The Tale of the Mermaid: The Adventures of Philip Marlowe (October 1, 1949)

“The Tale of the Mermaid” is an episode of The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, the old-time radio show, first broadcast October 1, 1949. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Private investigator Philip Marlowe receives an urgent call from a nurse after a man named Stanley Ott is critically injured in a car accident. Before falling into a coma, Ott pleads with Marlowe to stop a girl in a plaid coat from meeting someone at two o'clock to collect $75,000. With only cryptic clues and the name Constantine to go on, Marlowe races against time to uncover the mystery of the mermaid.

Los Angeles and the San Pedro waterfront, present day

Characters: Philip Marlowe, Corey Riggs, Stanley Ott, Prince Constantine Chevenoff, Louis Paradise, Evelyn Van Oen

Listen for: The unfolding mystery of the mermaid and the $75,000 scheme, with Marlowe pursuing clues from the hospital to the waterfront to an exotic house where he discovers a dead body and overhears a suspicious phone conversation.

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.