The Adventures of Sam Spade, Detective was a radio series based loosely on the private detective character Sam Spade, created by writer Dashiell Hammett for The Maltese Falcon. The show ran for 13 episodes on ABC in 1946, for 157 episodes on CBS in 1946–1949, and finally for 75 episodes on NBC in 1949–1951. The series starred Howard Duff as Sam Spade and Lurene Tuttle as his secretary Effie, and took a considerably more tongue-in-cheek approach to the character than the novel or movie. The announcer was Dick Joy. Spade's greetings and farewells to Effie are a recurring motif on the show. Keeping with this, period standard ”Goodnight Sweetheart” was used as the closing theme of each episode.

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