The Adventures Of Philip Marlowe - "The Panama Hat" (10-10-48)

The Panama Hat (Aired October 10, 1948)

The first portrayal of Philip Marlowe on the radio was by Dick Powell, when he played Raymond Chandler's detective on the Lux Radio Theater on June 11, 1945. This was a radio adaptation of the 1944 movie, from RKO, in which Mr. Powell played the lead. Two years later, Van Heflin starred as Marlowe in a summer replacement series for the Bob Hope Show on NBC. This series ran for 13 shows. On September 26, 1948, Gerald Mohr became the third radio Marlowe, this time on CBS.  It remained a CBS show through its last show in 1951. Dashiell Hammett introduced the new genre, and Sam Spade, in 1930 in his novel The Maltese Falcon. A few years later Raymond Chandler came along and perfected the type, with his detective, Philip Marlowe. Chandler introduced Marlowe in his first novel, The Big Sleep, and Philip Marlowe continued to solve crimes in six subsequent Chandler novels. Chandler had previously published a number of short stories featuring other detectives; however, Marlowe proved so popular that when the stories were later republished the author often switched the detectives to Philip Marlowe.

THIS EPISODE:

October 10, 1948. CBS network. "The Panama Hat". Sustaining. Marlowe becomes involved with a gambling debt, an attempted murder, a kidnapping, a red-headed Dragon Lady, and the mysterious man in the Panama hat. William Lally, Gerald Mohr, Jacqueline DeWitt, Jeff Corey, Lou Krugman, Norman Macdonnell (producer, director), Raymond Chandler (creator), Richard Aurandt (music), Roy Rowan (announcer), Shepard Menken, Wilms Herbert. 29:50. Episode Notes From The Radio Gold Index.