Bill,
Re your question below:
"Was it that Marlowe who'd talk to his secretary at the start
of each episode and finish the intro by saying his latest
case involved 'a pink flamingo, a polka-dot tie, and a bump
on the head' or some other improbable trio? Or was that the
Sam Spade show, with Sam phoning Effie?"
It was Howard Duff as Spade calling Lurene Tuttle as Effie.
Marlowe didn't have a secretary in either the NBC Van Heflin
episodes, of the CBS Gerald Mohr episodes.
The only Heflin episode I ever heard was "Trouble Is My
Business," based on the short story. For me, Heflin was just
a little too earnest for the part. The Mohr was, as someone
else pointed out, a little too "jaunty" at times, recall that
Chandler's Marlowe had his jaunty moments, too. Chandler is
on record as preferring Mohr to Heflin.
FWIW, CBS's acquiring the MARLOWE series from NBC was part of
what led to the GUNSMOKE series. CBS honcho William Paley was
a big Chandler fan, and was very happy when his network took
the show over from its rival. During a brain-storming
session, Paley once suggested a radio drama built around a
"Philip Marlowe of the Old West." It would take a three or
four years, and one failed pilot, but Paley's broad concept
was finally brought to fruition when GUNSMOKE debuted in
1953. Oddly, radio critics, taking note of the unrelenting
realism, the subtle but authentic sound effects, and the
apparently authentic picture of what it was like to be a
professional law enforcer on the frontier, called GUNSMOKE
"DRAGNET in the Old West" rather then "Marlowe in the Old
West."
"That radio adaptation was completely unlike the book. I
don't think Marlowe or Spade were converted well to radio
back then, unless you forget their origins and enjoy them as
almost unrelated shows."
Most of the time, you've got a point with SPADE
(though there were exceptions, like "The Khandi Toothe
Caper," and episodes directly based on Hammett material). But
I think MARLOWE, over which Chandler kept a much closer watch
than Hammett did over SPADE
(according to la belle Hellman, Hammett didn't even listen to
the show, just cashed the checks; whereas Chandler was very
diligent about listening and critiquing the MARLOWE show),
was as faithful as it could be in that medium at that
time.
Jim B. wondered how many actors had played Chandler's Sam
Spade. None.
However, Chandler's Philip Marlowe was played by Humphrey
Bogart, Robert Montgomery, George Montgomery, James Garner,
Elias Something-or-Other (some obscure actor who was once
married to Barbra Streisand, and who played Trapper John in
the big-screen version of M*A*S*H, in some film hardly worth
noting), and Robert Mitchum on film; by Van Heflin, Gerald
Mohr, and (in one episode broadcast when Mohr was ill)
William Conrad on radio; by Philip Carey, Powers Boothe,
Danny Glover, and James Caan on TV. Harris Yulin played
Marlowe in a audio play version of "Goldfish" produced for
sales to individual buyers rather than for broadcast.
Dick Powell played Marlowe on film in MURDER, MY SWEET, on
radio on at least two different audio versions of that
screenplay (one of them on LUX RADIO THEATRE), and on TV in a
live-broadcast version of THE LONG GOODBYE which was the
first episode of a mystery anthology series called CLIMAX
(the same series in which James Bond made his dramatic debut
in a version of CASINO ROYALE). Powell, who could also be
rather jaunty, was thus the first actor to play the part, and
the only one to play the part in three different mediums,
thus becoming, arguably, the performer most identified with
the character. Chandler is supposed to have said that, of all
the adaptations of his work, he thought MURDER, MY SWEET to
be the best, and thought Powell's perfromance came closest to
his conception of the character. He also had high praise for
Bogart.
Hammett's Sam Spade was played by Ricardo Cortez and Humphrey
Bogart on film; and by Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Howard
Duff, and Steve Dunne on radio. In 1951, when Hammett got to
be controversial because of his commie connections, the
sponsor, Wildroot Cream Oil, changed the name of the
character to "Charlie Wild," and the show's title to CHARLIE
WILD - PRIVATE EYE. His secretary, however, was still Effie
Perrine, and, as far as I know, all other Spade accoutrements
were in place. George Petrie played Wild on radio. When the
show moved to TV, in the Wild incarnation, the Spade
doppelganger was played by Kevin O'Morrison and John McQuade,
with Cloris Leachman as Effie. The character's new name
derived from the lyrics to the sponsor's jungle, "Get
Wildroot Cream Oil, Charlie." Another "alternate name"
version of the character, Ted Shayne, was played by Warren
Williams in the second film version of FALCON, SATAN MET A
LADY, reportedly a really sub-standard effort, though I've
never seen it.
JIM DOHERTY
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