Dry Gulch Caper: The Adventures of Sam Spade (December 8, 1950)

“Dry Gulch Caper” is an episode of The Adventures of Sam Spade, the old-time radio show, first broadcast December 8, 1950. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Sam Spade travels to the ghost town of Dry Gulch after receiving a mysterious call from a girl named Penny. Her grandfather, Marshal Buck, is hunting for the notorious bank robber Blacky Tolliver, whom he saw on television casing a San Francisco bank. Sam arrives in costume as a western character only to discover that Blacky and his gang have used the abandoned town as their hideout following a bank robbery.

Dry Gulch, a desert ghost town in the American West near San Francisco

Characters: Sam Spade, Marshal Buck, Penny (Buck's granddaughter), Blacky Tolliver, Al Carino, Hareno

Listen for: The mixing of 1950s technology (television sets, police reports) with classic Old West settings and shootouts; Sam's fish-out-of-water experience in authentic western costume; the twist that Blacky is a hostage rather than a villain.

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.