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.”
Jim and Henny Backus were very popular celebrities on both US coasts at this time. Casting them for this episode was similar to the "casting-against-type" strategy that was used so effectively in the heyday of Suspense in the 1940s. 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
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.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620819
THE CAST
Jim Backus (John), Henny Backus (Janet)
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Resources for
Flowers for Algernon:
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