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Today’s Mystery:
Sam Spade (Edward G. Robinson) tries to solve the murder of his partner and gets drawn into the intrigue over a mysterious black-enameled bird.
Original Radio Broadcast Date: February 8, 1943
Originated in Hollywood.
Starred: Edward G. Robinson as Sam Spade, Gail Patrick as Bridget O’Shaughnessy, Laird Cregar as Casper Gutman, Charlie Lung as Joel Cairo, Bea Benderret as Effie, Eddie Mars as Wilmer, Fred MacKaye, Norman Field, Warren Ashe
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Join us again tomorrow for another detective drama from the Golden Age of Radio.
The 1943 radio version of “The Maltese Falcon”, as presented on “The Lux Radio Theater”, is excellent, the stars, being Hollywood veterans, thus able to do justice to the wonderful dialogue of Dashiell Hammett’s novel. Ironically enough, director John Huston so slavishly used this dialogue in his classic 1941 motion-picture version that it comes off as if the performers are quoting Holy Writ. This as opposed to the same dialogue in the 1931 version, which by being rendered naturally instead of heavy-handedly, is all the more believable. It won’t likely be generally accepted, but that earlier adaptation of the novel is actually truer to it than the two additional versions produced by Warner Bros. Author Hammett was reportedly disgruntled when receiving no compensation for the remakes, his contract not allowing for such! I enjoy all three movies, even the second — “Satan Met a Lady” (1936) — which was done more or less as a “screwball comedy”, these then being very popular. “The Maltese Falcon” 1930 novel is a genre masterpiece, worthy of the various cinema and radio adaptations; a comic book version published in the mid-Forties; and “The Fat Man” character, oddly enough, becoming a radio series of that very title, with this colorful villain rendered as a colorful private investigator! Nice also that the audio quality of the presentation on “The Great Detectives of Old Time Radio” couldn’t be better!
Thanks Adam!
Gratefully,
Ray