THE FAT MAN: THE 19TH PEARL (JANUARY 21, 1946)

Okay.  So you've had this runaway hit with your novel The Thin Man (Redbook Magazine, December 1933; book publication the following month), followed by the first in a popular film franchise later that same year (and a television series still to come from 1957-59), and perhaps you are wondering how to cash in on that even further.  Why not create a radio show that riffs on the original title and call it The Fat Man?  Or perhaps not.  The show was developed by producer Mannie Rosenberg, and was supposedly based on a concept by Hammett.  While Hammett's involvement -- or lack of it -- may be in question, that did not stop Rosenberg from using the Hammett name.

The half-hour program ran on ABC Radio from January 21, 1946 to September 26, 1951.  It featured J. (Jack) Scott Smart as an overweight detective who was at first anonymous and then was named Brad Runyon, who could always be counted on to out-bamboozle the police.   

..."There he goes into that drugstore.  He's stepping on the scales."  [The clink of a coin dropping into the slot.]    "Weight:  237 pounds.  Fortune:  Danger.  Who-o-o-o is it?"  "The Fat Man."...

Smart also starred in a film version, The Fat Man (1951), with Clinton Sundberg, Rock Hudson, Julie London, and Jayne Meadows, with Emmett Kelley in his screen debut as an actor, and an uncredited Parley Baer.   Lloyd Bennett starred in an Australian radio version for 52 episodes from 1954-55.

Clark Andrews, who created Big Town, directed most of the ABC Radio shows, with Charles 
Powers helming the rest.  Most of the scripts were penned by mystery writer Richard Ellington; other contributors were Robert Sloane and Lawrence Klee.  Ed Begley co-starred as Sgt. O'Hara.  Other cast members included Betty Garde, Paul Stewart, Linda Watkins, Mary Pattern, Rolly Bester (wife of science fiction writer Alfred Bester), and Vicki Vola; Amzie Strickland played the Fat Man's girl friend, and Nell Harrison was his mother.

"The 19th Pearl" was the first episode of the show to be aired.  the Fat Man is at Grand Central Station when a beautiful woman comes up and gives him a hug and kisses him, apparently to distract a mysterious man who is following her.  This unusual short-lived encounter leads to pearls...and murder!

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSUIGL4B3sY