1962-08-19 Pages from a Diary

Jim Backus and his wife Henny star in one of the most bizarrely creative Suspense episodes that likely confused listeners greatly as they wondered what was going on. It is likely many did not listen to its conclusion when it was originally broadcast. That’s a real shame. A great advantage that modern day classic radio enthusiasts have is the ability to listen to broadcast multiple times. If something doesn’t sound familiar, rewinding and pondering can help dig deeper into storylines and dialogue, and especially the structure of the stories. This is one of those times. Classic radio enthusiast and researcher John Barker notes that “Pages from a Diary is an effective latter-day Suspense episode, and an interesting experiment in composing an entire episode out of narration (almost all of it from Jim Backus).”

Keith Scott, international voice actor, classic radio researcher, and author of the best Suspense log available (from which the cast information for all of the episodes in the Suspense Project are drawn) noted that “The episode is a psychodrama, with a hint of Norman Bates of Psycho.”

The idea of using a diary format may have been inspired by the 1959 short story, Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. The story first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction April 1959 edition. The narrative of the story is comprised of first person diary entries of the main character. When the award-winning short story was adapted for television on the United States Steel Hour in 1961, but the story was converted to a traditional stage play. The story was built out into a novel published in 1966, and then adapted as a traditional movie screenplay. It was released as Charly in 1968. (There are links to these resources after the cast information below).

Another Suspense episode, Return to Dust, broadcast on 1959-02-01, was not a diary in the usual sense, but the experiences of the main character are related in great detail as if it was in diary form. It is more likely that Algernon may have been the mind of the author Virginia Volland than Return would be. Algernon received much more attention and would have been more widely known. They key point is this: in Algernon we read the diary of a man whose mental and writing skills are minimal, changed surgically to have an IQ approaching 200. The skill of Keyes is the craft the writing style to reflect the change in intelligence and self-awareness, especially as the surgical effects diminish and return to where he started. In Pages from a Diary, we sense a man having mental problems and difficulty discerning reality. Unless listeners were clued into the plotline, it is likely they were confused in some way.

The broadcast begins with Henny Backus’ character reading from a diary for a brief time. She plays a wife who finds her late husband’s diary. She starts reading and then the performance goes solely into Jim’s voice for the entries. The entries are a stream of consciousness account of his last days. Some of the diary is annoying because of that style of writing, but it’s intriguing at the same time. That’s because Jim’s character has multiple personalities, so don’t be surprised. There’s even some repetition in the narrative. It can be a frustrating production to stick with, but give it a chance. You’re listening to a man’s psyche devolving, which you don’t realize for a little while in the story. It can be uncomfortable for the listener, but it’s also uncomfortable for him. On one hand he is feeling great enlightenment and on the other hand he is feeling great bewilderment. You know it can’t end well.

The main question of the story is that John and Janet were estranged, and Janet was never sure why. She reads the diary hoping to find out. The entries begin in April. We hear his voice as the many entries are read, but he is clearly having psychological problems. He says a variety of things that indicate the struggles: “My body is a battleground” and having “impulses and counterimpulses” and being “...torn in two directions. I am two people.”

By the 9:30 mark, he has decided to kill Janet. It is also around this time he starts talking about how he can send his vision to one place, in this case to see a movie, but he forgot to send his hearing along. The same for other aspects of his body. He sends his arms and hands to ring door bells and then to disappear. Are these delusions of actions or is he performing these actions and the delusion is that he does not remember what he does as a whole person. He repeats himself, meandering, we’re losing patience as listeners, but he thinks he’s making great discoveries. At one point he says “we both went out to see her,” meaning that his two personalities went to see her. He says at one point his hands and arms were sent to her, and they were sent to strangle her. It doesn’t end well: he is committing suicide at a railroad trestle walking on the tracks, but it’s at the same time Janet feels, in retrospect when she continues her narrative, that she had a dream of being strangled. And strangely, she has the bruises on her neck of an attempted strangulation. And John was found at his desk, not outside. The story ends with a lack of closure… did John ever really leave his desk? Did he ever really visit Janet? Did he ever go to that movie?

This is such a creatively different presentation that classic radio fans who want to introduce others to Suspense or the hobby should be sure not to suggest this as their first or early episode of their listening. It is so atypical of the series that they might not be able to have the context needed to put it into perspective.

One could dissect this script and production for hours and hours. It was by Virginia Volland, a famous Broadway costume designer. Volland started on the stage as an actor when she was in college and continued over the years, then began working behind the scenes. She worked in costume and wardrobe over the years eventually became a highly regarded costume designer for Broadway in the early 1950s. Her career, however, was ended by blindness in the early 1960s. She started taking courses in writing, and this script was one of her early efforts. At he time she was writing this script she was likely beginning work on what would become a very popular book for those interested in theater and behind the scenes stories from her experiences. It received very positive reviews. Designing Woman: The Art and Practice of Theatrical Costume Design was published by Doubleday in 1966. As best as can be learned from available genealogical resources, she passed away in 1968.

In deciphering this episode, John Barker commented on the fan forum Cobalt Club and offered additional observations:

It has one very strange element, though: an entire fifty seconds is lifted from the first half and repeated in the second half. In the complete recording posted today it starts at 6:25 with "I am two people..." and ends at 7:17 with "...the leader my body must follow." This entire segment is repeated from 14:26 to 15:18. It's not that Jim Backus is asked to perform the dialogue again; the recording, background music included, is simply repeated during the second half of the drama. It's possible that the lengthy narration was recorded in segments and then edited together later on...did someone goof and paste the segment in twice? Was it done intentionally to pad out the running time? It is possible to drift in and out listening to this one and I heard the episode several times before confirming to myself that there was in fact a repetition. (I remember thinking to myself on previous listens "Didn't he say this already?" but didn't bother to go back to confirm it).

Since there is no access to a script at this time, there is no real answer to the dialogue repetition. The character repeats himself in so very many ways throughout, that it could be planned. It could also be that similar dialogue was used but something went wrong with the audio. There are a few times in the recording where there is a sudden volume change, and it’s always at the beginning of a sentence, so it is not random. This might be one of the most heavily edited productions of the New York period. It’s not an easy script, and there are many opportunities to add or subtract nuance. These could have been very long recording sessions.

Keith Scott adds:

The episode is a psychodrama, with a hint of Norman Bates of Psycho. It seems to me that his diary notes represent his subconscious coming to terms with his darker impulses. And it appears to be a deliberate edit from the first speech, inserted later, as if he is trying to re-justify his murderous feelings to cover up any guilt. I don’t know whether he kills both the housekeeper and Janet...it’s one of those David Lynch-style stories that is left up to each listener to interpret.

John Barker also notes:

The music played underneath Henny Backus' opening and closing narration is from Alex North’s score to the 1956 film The Bad Seed. The particular piece used is Identity and it can be heard at YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txUhWn40I9Q&list=OLAK5uy_m6hIRqy3yY6lruPYSXy-wTABREVupjM7Y&index=9

Ethel Huber was the musical director for this episode and for the 1959-1962 New York Suspense productions. It is not known how the piece came to her attention. Bad Seed was a big movie in its time, and there is a good chance she saw it, and musical directors always tried to be familiar with scores and recordings of all types.

Suspense broadcast two significant psychological stories under Antony Ellis, I Saw Myself Running and his interpretation of A Friend to Alexander. His staging of the James Thurber story was much better that the prior ones of the series). This 1962 Suspense production is good, but might have benefited from Ellis' production insights and its larger budget (which was meager compared to earlier years, but definitely larger than 1962). Ellis also had a wider range of Hollywood sound effects and music personnel in his time than Fred Hendrickson had in the last days of the series in New York. It’s compelling radio drama, often dismissed because it was done late in Suspense history.

The program was originally scheduled for broadcast for August 26, 1962 but was changed to August 19. Recording of the program was done on Wednesday, August 8, 1962. The start and finish time of the session is not known.

Lost Ship was originally scheduled for this date, based on newspaper listings.

Jim and Henny Backus were very popular celebrities on both US coasts at this time. Jim was best known for his characterization of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo but also for the TV series I Married Joan where he played the husband of Joan Davis’ lead character. They Jim and Henny co-authored best-selling books about their various amusing exploits, Rocks on the Roof and What are You Doing after the Orgy? The latter can be accessed at The Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/whatareyoudoinga0000back

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620819

THE CAST

Jim Backus (John), Henny Backus (Janet)

* * *

Resources for Flowers for Algernon:

• History of the story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon

• Original short story: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction April 1959 edition https://archive.org/details/magazine-of-fantasy-science-fiction-1951-2008/1951-1959/1959/Magazine

• 1961 TV adaptation for United States Steel Hour as The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DfrzQ2Z8vY

• IMDb entry for the 1968 film Charly: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062794

•  

###

1962-08-12 The Silver Shoe

William Mason stars in a Robert Readick story about a heartbroken sailor, named “Joey,” who sees a young woman who strongly resembles his late fiancée. He sees her in a drug store, and he can’t believe his eyes. She’s just like Corrie in appearance, sound, and mannerisms. He follows her to the nearby Silver Shoe dance hall. He has a picture of Corrie and shows it around, but no one knows her. When he sits down, he spots her across the room. She says that he reminds her of someone, but can’t remember who. He knows she’s not Corrie, but he’s not that sure about it. She asks him to buy some dance tickets so they can spend some time together and not be bothered by the manager of the hall. The story moves from the present to flashbacks and back to the present. His mind drifts to the times he spent with Corrie, and the story eventually turns to his memories and not current reality. As the story develops it is clear something is amiss in reality, as no one knows this young woman. Joey presses them for help, insisting she was there. His pleading does nothing but annoy them. They remember him being alone at a table, and not with anyone else. He eventually ends up in sick bay back at his ship. The doctor reminds him of the stress that he has been under and his sense of loss. A key part of the story is a silver medallion that he gave to Corrie that suddenly appears again, years after he gave it to her.

This is a generally good story, and you sense the frustration and the loss that Joey has. The supernatural ending makes you wonder if the woman was Corrie or not. It is a predictable ending, but the flashbacks and underlying story make listening worthwhile.

This episode was originally planned to air on August 5, 1962.

This program was recorded on Wednesday, August 8, 1962. The start and finish time of the session is not known.

The only available recording of this episode is one from the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS). Its opening service announcement has been edited out, and “The Suspense March” at the close of the recording has been shortened.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620812

THE CAST

William Mason (Joey), Rita Lloyd (Muriel), Gertrude Warner (Corrie), Ralph Camargo (Counterman / Doctor), Toni Darnay (Corrie as a girl), Richard Keith (Bailey)

###

1962-08-05 Run Faster

Jimmy Blaine stars in a Lois Landauer script about a former Korean War pilot named “Dave” who is bored by his job in a control tower at a remote emergency landing field. There’s just not enough activity to keep him interested in his work compared to his military flying. As the saying goes, “be careful what you ask for, you might just get it.” He certainly got more than he bargained for when a commercial flight has lost contact with traffic control in foggy conditions and was running out of fuel. Dave finally had contact and was working to guide the pilot to a safe landing. Complicating matters was that the control tower was “visited” by a strange man who said he had car problems. Dave tries to help him out by explaining where he can get gas and a tow. The man is odd, becomes irritated, so irritated that Dave looked up a number in the phone book, that he rips the phone book in half with his big, strong hands. (Remember that, because when you find out later that he’s a strangler who escaped from a mental hospital, that’s supposed to send your heart racing). The odd man leaves. While Dave is helping the plane to land, the news that the man was a strangler starts to come into play. He has to warn his wife, but there are phone problems (this is the land line era, not the cellular era), and the phone lines to Dave’s home are out. The phone operator seems overwhelmed. With the phone lines being out, Dave realizes that he let slip to the strangler where he lived in relation to the gas pump and the landing field. Tense, very tense. The plane lands, and Dave rushes home. The strangler is there, but his quick thinking wife, realized the danger, and kept him at bay. She figured out that the man was drawn to her scarf. He was not interested to use it as a means to strangle her. When he held the scarf, a calmness came over him, as if he was longing for the peace of living in a normal home with people he loves, rather than the institution. Dave becomes introspective and realizes that a dull life at the air field might be pretty good. Really. Yes, that’s the story.

Lois Landauer wrote for radio and television in the 1950s and 1960s.

This program was recorded on Thursday, July 26, 1962. The session began at 1:30pm and concluded at 5:00pm.

There are two surviving network aircheck recordings. There is a complete aircheck with its opening commercial that is in very low quality sound. The edited network aircheck is preferred. It is in better sound, but the commercial has been removed. There are other defects in the recording but it is very listenable.

This is the second of two appearances on Suspense for Jimmy Blaine. His military career mirrored that of the character he played in this episode. In WW2, he piloted a B-17 and flew twenty-five missions, mainly to attack Nazi submarine bases along the coasts of France. He was later transferred to Paris and was made commander of the Armed Forces Network station there. He passed away in 1967 at age 42, of a heart attack.

* * *

Just a couple of days after this broadcast, the 1962-08-08 edition of Variety announced the CBS was cancelling Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620805

THE CAST

Bill Lipton (Dink), Jimmy Blaine (Dave), Roger DeKoven (Strangler), Ted Pavell (Hank), Guy Repp (Sheriff), Jimsey Somers (Christine, telephone operator), Bob Readick (Pilot of Mercury Airlines flight 535)

###

CLICK HERE for the episode 1962-05-27 That Real Crazy Infinity...

The blogpost is not available at this moment. Access it at The Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/TSP620527

1962-07-29 Weekend at Glebes

Raymond Edward Johnson opens this Elspeth Eric script about a young American boy at an elite British boarding school. This story could be what might be known today as a syrupy “Hallmark Channel” TV movie where a widowed mother is helped by her child to find true love and marriage once more. Oh, how sweet. This story has an interesting twist to it, but Suspense is the only place where this story could have been presented at this time. It would have been much more appropriate for a series such as Romance or another “lighter” series a few years earlier. That’s not a choice any more.

Johnson plays the school’s headmaster. Mrs. Trowbridge was recently widowed, and is the mother of a twelve-year-old student, Wallace. She visits the school to see her son. The headmaster is a bit confused by this. The records about Wallace are missing. The headmaster recalls, however, that Wallace went to his parents, Lord and Lady Pancoast in Glebes. This is very strange, and obviously a mistake. The story plays out in an interesting way. (Today, Wallace could only do this by hacking into the school’s records and their security system, and editing their video files).

She visits the Pancoasts in Glebes, where Wallace is staying. He keeps referring to his true mother, Mrs. Trowbridge as “Nurse” when he sees her. (If this was real Suspense, she would have grabbed him, threatened everyone to stand back, and get into a waiting getaway car. But, instead…) She meets Lord Pancoast and he gives the full narrative about what is really going on. He is very calm about it all. He explains that he and his wife had lost two sons in the war. Lady Pancoast and Wallace are playing out a fantasy that she is his mother and he is her son. They are doing their best to keep the fantasy up because it fills emotional needs that both of them have.

Lord Pancoast continues to explain that Wallace orchestrated the entire deception. The boy felt abandoned and lonely due to his mother's attempts to hide his existence from a new love interest, William Hines. Mrs. Trowbridge was widowed, and wanted a fresh start. She explained to Hines that Wallace was actually her late sister’s son. Wallace met Lady Pancoast in Kensington Gardens, playing out a Peter Pan fantasy that evolved into her believing he was her son and himself believing she was his mother. Lord Pancoast explains that Wallace stole his own school records to solidify his break from his past. But curiously, Wallace and his friend in America, “Billy,” have been corresponding. Mrs. Trowbridge said he had no such friend, but Lord Pancoast explains that the friend was actually his mother’s love interest, William Hines, himself!

Wallace, acting on his own initiative, calls William Hines in New York, inviting him to Glebes. He will be visiting Glebes to eventually marry Mrs. Trowbridge. The fantasy that Wallace created and Lady Pancoast participated in was ultimately to have his mother be free to start a new life in a new marriage. There was deception all around, on the part of Wallace, the Pancoasts, and Mrs. Trowbridge. Even Mr. Hines kept his true knowledge of Wallace and their correspondence secret. The fantasies and the secrets are about to come to a romantic end, and perhaps Wallace, the Pancoasts, and the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Hines can live happily ever after. (Fade to Hallmark Channel commercial break).

The location of the story is often misspelled as “Gleebes.” “Glebes” is a British English word that relates to land owned by a parish to support its pastor. In this title, it relates to most any building that was built on such land.

In the story, it is explained that Wallace first meets Lady Pancoast at Kensington Gardens, a real place. It is one of eight Royal Parks in London. There is a Peter Pan statue there. The book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens can be found at Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26998/26998-h/26998-h.htm

Wallace was originally planned to be played by Alan Howard and was replaced by Tommy Leap. Twelve-year-old Tommy Leap was appearing on Broadway in The Sound of Music as “Kurt von Trapp” at the time of this broadcast. He worked on television in 1963. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1967, when attempting to save his younger sister from wreckage of a car accident they were in. When he got to her, the vehicle burst into flames, leaving no survivors.

This is Raymond Edward Johnson’s final appearance on Suspense, and his next-to-last known appearance in a radio drama. His last radio appearance would be in Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar on 1962-08-12 in The Oldest Gag Matter. Johnson was probably diagnosed with multiple sclerosis around this time. He became a favorite visitor to Friends of Old Time Radio conventions through the years, offering dramatic readings from a wheelchair in the 1970s, and many years later from a hospital bed that was arranged for him at the events. Johnson passed away at age 90, in 2001. He was most famous as “Raymond, Your Host” on Inner Sanctum. He left for WW2 service and had to give up the role.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620729

THE CAST

Raymond Edward Johnson (Headmaster), Tommy Leap (Wallace), Neil Fitzgerald (Burton), Christopher Cary (Lord Pancoast), Hillary Holden (Lady Pancoast), Grayson Hall (Mrs. Trowbridge)

###

1962-07-22 The Next Murder

Joe Julian and Lawson Zerbe star in a Joseph Cochran script about two strangers who have an interest in the crime of murder. Julian plays Fred Spung, a drifting man who is renting a room in town for a few days. Lawson Zerbe plays John Cotter, a strange man, who says his interest in murder is getting down to the core reasons why a murder is committed. He believes the usual reasons of passion, money, and the other usual ones, have much deeper reasons for the act. He has studied 98 cases, and is looking for two more to make it 100. He has done a detailed study of each of them and has constructed “tables” of data to that have predictive power to understand the crimes. The two strangers find the topic so interesting, Cotter accepts an invitation to visit Spung at his room and stay there.

While they were at the diner, Spung strikes up a conversation with Amy, a waitress. Their flirtatious banter results in her agreeing to a date to see a movie. You know that with two rootless men with an interest in homicide this is likely to play out in some important manner in the story.

Spung and Cotter’s discussions at the hotel room take an ominous tone the more Cotter talks. It is very clear he is a very odd and knows a little too much about his subject. They start talking about a murder in Springdale, and it starts to sound like Cotter might have done it. The gives Spung the creeps!

Spung and Amy finally have their date and it involves a walk in the park. She was skeptical of him, but they seem to be warming up to each other. It’s warm and she helps loosen his tie. Spung’s mind seems to get into a different gear, and he takes off the tie, and he starts strangling her. He blacks out, and when he comes back to consciousness, Amy is gone and his necktie is missing. He knows he has to leave town, quickly. He’s not sure what happened, but that it was bad, and he might have killed Amy. He heads back to the room, where it is very dark, and it seems Cotter is asleep in his bed. He thinks he can sneak out quietly. He realizes something is wrong when he comes upon a knife and blood on the floor. A guest in the hotel, who had complained about the noise that Spung and Cotter had made before, barges in to complain again. He sees Spung with the knife and blood on his hands. Spung panics and the roomer yells for someone to call the police. Spung ends up at the police. They accuse him of killing Cotter, but he says he did not do it, and that he was scared of him because he was “nuts.” It becomes clear that Cotter committed suicide. The police start asking where Spung was in the evening, and they are fishing for information about a murder in the park. In the closing scenes, the story wraps up and we find out what cases Cotter had for numbers 99 and 100.

The story is occasionally tedious, where you wonder what the point of certain scenes or dialogue might be, even if you know where it is headed. For the New York Suspense, however, it is one of the more interesting ones, but could have been done better at an earlier time in the series.

The program was recorded on Thursday, June 28, 1962. The session began at 1:30pm and was completed at 5:00pm.

This episode is often in sub-par sound, but this recording is much better, and provides a better listening experience.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620722

THE CAST

Joe Julian (Spong), Lawson Zerbe (Cotter), Ted Osborne [aka Reynold Osborn] (Man on p.6 of the script [another tenant of the hotel]), Elizabeth Lawrence (Amy the waitress), William Redfield (Cop)

###

1962-07-15 Snow on Sixty-Six

Jimmy Blaine and Grayson Hall star in a William N. Robson script about some tourists who want to go to a small town to get away from it all. They are bullied by a frequently intoxicated young man in a hot rod who likes playing dangerous driving games on the highway and making a ruckus as they drive along unfamiliar country roads.

Charlie and Flo are a generally happy couple, taking some time away in the desolate town of Red Mountain, Arizona. While they are on the road, a young hodrodder is taunting them with his horn, driving slow, making them pass, and then passing them, all actions that are the opposite of safe driving. The driver, Leroy, enjoys scaring tourists in the small town, especially with his loud horn that sounds like and is as loud as the train that regularly passes through Red Mountain. Charlie and Flo stop at a local restaurant, and the driver walks in on them and gives them some threatening talk. He might be drunk. Charlie decides to report him to the police, but they’re not interested in doing anything about him. Everyone in town seems to know him and believe he’s not a danger, saying he’s “just a big kid.” Charlie gets very frustrated when he realizes that Leroy let the air out of their tires. He tries the police again, but they are intent on inaction. It’s pretty clear they don’t like tourists complaining about the residents. When Charlie and Flo go outside of the hotel, Leroy starts honking the hot rod’s horn. Flo is always surprised by the horn and sometimes mistakes the train coming through town as Leroy’s horn. (NOTE: remember that) The police officer talks to Leroy and offers to let him sleep off whatever intoxication he has in a cell. The next morning, Charlie and Flo are driving back, happy to leave that little town. It’s snowing, and they can only drive 20 miles per hour because of the slippery road and the poor visibility. Behind them is Leroy, with one bright headlight on… but Leroy is sleeping it off in a cell… so that’s not a car, and it’s not Leroy, so it must be the train passing through town. Charlie and Flo don’t make it across the tracks.

The script is somewhat about road safety, similar to what Auto-Lite used to do for one episode per year of its sponsorship. There’s no safety message in the story, but had it been in the Auto-Lite period, it could have been used that way.

The Robson story includes the name of “Red Mountain,” a reference to his earlier script that was an allegory about his CBS Blacklist exile, Night on Red Mountain that was first broadcast as Nobody Ever Quits. There is a volcanic structure referred to as “Red Mountain” about 25 miles northwest of Flagstaff, Arizona.

The number “66” is spelled out in the title on the script cover as “sixty-six” to ensure that it was read by the announcer in the way desired, rather than saying “six-six.”

The program was recorded on Tuesday, June 26, 1962. The script cover does not indicate the session start or conclusion times.

The surviving recording is missing its introduction and begins mid-way in a Parliament commercial. There have been copies of this episode in circulation with “patched” opens, where a collector who thought they were restoring the program cleverly added the opening segment from a different episode. These recordings can be identified because they are missing the announcement of the episode title and a different Parliament commercial was added.

In the close of the broadcast, Stuart Metz mispronounces the name of the writer of the next week’s episode. He says “Joseph Corcoran” when he should have said “Joseph Cochran.” It is not known if it is his error or if the script had the mistake. It is surprising it was not corrected because the program was pre-recorded.

“Flo” was played by Grayson Hall, who was appearing on Broadway in the David Merrick musical Subways are for Sleeping. She played “Myra Blake.” The show had a big cast that also included Carol Lawrence, Orson Bean, and Valerie Harper. (The underlying story of the play was a Harper’s article about homeless people in New York’s subways. It became an episode of CBS Radio Workshop on 1956-08-30). Hall also appeared in almost 500 episodes of the television series Dark Shadows. Her big movie role was as a supporting actress in 1965’s The Night of the Iguana for which she received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. She was very busy in supporting television and movie roles for many projects.

Jimmy Blaine worked his way up through radio and television in Kansas City and New York. He was mainly an announcer, but was also a singer and an actor. He was a singer for the early 1950s television show Stop the Music. This is the first of two Suspense appearances. He passed away in 1967 at age 42, of a heart attack.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620715

THE CAST

Jimmy Blaine (Charlie), Grayson Hall (Flo), Gwen Davies (waitress / telephone operator), James Dmitri (Leroy), Bill Mason (police officer), Sam Raskyn (mechanic, motel manager)

###