "the Dick Foley Caper" (September 26, 1948) with Frank Lovejoy as a private detective friend of Sam's who also lost a partner. This episode is much more hardboiled than usual and in some ways is a deconstruction of Sam, because his friend turns out to have faced the same moral test Sam did in the Maltese Falcon, but he failed it.
I also need to make mention of Howard Duff's cameo appearance as Sam in one of the greatest episodes of Suspense, "the House in Cypress Canyon" (December 5, 1946), yet another link to that William Spier production.
The series had a spectacular fall from grace, all originating when Duff made a brief joke about politician J. Parnell Thomas of the House of Un-American Activities Commission. Thomas, being a man of no grace, placed the staff of the Adventures of Sam Spade under government investigation, just like the Founding Fathers intended! It definitely didn't help that Dashiell Hammett and Howard Duff's names appeared in the notorious 1950s publication Red Channels. What was Duff's offense? According to Red Channels he'd publicly supported the so-called "Hollywood Ten" (the 10 Hollywood screenwriters who refused to answer questions for HUAC). Free spech was a bit of a nebulous concept at the time.
Hammett and Duff were put on the blacklist and Hammett suffered the indignity of serving a contempt of court sentence after paying bail for leaders of the Communist Party. All of this was enough to make Wildroot Cream Oil skittish; they cancelled their sponsorship in the fall of 1950. Wildroot decided they could make their own successful detective series and put their money on Charlie Wild, Private Detective; that series became infamous as one of the worst-reviewed detective shows in all of OTR (probably because everyone who loved the Adventures of Sam Spade resented it).
NBC ultimately bowed to public pressure and brought the series back - "the New Adventures of Sam Spade" - just two months after Wildroot pulled out. However, Howard Duff had been blacklisted and was replaced with Steve Dunne, who carried on for the remainder of the show's final season. Also missing was Dashiell Hammett's name, which had gone from a feature to a liability; from them on the series boasted William Spier's name in the intro but omitted Hammett's. Bob Tallman and Gil Doud were also gone and most of the writing duties fell to E. Jack Neuman, Harold Swanton and John Michael Hayes. The only good news about all these changes is that Lurene Tuttle continued playing Effie (and various gruff-voiced women).
Dunne was acceptable and the writing tried to keep to the same standard but Duff really did carry the series. Although the show remained popular, it failed to regain a sponsor due to the controversy. NBC, not being charitable with unsponsored programs, let the show die, despite Radio-Television Mirror magazine calling Steve Dunne their favourite detective. The series ended with "the Hall and Farewell Caper" (April 27, 1951) with Effie tearfully saying goodbye. "Goodnight, sweetheart," Sam stated one final time.
Dunne's best episode from where I sit was "the Soap Opera Caper" (February 16, 1951) in which Sam encountered a soap opera star; the script contains many references to popular soap operas of the days, deliberately melodramatic dialogue and music from an organ punctuating every other line.
The Old Time Radio Researchers have a YouTube playlist of 53 Adventures of Sam Spade episodes (they haven't finished adding all of the Steve Dunne episodes as of this time):
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