Showing results for "Hollywood" in Modern Detectives

This collection contains 12 of the greatest detective shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio. You'll hear Sydney Greenstreet as Nero Wolfe, Howard Duff as Sam Spade, Tom Conway and Nigel Bruceas Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, Dick Powell as Richard Diamond, Edmond O'Brien as Johnny Dollar, and Les Tremayne as Nick Charles, a.k.a. "The Thin Man" - plus many more gumshoes, including Boston Blackie, Philip Marlowe, The Fat Man, and others.

Here are 12 episodes from the greatest detective shows ever broadcast during the golden age of radio, with the legendary stars that made them great. You'll hear Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson, Sydney Greenstreet as Nero Wolfe, Howard Duff as Sam Spade, Chester Morris as Boston Blackie, Dick Powell as Richard Diamond, and Jack Webb as Dragnet's Sergeant Joe Friday, plus more gumshoes like Philip Marlowe, Bulldog Drummond, Michael Shayne, and Johnny Dollar.

Longtime character actor Clive Rosengren ( Cheers, Seinfeld, Ed Wood) pens a sprightly tale of Hollywood sex and homicide in Murder Unscripted. No one is going to mistake part-time actor, part-time Hollywood sleuth Eddie Collins for a movie star. While shooting a television commercial for Chubby’s Chicken, Eddie is almost relieved when he gets a call from a motion-picture bonding company on the hook for an uncompleted film whose female lead has died. That would be bad enough, but things get worse when Eddie finds out that the dead actress is his ex-wife - and her death looks like murder.

Michael Shayne, "the reckless, redheaded Irishman", was a popular hard-boiled detective created by crime novelist Brett Halliday. In the novels, Michael Shayne settled in Miami just after WWII, making crime pay by fighting it with a license and an attitude. Like Mike Hammer and Philip Marlowe, Shayne was a loner. The backstory on Mike is that he was happily married, but it hit him hard when his wife was tragically murdered. Grief stricken, Shayne loses himself in his work as a private eye, prowling the dark streets of the city.

Former Detroit homicide detective Edwin Blake broke into show business as a script consultant on cop movies. Now living in Los Angeles five years later, Blake is suffering from clinical depression, is no longer in demand in film and TV–and money is short. But things look up when Blake gets a call from wealthy, oddball producer, Jason “JP” Perry, telling him he wants to hire him for a future cable TV series. But there’s a catch.

Set in Los Angeles and starring Jack Webb as the stoic Sergeant Joe Friday, Dragnet is perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural drama of all time, having made extensive runs on both radio and television. Webb, also the producer of the show, took the series to new highs, insisting on realism in every facet of the program. The dialogue was clipped and sparse, taking its cue from hard-boiled crime fiction à la Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

Hollywood is rocked after the remains of one of the most idolized movie stars of the '60s are stolen. The thief chooses Gideon Kincaid to deliver the ransom, forcing the PI and ex-cop to unravel a master plan that will include extortion, blackmail, and murder. While trying to stay one step ahead of his nemesis, Gideon is led on a harrowing roller-coaster ride through sun- and sin-drenched Hollywood. The dead beauty is not Gideon's only concern: He must also contend with a few live ones.

If you're looking for a hard-boiled detective in the mold of Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade, Dick DeWitt is not your hero. He's not very bright, oozes insensitivity, lacks class, and epitomizes what we now recognize as political incorrectness. A Tinseltown starlet wannabe needs help. She has become involved with two sleazes - a fast-talking lecherous movie agent and a mean, corrupt cop. She's kept two little black books that could ruin the men, and that's why she needs an intelligent, tough-as-nails guy to protect her.

Dashiell Hammett created the character Sam Spade for his crime story The Maltese Falcon. Spade was a hard-boiled detective with cold detachment, a keen eye for detail, and an unflinching determination to exact his own justice. For most people, Spade is most closely associated with actor Humphrey Bogart, who played him in the third and most famous film version of The Maltese Falcon. In 1946 one of radio's top producers, William Spier, brought Sam Spade to the airwaves in a radio show starring newcomer Howard Duff.