Simanaitis Says
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ONE-LINERS FROM OLD-TIME RADIO SLEUTHS
OLD-TIME RADIO HAD PLENTY OF ENTERTAINING DETECTIVES. Here are examples of my favorites, documented by John Dunning’s On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, together with my usual Internet sleuthing.
Sam Spade. Just as Humphrey Bogart was the definitive film Sam Spade, Howard Duff owned the radio role—until Senator Joe McCarthy and other wackos brought on the “Red Scare Madness—The Fifties.” In his classic On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, John Dunning recounted, “Compared with Bogart’s dour and straitlaced Spade, Duff’s was a cutup: a hard-knuckled master of street-level whimsy and sarcastic comeback.”
A favorite quip of mine occurs when a lady pours Sam a drink: “Yes, up to the lipstick mark,” he says.
By the way, the Suspense radio program’s hour-length version of “The Kandy Tooth Caper” picks up a year after The Maltese Falcon: Kasper Gutman (the “Fat Man”) returns, together with Joel Cairo and Wilmer’s equally psychotic brother Marvin.
Boston Blackie. Dunning described Boston Blackie “making fools of the police, a simple task with Inspector Faraday heading the official investigations.” Blackie has appeared thrice here at SimanaitisSays: “Boston Blackie—Reformed Jewel Thief,” “The Adventures of Fats Waller and Boston Blackie,”and “On Early Sleuthing.”
In one episode, a gangster’s moll says, “You coulda knocked me over with a fender.” Or at least this is what I believe she said. A great line.
Pat Novak. Jack Webb was to define Joe Friday in the low-key factual police drama Dragnet in 1949. However, in 1946-1947 he portrayed Pat Novak, For Hire, whom John Dunning called an “acid-tongued waterfront trouble-shooter… so hard-boiled as to be high camp in its own time.”
Dunning quoted several examples, among them: “ ‘I’ll give you $200 to follow a woman,’ a client says. In a heartbeat, Novak bounces back, ‘How’ll I spot her, read it off an ankle bracelet?’ ”
Another classic Pat Novak favorite of mine: “She sauntered in, moving slowly from side to side like 118 pounds of warm smoke.”
Rocky Fortune. Dunning observed, “Rocky Fortune came at a low ebb for Frank Sinatra: the bobby-soxer boom was gone forever, and the impact of his career-saving performance in From Here to Eternity hadn’t yet been felt.”
Rocky drifted from job to job, each one turning more hazardous than expected: “He worked in a museum,” Dunning wrote [actually he’s a city tour guide], “and found a body in a sarcophagus. He drove a truck and hauled nitro over a bumpy road. It was an undistinguished affair. Even Sinatra sounded bored with it.”
My favorite Rocky quips: “… I’m alone with Iris, who’s wearing a flannel skirt and a little boy’s shirt. Which never looks like that on no little boy.” And “Even in my weak condition, I can appreciate that she’s got more curves than the Jersey Turnpike.”
Maybe not Oscar-worthy, but still memorable for Ol’ Blue Eyes. ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2023
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Simanaitis Says 
If you don’t already, you’ll appreciate the Firesign Theatre’s sendup of classic radio detectives on their 1969 comedy album “How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere at All,” starring the hero, Nick Danger, Third Eye.