Stella Starr Caper4min In Middle Missing: The Adventures of Sam Spade (September 5, 1948)

“Stella Starr Caper4min In Middle Missing” is an episode of The Adventures of Sam Spade, the old-time radio show, first broadcast September 5, 1948. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

Detective Sam Spade is hired by wealthy yacht owner J. Wellington Star to recover a stolen Webley revolver with a distinctive bone grip. Spade finds the gun in a pawn shop, but when he arrives at the Star's yacht in the marina, he discovers the owner dead and becomes entangled in a murder investigation involving passion, betrayal, and hidden cargo.

San Francisco, 1948—primarily the Marina Yacht Basin and surrounding waterfront locations including a pawn shop and restaurant.

Characters: Sam Spade, Stella Starr, J. Wellington Star, Lieutenant Dundee, Mike McGinnis, Effie, Joe (pawn shop owner)

Listen for: The clever twist where Spade uses cunning investigative work and blackmail to navigate a web of lies, ultimately revealing the true murderer and uncovering a narcotics smuggling operation hidden aboard the yacht.

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.