OTRR Certified Sam Spade Singles
OTRR
Individual files from the OTRR Certified set: The Adventures of Sam Spade
This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.
Chapters
Reviews
Several different Spades
smbhax
A mostly fun, and varied series. It starts off playing things semi-serious, but Duff and Tuttle's playful banter soon gets nuttier and nuttier, and the series, at its peak, features constant wordplay, self-parody, and self-awareness. Really fun stuff. Maybe halfway through Duff's run, however, the smartness goes out of the writing, the wordplay becomes mediocre, and listening a bit of a slog. Dunne's voice is nothing like Duff's, and it's a tough adjustment to make. Under Dunne, the series moves away from light humor to a bit more of a hard-boiled thing; I wasn't digging it at first but it grew on me, and all in all is competently pulled off. The Spade-Effie relationship hasn't aged well: she's his secretary, but it gradually emerges that they're also vaguely romantically involved--he orders her around, she sometimes harps at him about other women, but inevitably melts in his arms...and then goes home. Did this make sense in the 40s?
SAM I AM?
harron68
These shows shouldn't be confused with the Bogart film version. Both Duff and Dunne play the role more with style than seriousness, a la Dick Powell's RICHARD DIAMOND, the breezy plots have danger in every dark alley, but never fear, all will come out fine. The demeaning of Steven Dunne's voice has truth, but some guys do have higher voices, and the plots of the later shows keep the quality of the series well. I enjoy the tales' twists. The Effie bits that close episodes I once enjoyed in the 1970s seem overdone, and make me wince in embarrassment for the way "good" women were too often portrayed back then.