The Big Book: The Adventures of Philip Marlowe (September 29, 1950)

“The Big Book” is an episode of The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, the old-time radio show, first broadcast September 29, 1950. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Private detective Philip Marlowe investigates the death of Jane Temple, a middle-aged woman found shot in her skid row apartment, initially ruled a suicide. When a shoemaker named Nodella approaches him with a scrapbook containing Jane's theatrical past and a hidden clipping linking a man named John Gordon to theater embezzlement in 1928, Marlowe discovers that Jerome Laki, now a successful Hollywood agent, may be connected to both the crime and Jane's mysterious past.

Los Angeles, including a skid row rooming house where Jane Temple dies, the street outside, and Nodella's shoe repair shop across the way.

Characters: Philip Marlowe, Lieutenant Mooney, Lieutenant Matthews, Jane Temple, Andrew Nodella, Jerome Laki, John Gordon

Listen for: The revelation of Jane Temple's theatrical past through her scrapbook and the mysterious connection between Jerome Laki and John Gordon that suggests a motive for murder.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.