Friday's Favorite OTR

The Adventures of Philip Marlowe: “Friend from Detroit” 3/5/49

Gerald Mohr was a busy actor during radio’s Golden Age. He was often heard playing a variety of roles on anthology programs such as Escape and Suspense. He played a killer on The Adventures of Nero Wolfe a week before taking over the role of Archie Goodwin (Wolfe’s assistant and the show’s narrator) for three or four episodes. He popped up in a number of other shows as well, always doing a bang-up job. He was one of those dependable character actors that helped make radio drama as good as it was.


Mohr’s most famous role is Philip Marlowe, in which he (helped by strong scripts) easily did justice to one of the detective genre’s classic characters. In this particular story, he’s awakened late at night by the owner of a hamburger joint he frequents. The guy’s wife has disappeared and he’s found a bullet hole in one of his windows.


Marlowe looks into things and before he has any chance at all to figure out what’s going on, a big thug shoves a pistol in his throat and warns him to leave well enough alone. Well, Marlowe never leaves anything alone. Soon, the body of a dead mobster turns up. It begins to seem that the missing wife had a shady past and may now be a party to murder.


As is usually for this excellent show, the story moves fast, covering a lot of ground. A listener is forced to pay close attention to the dialogue and Marlowe’s rapid-fire narration, but the pay-off for doing so is a well-constructed story with great characters and a satisfying conclusion.

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