DASHIELL HAMMETT, (1894 - 1961)
THE CURSE OF DASHIELL HAMMETT
Dashiell Hammett has gone down in literary history as one of America’s greatest authors of detective fiction. His five novels between 1929 and 1934 - Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man and The Glass Key - are considered classics.
So, what contributions did Dashiell Hammett make to Network Radio?
Hammett simply lent his name - and collected royalties - as creator of the title characters heard on three outstanding detective series, The Adventures of The Thin Man, The Adventures of Sam Spade and The Fat Man. Week after week, network promotion and show openings continually reminded listeners that Dashiell Hammett gave them their crime solving favorites. Then it all backfired into a curse.
Such a strong link had been created with Hammett that his name eventually killed all three series. No network or sponsor wanted anything to do with him or anything connected to him. What happened?
Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an avowed Communist. Always an anti-fascist, he joined the American Communist Party in 1937 and in 1941 became President of The League of American Writers and its Keep America Out of War committee.
Ironically, he contracted tuberculosis while serving briefly as an ambulance driver in World War I, and although a known Communist, an alcoholic and a victim of tuberculosis, served as an Army newspaper editor in the Aleutian Islands in World War II.
Hammett’s left-wing activities intensified after the war. The political faction he headed, The Civil Rights Congress of New York, was branded a Communist front group by the Attorney General’s office in 1947. The CRC made further headlines in 1949 when it posted over $250,000 bail for eleven men appealing their convictions for violations of the Smith Act, …”to advocate the overthrow of the United States government by force and violence.” Free on bail, the eleven subsequently disappeared.
In June, 1950, the Korean War broke out fueling the country’s anti-Communist hatred. A year later Hammett was found guilty of contempt of court when he refused to give any information that might have led to the recapture of the eleven fugitives he helped spring. Hammett wound up in jail while Americans were dying in Korea fighting Communists.
One by one, the sponsors most closely identified with programs associated with Hammett’s name cancelled. General Foods was first to pull the plug on The Adventures of The Thin Man in late December, 1947, despite its ranking among Friday’s Top Ten programs. The Adventures of Sam Spade was dumped by Wildroot Cream Oil in 1950 after four seasons and two finishes in Sunday’s Top Ten. Finally, it was The Fat Man’s turn for cancellation by Norwich Pharmacal‘s Pepto-.Bismol in January, 1951, although it was on its way to its second consecutive season as Friday’s Number One program.
Obviously, the programs were popular and with good reason.
The Adventures of The Thin Man was the first of the three shows on radio, debuting on NBC’s Wednesday schedule for Woodbury Soap in July, 1941 - five months before the debut of Shadow of The Thin Man - third of MGM’s highly successful six Thin Man movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick & Nora Charles. The radio adaptation barely missed the 1941-42’s Top 50, but it finished among Wednesday’s Top Ten programs.
General Foods bought The Adventures of The Thin Man and moved it to CBS midway in the 1942-43 season. Despite being shuffled around the CBS schedule over the next six seasons, the show racked up five Top 50 finishes and five in the nightly Top Tens. The lone exception to this winning streak was 1945-46 when General Foods scheduled the crime solving couple in the CBS Sunday suicide slot opposite Jack Benny on NBC. (See Sunday At Seven on this site.)
The Adventures of The Thin Man was slickly produced and directed throughout its run by one of Network Radio’s best talents, Himan Brown. Brown brought sultry sex to the show via the voice of Claudia Morgan who played Nora for the entire run opposite Les Damon, Les Tremayne, David Gothard and Joseph Curtin who alternated in the role of Nick.
Morgan, the daughter of actor Ralph Morgan and the niece of Frank Morgan, was clearly the star of the show. Delivering the lines of a top writing staff assembled by Brown, Morgan could be coy, clever, cunning or cuddly, but always with more than a hint of sexiness - particularly in the show’s closing pillow-talk segment, always ending with Nora cooing, “Goodnight, Nicky darling…”
After General Foods cancelled The Adventures of The Thin Man it was picked up by Pabst Beer as a 1948 summer replacement for Eddie Cantor on NBC. Then 13 weeks on Mutual followed for Kaiser-Fraser and a final brief run on ABC as Heinz Foods’ summer replacement for The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet in 1950. And never in these brief runs was the name Dashiell Hammett mentioned.
But that wasn’t the case when The Adventures of Sam Spade began on ABC in July, 1946, for Buffalo, New York, hair tonic manufacturer Wildroot. Although private detective Spade appeared only in Hammett’s 1930 novel, The Maltese Falcon, and three of his short stories, the network and sponsor wanted the genuine article. So, producer-director William Spier, whose credits included the classic series Suspense, and his writers adapted six of Hammett’s short stories during the show’s first 13 weeks, giving Hammett sole credit of authorship.
For the title role of Sam Spade Spier chose Howard Duff, 33, a virtually unknown actor who had movie aspirations. Duff’s approach to the role was that of casual humor laced with slang that made the term “caper” popular. Supporting roles were played by Lurene Tuttle as Spade’s not-too-bright secretary, Effie Perrine, and a host of great character actors including John McIntire, William Conrad, June Havoc, Elliot & Cathy Lewis and Joseph Kearns.
Listeners were attracted to the new summertime series - and so was CBS which considered The Adventures of Sam Spade as potentially good counter-programming to the Sunday night comedy of Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy on NBC, consistently one of Network Radio‘s Top Five shows. A deal was struck with Wildroot to move the show to CBS. Then, in an effort to dull Bergen’s return from summer hiatus with its own premiere of Spade on September 26, 1946, CBS virtually gave the half-hour to Wildroot for two weeks before its 13 week contract with ABC expired. As a result, for two weekends The Adventures of Sam Spade was heard Friday night on ABC and Sunday night on CBS.
The first season was considered successful for the new CBS mystery series begun every week with the overstated announcement, “Dashiell Hammitt, Americas leading detective fiction writer and creator of Sam Spade, the hard boiled boiled private eye, and William Spier, radio's outstanding producer-director of crime drama join their talents to make your hair stand on end with The Adventures of Sam Spade."
The show finished 1946-47 in 62nd place with a 9.8 rating compared to the previous season’s 4.8 rating and 142nd place for Agnes Moorhead’s sitcom, The Amazing Mrs. Danbury. Of equal, if not greater importance, listeners were singing the sponsor’s catchy jingle, “Ya better get Wildroot Cream Oil, Chaaarlie…” and the product was enjoying a big spike in sales. (The entire jingle appears at the end of the episode posted below which illustrates the overuse of Hammett's name as if he were an active participant in the series.)
Things got even better the next season. The Adventures of Sam Spade almost doubled its rating to a 17.8, finishing in Sunday’s Top Ten and 27th place among all Network Radio programs. It slipped back to a 12.6 and 40th place in 1948-49 when ABC’s Stop The Music burst on the scene at 8:00 but Spade remained in Sunday’s Top Ten.
Then Wildroot made a critical mistake. When Edgar Bergen jumped from NBC to CBS in October, 1949, and displaced The Adventures of Sam Spade from its 8:00 Sunday timeslot, the sponsor refused another CBS time period and moved the show to the weakened NBC Sunday schedule - again opposite Bergen and Stop The Music. The results were predictable - the show fell into single digits, out of Sunday’s Top Ten and down to 50th place.
Wildroot was already nervous with the show’s drop in ratings and its association with Dashiell Hammett when Red Channels appeared. Red Channels was published in the summer of 1950 as a supplement to the anti-Communist magazine, Counterattack, and claimed to identify 150 show business personalities as “Communist sympathizers.”
Among those cited was Howard Duff.
It’s not that Duff didn’t have distinguished company. Edward G. Robinson, Leonard Bernstein, Lena Horne, Artie Shaw, John Garfield and Orson Welles also made the Red Channels list. Duff protested that his only “sin” was attending a 1948 fundraising dinner for Progressive Party presidential candidate, Henry Wallace, who was also endorsed by the Communist Party. But his protests fell on deaf ears. Wildroot cancelled the show in September, 1950, and Duff was temporarily out of a job only to go on to much greater fame in films.
Wildroot returned to NBC several weeks later with Charlie Wild, Private Detective - a low-budget imitation of Spade with a title that was a feeble plug for the sponsor. It lasted for 13 weeks. Meanwhile, The Adventures of Sam Spade resumed in November as an NBC sustaining program starring Steve Dunne, a very capable actor, but no Howard Duff. It left the air after 26 weeks.
.
Unlike Sam Spade and Nick & Nora Charles who were detectives and central characters in Hammett’s works, The Fat Man was a villain and a secondary character named Kasper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon. Nevertheless, billed as, “…Dashiell Hammett‘s fascinating and exciting character,” The Fat Man became private detective Brad Runyon in the ABC series that debuted on January 21, 1946.
In truth, Hammett had absolutely nothing to do with the show. It was the brainchild of producer Ed Rosenberg who made his crime solving hero a charming ladies man with a warm sense of humor. When Sidney Greenstreet and Edward Arnold both turned down the title role, The Fat Man came to life through the talents of veteran radio actor J. Scott (Jack) Smart, 44, who resembled the character’s appearance, at 5’9” and 270 pounds, and charm, as a skilled ballroom dancer. Smart was perfectly typecast as Brad Runyon and for the role he commuted to ABC’s New York studios every week from the seaside arts community of Ogunquit, Maine, where he was known as an accomplished painter and sculptor.
With the aid of top supporting talent, a memorable show opening and a haunting theme by Bernard Green, The Fat Man picked up steam on Monday nights for a year. Then, under the sponsorship of Norwich Pharmacal’s Pepto-Bismol, it was moved into ABC’s fast-growing Friday schedule on January 10, 1947. The Fat Man finished the season in Friday’s Top Ten, ironically less than a point behind another show based on Hammett’s writings, The Adventures of The Thin Man on CBS. (A 1947 episode of The Fat Man is posted below.)
The show continued to climb up the rankings ladder over the next four seasons, peaking at 17th in the Annual Top 50 of 1950-51 as ABC’s most popular dramatic program. It was so popular that Universal made a movie of The Fat Man with Smart in the title role supported by Julie London and a young Rock Hudson. Adding to his happiness, Smart married Mary-Leigh Call, a fellow artist from Ogunquit. But trouble lay ahead.
Norwich Pharmacal suddenly cancelled The Fat Man at mid-season. Rosenberg and Smart were assured that they had done fine job for Pepto-Bismol but the sponsor couldn’t afford to be associated, however remotely, with the jailed Communist, Dashiell Hammett. It take take long for ABC to land American Chicle and move The Fat Man from Friday to Wednesday in an effort to rebuild its midweek schedule. But with Hammett sitting in jail for contempt after his widely reported court appearances, the gum manufacturer cancelled in September, 1951.
The Fat Man was history - a year after The Adventures of The Thin Man left the air and four months after the final broadcast of The Adventures of Sam Spade.
Three excellent shows were gone from Network Radio and what had become the curse of Dashiell Hammett was complete.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
Dashiell Hammett has gone down in literary history as one of America’s greatest authors of detective fiction. His five novels between 1929 and 1934 - Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man and The Glass Key - are considered classics.
So, what contributions did Dashiell Hammett make to Network Radio?
Hammett simply lent his name - and collected royalties - as creator of the title characters heard on three outstanding detective series, The Adventures of The Thin Man, The Adventures of Sam Spade and The Fat Man. Week after week, network promotion and show openings continually reminded listeners that Dashiell Hammett gave them their crime solving favorites. Then it all backfired into a curse.
Such a strong link had been created with Hammett that his name eventually killed all three series. No network or sponsor wanted anything to do with him or anything connected to him. What happened?
Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an avowed Communist. Always an anti-fascist, he joined the American Communist Party in 1937 and in 1941 became President of The League of American Writers and its Keep America Out of War committee.
Ironically, he contracted tuberculosis while serving briefly as an ambulance driver in World War I, and although a known Communist, an alcoholic and a victim of tuberculosis, served as an Army newspaper editor in the Aleutian Islands in World War II.
Hammett’s left-wing activities intensified after the war. The political faction he headed, The Civil Rights Congress of New York, was branded a Communist front group by the Attorney General’s office in 1947. The CRC made further headlines in 1949 when it posted over $250,000 bail for eleven men appealing their convictions for violations of the Smith Act, …”to advocate the overthrow of the United States government by force and violence.” Free on bail, the eleven subsequently disappeared.
In June, 1950, the Korean War broke out fueling the country’s anti-Communist hatred. A year later Hammett was found guilty of contempt of court when he refused to give any information that might have led to the recapture of the eleven fugitives he helped spring. Hammett wound up in jail while Americans were dying in Korea fighting Communists.
One by one, the sponsors most closely identified with programs associated with Hammett’s name cancelled. General Foods was first to pull the plug on The Adventures of The Thin Man in late December, 1947, despite its ranking among Friday’s Top Ten programs. The Adventures of Sam Spade was dumped by Wildroot Cream Oil in 1950 after four seasons and two finishes in Sunday’s Top Ten. Finally, it was The Fat Man’s turn for cancellation by Norwich Pharmacal‘s Pepto-.Bismol in January, 1951, although it was on its way to its second consecutive season as Friday’s Number One program.
Obviously, the programs were popular and with good reason.
The Adventures of The Thin Man was the first of the three shows on radio, debuting on NBC’s Wednesday schedule for Woodbury Soap in July, 1941 - five months before the debut of Shadow of The Thin Man - third of MGM’s highly successful six Thin Man movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick & Nora Charles. The radio adaptation barely missed the 1941-42’s Top 50, but it finished among Wednesday’s Top Ten programs.
General Foods bought The Adventures of The Thin Man and moved it to CBS midway in the 1942-43 season. Despite being shuffled around the CBS schedule over the next six seasons, the show racked up five Top 50 finishes and five in the nightly Top Tens. The lone exception to this winning streak was 1945-46 when General Foods scheduled the crime solving couple in the CBS Sunday suicide slot opposite Jack Benny on NBC. (See Sunday At Seven on this site.)
The Adventures of The Thin Man was slickly produced and directed throughout its run by one of Network Radio’s best talents, Himan Brown. Brown brought sultry sex to the show via the voice of Claudia Morgan who played Nora for the entire run opposite Les Damon, Les Tremayne, David Gothard and Joseph Curtin who alternated in the role of Nick.
Morgan, the daughter of actor Ralph Morgan and the niece of Frank Morgan, was clearly the star of the show. Delivering the lines of a top writing staff assembled by Brown, Morgan could be coy, clever, cunning or cuddly, but always with more than a hint of sexiness - particularly in the show’s closing pillow-talk segment, always ending with Nora cooing, “Goodnight, Nicky darling…”
After General Foods cancelled The Adventures of The Thin Man it was picked up by Pabst Beer as a 1948 summer replacement for Eddie Cantor on NBC. Then 13 weeks on Mutual followed for Kaiser-Fraser and a final brief run on ABC as Heinz Foods’ summer replacement for The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet in 1950. And never in these brief runs was the name Dashiell Hammett mentioned.
But that wasn’t the case when The Adventures of Sam Spade began on ABC in July, 1946, for Buffalo, New York, hair tonic manufacturer Wildroot. Although private detective Spade appeared only in Hammett’s 1930 novel, The Maltese Falcon, and three of his short stories, the network and sponsor wanted the genuine article. So, producer-director William Spier, whose credits included the classic series Suspense, and his writers adapted six of Hammett’s short stories during the show’s first 13 weeks, giving Hammett sole credit of authorship.
For the title role of Sam Spade Spier chose Howard Duff, 33, a virtually unknown actor who had movie aspirations. Duff’s approach to the role was that of casual humor laced with slang that made the term “caper” popular. Supporting roles were played by Lurene Tuttle as Spade’s not-too-bright secretary, Effie Perrine, and a host of great character actors including John McIntire, William Conrad, June Havoc, Elliot & Cathy Lewis and Joseph Kearns.
Listeners were attracted to the new summertime series - and so was CBS which considered The Adventures of Sam Spade as potentially good counter-programming to the Sunday night comedy of Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy on NBC, consistently one of Network Radio‘s Top Five shows. A deal was struck with Wildroot to move the show to CBS. Then, in an effort to dull Bergen’s return from summer hiatus with its own premiere of Spade on September 26, 1946, CBS virtually gave the half-hour to Wildroot for two weeks before its 13 week contract with ABC expired. As a result, for two weekends The Adventures of Sam Spade was heard Friday night on ABC and Sunday night on CBS.
The first season was considered successful for the new CBS mystery series begun every week with the overstated announcement, “Dashiell Hammitt, Americas leading detective fiction writer and creator of Sam Spade, the hard boiled boiled private eye, and William Spier, radio's outstanding producer-director of crime drama join their talents to make your hair stand on end with The Adventures of Sam Spade."
The show finished 1946-47 in 62nd place with a 9.8 rating compared to the previous season’s 4.8 rating and 142nd place for Agnes Moorhead’s sitcom, The Amazing Mrs. Danbury. Of equal, if not greater importance, listeners were singing the sponsor’s catchy jingle, “Ya better get Wildroot Cream Oil, Chaaarlie…” and the product was enjoying a big spike in sales. (The entire jingle appears at the end of the episode posted below which illustrates the overuse of Hammett's name as if he were an active participant in the series.)
Things got even better the next season. The Adventures of Sam Spade almost doubled its rating to a 17.8, finishing in Sunday’s Top Ten and 27th place among all Network Radio programs. It slipped back to a 12.6 and 40th place in 1948-49 when ABC’s Stop The Music burst on the scene at 8:00 but Spade remained in Sunday’s Top Ten.
Then Wildroot made a critical mistake. When Edgar Bergen jumped from NBC to CBS in October, 1949, and displaced The Adventures of Sam Spade from its 8:00 Sunday timeslot, the sponsor refused another CBS time period and moved the show to the weakened NBC Sunday schedule - again opposite Bergen and Stop The Music. The results were predictable - the show fell into single digits, out of Sunday’s Top Ten and down to 50th place.
Wildroot was already nervous with the show’s drop in ratings and its association with Dashiell Hammett when Red Channels appeared. Red Channels was published in the summer of 1950 as a supplement to the anti-Communist magazine, Counterattack, and claimed to identify 150 show business personalities as “Communist sympathizers.”
Among those cited was Howard Duff.
It’s not that Duff didn’t have distinguished company. Edward G. Robinson, Leonard Bernstein, Lena Horne, Artie Shaw, John Garfield and Orson Welles also made the Red Channels list. Duff protested that his only “sin” was attending a 1948 fundraising dinner for Progressive Party presidential candidate, Henry Wallace, who was also endorsed by the Communist Party. But his protests fell on deaf ears. Wildroot cancelled the show in September, 1950, and Duff was temporarily out of a job only to go on to much greater fame in films.
Wildroot returned to NBC several weeks later with Charlie Wild, Private Detective - a low-budget imitation of Spade with a title that was a feeble plug for the sponsor. It lasted for 13 weeks. Meanwhile, The Adventures of Sam Spade resumed in November as an NBC sustaining program starring Steve Dunne, a very capable actor, but no Howard Duff. It left the air after 26 weeks.
.
Unlike Sam Spade and Nick & Nora Charles who were detectives and central characters in Hammett’s works, The Fat Man was a villain and a secondary character named Kasper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon. Nevertheless, billed as, “…Dashiell Hammett‘s fascinating and exciting character,” The Fat Man became private detective Brad Runyon in the ABC series that debuted on January 21, 1946.
In truth, Hammett had absolutely nothing to do with the show. It was the brainchild of producer Ed Rosenberg who made his crime solving hero a charming ladies man with a warm sense of humor. When Sidney Greenstreet and Edward Arnold both turned down the title role, The Fat Man came to life through the talents of veteran radio actor J. Scott (Jack) Smart, 44, who resembled the character’s appearance, at 5’9” and 270 pounds, and charm, as a skilled ballroom dancer. Smart was perfectly typecast as Brad Runyon and for the role he commuted to ABC’s New York studios every week from the seaside arts community of Ogunquit, Maine, where he was known as an accomplished painter and sculptor.
With the aid of top supporting talent, a memorable show opening and a haunting theme by Bernard Green, The Fat Man picked up steam on Monday nights for a year. Then, under the sponsorship of Norwich Pharmacal’s Pepto-Bismol, it was moved into ABC’s fast-growing Friday schedule on January 10, 1947. The Fat Man finished the season in Friday’s Top Ten, ironically less than a point behind another show based on Hammett’s writings, The Adventures of The Thin Man on CBS. (A 1947 episode of The Fat Man is posted below.)
The show continued to climb up the rankings ladder over the next four seasons, peaking at 17th in the Annual Top 50 of 1950-51 as ABC’s most popular dramatic program. It was so popular that Universal made a movie of The Fat Man with Smart in the title role supported by Julie London and a young Rock Hudson. Adding to his happiness, Smart married Mary-Leigh Call, a fellow artist from Ogunquit. But trouble lay ahead.
Norwich Pharmacal suddenly cancelled The Fat Man at mid-season. Rosenberg and Smart were assured that they had done fine job for Pepto-Bismol but the sponsor couldn’t afford to be associated, however remotely, with the jailed Communist, Dashiell Hammett. It take take long for ABC to land American Chicle and move The Fat Man from Friday to Wednesday in an effort to rebuild its midweek schedule. But with Hammett sitting in jail for contempt after his widely reported court appearances, the gum manufacturer cancelled in September, 1951.
The Fat Man was history - a year after The Adventures of The Thin Man left the air and four months after the final broadcast of The Adventures of Sam Spade.
Three excellent shows were gone from Network Radio and what had become the curse of Dashiell Hammett was complete.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
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