The Adventures of Sam Spade was a radio series centered around the character of Sam Spade, a San Francisco detective created by Dashiell Hammett for his 1930 crime novel, The Maltese Falcon. The show was brought to radio by William Spier, a renowned master of mystery who had previously worked on the highly rated thriller, Suspense. The series portrayed Sam Spade as a hardboiled detective with a deep, cynical voice (played by Howard Duff and later Stephen Dunne), known for his distinctive traits such as riding streetcars, disliking cabs, and enjoying cheap liquor. Spade dictated his cases to his secretary, Effie Perrine (played by Lurene Tuttle), a talkative and lovesick woman. Each episode unfolded chronologically, shifting between Sam and Effie's interactions and the dramatization of Sam's dictation.

The show was initially aired on ABC in 1946 as a summer series, then ran as a regular CBS show from 1946 to 1949, and finally on NBC from 1949 to 1951. Over its five-year run, the series featured 13 episodes on ABC, 157 episodes on CBS, and 75 episodes on NBC. The Adventures of Sam Spade was notable for its tongue-in-cheek approach to the character, differentiating it from the more serious tone of the novel and movie adaptations.

Sources: archive.org, wikipedia.org, otrcat.com