1954-04-05 Grand Theft

David Niven stars in an E. Jack Neuman story about jewels and insurance fraud. He plays an insurance appraiser who arranges a (supposedly) foolproof plan to collect insurance on a fraudulent claim. He takes out an $18,000 insurance policy (more than $200,000 in US$2024) on some false jewelry which, he says, has been in the family for 60 years. (If it never existed, it can never be found!) A short time later, he reports the jewels stolen. An insurance investigator conducts a routine examination of the case. As part of his plan, the fraudster gets his girlfriend’s elderly grandmother to corroborate his story that the jewels are family heirlooms. Just when the investigator is about convinced the theft actually occurred, a strange twist of fate leads to a surprising outcome. His pattern of appraising followed by robberies is finally detected… and the scheme falls to pieces… He’ll not be going to travel to Paris like he was planning to…

This is not the most fascinating or most exciting of episodes. It’s mainly petty thievery stuff, with no real big score in the heists like a famous jewel that would add some intrigue to the plotline.

The surviving network recording is complete. The second half of an Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS#482) has survived; the first half has not been found at this time.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP540405

ALTERNATIVE DOWNLOAD LINK FOR FLAC and mp3
while Internet Archive recovers from its DDoS attack
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/0v5wm7m9io0z6/Suspense_-_Grand_Theft

The program can be streamed at YouTube starting at 9am US ET on Oct 15, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJaXF-AwtUs

THE CAST

DAVID NIVEN (Ben Bentley), Mary Jane Croft (Maude), Florence Walcott (Grandma Mullin), Truda Marson (Mrs. Payne), Paula Winslowe (Mrs. Prescott), Vic Perrin (Pawn Shop Clerk / Detective Ivers), Joseph Kearns (Mr. Coombes), Larry Thor (Narrator)

COMMERCIAL: Tom Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer)

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1954-03-29 Somebody Help Me

Cornel Wilde plays a smooth-talking killer whose resentment over rejection by his ex-wife leads him to kill a young woman. His temper leads him to various encounters over a parking space and in a night club. When the young woman he picked up spends most of her time dancing with another man, he is fuming, and the story reaches its murderous peak in parked car when he tries to kiss her and she pushes him away.

The story moves and seems to stall and you wonder if you can listen to its unsavory foundation. Wilde’s character is such a turn off, a nasty manipulator, that listening patience can be tested if it continues. Stick with it. The broadcast takes an intriguing turn when a narrative emerges with a focus on police efforts to catch him using forensics and diligent investigation. It reaches a satisfactory conclusion, and you get to enjoy Wilde’s fine performance.

Morton Fine and David Friedkin wrote the script, and there is an interesting credit at the end of the broadcast. This story was “based on research by” Edward D. Radin, according to the announcement. It may or may not have become a Radin short story or a novel, but Fine, Friedkin, and Lewis recognized him for some type of unidentified but important contribution to their script. CBS publicity stated that the story was drawn from police records of an actual murder. Radin was one of the most respected crime writers of the day and was a founder of the Mystery Writers of America. He won Edgar awards in 1947 and 1950. He started as a police and court reporter for a Long Island newspaper, and then started a very successful freelance writing career. His most notable book about Lizzie Borden, published in 1961. He may have given Fine and Friedkin a “heads up” on something he was working on.

The drama portion was recorded on Tuesday, March 23, 1954. Rehearsal began at 3:00pm, and recording commenced at 7:30pm. The session closed at 8:00pm.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP540329R

ALTERNATIVE DOWNLOAD LINK FOR FLAC and mp3
while Internet Archive recovers from its DDoS attack
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/mubjioptb3lkp/Suspense_-_Somebody_Help_Me

The program can be streamed at YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZbUpan9z4Q

THE CAST

CORNEL WILDE (Eddie Franklin), Mary Jane Croft (Shirley Franklin), Cathy Lewis (Eileen Hall), Paula Winslowe (Lois Anderson), Charlotte Lawrence (Toby the Car Hop), Larry Thor (Narrator), Hy Averback (Yardley / Ryan), Sam Edwards (Bernie / Gibson), Joe Kearns (Tomasino), Charles Calvert (Gilchrist)

COMMERCIAL: Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), unknown actor (Jim, the Chrysler owner)

GUEST FOR THE AUTO-LITE CHARITY PROMOTION: Mortimer Brandt, representing the National Cancer Foundation has a message designating his charity for an Auto-Lite contribution. That organization may be better known as Cancer Care. In the 1950s its focus was not on cancer research, but the financial care and counseling of cancer patients and their families. It was not related to the American Cancer Society, which became a much bigger and better known organization through the years.

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1954-03-22 The Guilty Always Run

Tyrone Power makes his only appearance on the series in a Morton Fine and David Friedkin script. He plays a young man on a Southern California vacation where he and his wife can enjoy surfing together. Unfortunately, she breaks her hip in a fall from a surfboard at the start of the trip. She has to stay in their room, but she tells him it’s okay for him to go surfing alone. It is then that he meets Karen, who pretends she can't carry her surfboard from her car to the beach, and they strike up an acquaintance the seems like it is on a path to a romantic fling. Power's character tries to brush her off, and that leads to trying to cut off the relationship in an ugly scene, witnessed by a bartender. A few hours later she is murdered, her body found floating in seaweed. The husband is innocent, but knows he is regarded as the only logical suspect. A close friend, played by William Conrad, offers to give him an alibi (Really? The story gets predictable from here). The bartender gets involved in the story as he tries to blackmail the husband (Doesn’t he know that being a bartender is like the seal of a confessional or patient-client privilege? How dare he!). It may be a predictable story, but this one has a certain delight in letting it play out and claiming you figured it out and you knew it all along.

The dramatic portion of the story was recorded on Tuesday, March 9, 1954. Rehearsal began at 2:00pm and the tape session started at 6:30pm, concluding at 7:00pm.

Two recordings have survived, and the network recording is the significantly better of the two. The other recording is from a release by the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) from sometime in the 1980s. That recording has some distortions and narrow range.

This episode was Tyrone Power’s sole Suspense appearance. He had performed on radio many times through the years on movie-related programs and variety shows. Frederic Ziv cast him in the lead of a successful 1950s syndicated radio series, Freedom USA, which dramatized the backroom negotiations and personal and political life of a US Senator. The Power story ends tragically, having a fatal heart attack while filming a movie in Spain in 1958. He was noted for his military service in WW2 and his many successful movies. Wikipedia has a summary of his life and career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrone_Power

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP540322

ALTERNATIVE DOWNLOAD LINK FOR FLAC and mp3
while Internet Archive recovers from its DDoS attack
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/axca1wnxihttd/Suspense_-_The_Guilty_Always_Run

The program can be streamed at YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGi98gxkUxk

THE CAST

TYRONE POWER (Jeff Marlowe), Cathy Lewis (Janey Marlowe), William Conrad (Lou Foster), Charlotte Lawrence (Karen Lawrence / Phyllis George), Frank Nelson (Norm Sloan), Jack Kruschen (Detective Anders), Larry Thor (Narrator)

COMMERCIAL: Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Jerry Hausner (Marty, the Kaiser dealer)

GUEST FOR THE AUTO-LITE CHARITY PROMOTION: The charity headliner this episode is a five-star Admiral William Halsey. He was the fleet admiral in the Pacific during WW2. He was very well known by the public, and was a choice of the National Mental Health Association’s fundraising. He had just taken this position for the 1954 campaign. His main job was to find big corporate sponsors. Since so many of the top executives and their staff members had served in the military, he was a very good choice. You don’t want to disobey orders from a five star admiral, do you? His long career is detailed at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Halsey_Jr.

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1954-03-15 The Girl in Car 32

Victor Mature plays Detective Mahoney, assigned to watch a gangster’s girl friend on a transcontinental train trip. As part of the surveillance, it was arranged for him to have a seat just across the aisle from the girl, Jenny Johnson. His job is to strike up an acquaintance to find out the whereabouts of gangster Fritzie Hollister and learn whether he intends to meet her. The girl seems so sweet and naive that he simply cannot believe that she is the gangster’s girl. He realizes en route that he is falling in love with her. But just when he is almost convinced that there has been a mistake in identities (spoiler alert: he’s right), Hollister boards the train and takes a seat right next to Jenny. We later learn that Jenny was a friend of the girlfriend… and there’s something about the luggage she brought with her for the trip.

The story is by Thomas Walsh, a police officer turned writer, and it appeared in The Saturday Evening Post 1953-11-07 edition. Walsh also wrote the original story behind the 1948-12-30 episode Break-Up. The script was adapted by E. Jack Neuman.

William Conrad plays “Danes,” a very unlikable law officer. He comes on board like a drunk and tries to sit next to Jenny, and lets Mature’s character act like a hero when he shoos him away. This “breaks the ice” for him to start chatting with her. When Conrad does it, you know he’s a cop, so when he meets with Mahoney elsewhere on the train, you’re not surprised at all.

The end of the story is a product of its time, with a passing glance to a romantic ending. It is an awkward ending because with all of the disruption of the trip and the mistaken identity, it seems like an impossibility. It’s clear that the detective is smitten with Jenny. To modern ears and sensibilities his plan to travel with her, whether she wants him to or not, might even border on stalking or harassment. But, they wanted a sense of “happily ever after,” it seems. If they do go together, he’ll be apologizing for at least half of the trip before they feel comfortable enough to even chat about the weather.

The story was used on the Suspense television series on 1954-07-06. The teleplay was by Raphael Hayes. The cast included Edie Adams, Gene Barry, and Grant Richards. No kinescope is known to survive.

The drama portion of the broadcast was rehearsed and recorded on Sunday, March 7, 1954. Rehearsal began at 11:00am and recording commenced at 3:30pm. The session ended at 4:00pm.

Two recordings of this broadcast have survived. Both the network and an Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS#479). They are each very good recordings. The AFRS recording has not been in circulation before and has a very good crisp sound, lighter than the network one. If you want the full Auto-Lite experience, choose the network recording. The AFRS recording is a bit better.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP540315
(currently in site maintenance; will return soon)

Alternative link to the recordings, available now:
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/fedlhd0yngs5l/Suspense_-_Girl_in_Car_32

and the episode can be streamed at YouTube:
https://youtu.be/3Y2ejJPop7M?si=jvIzOFp68RKji-w8
(available after 9:00am US Eastern Time)

THE CAST

VICTOR MATURE (Bright Eyes Mahoney), Cathy Lewis (Genevieve Johnson), William Conrad (Sergeant Dane), Herb Butterfield (The Sheriff / Newsboy), Joseph Kearns (Fritzie / Caller), Roy E. Glenn (The Porter), John Dehner (Charlie Buker), Larry Thor (Narrator)

COMMERCIAL: Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), unknown actor (Jim, the Packard dealer)

GUEST FOR THE AUTO-LITE CHARITY PROMOTION: E. Roland Harriman, Chairman of The American Red Cross. The Harriman family’s wealth came from railroad investments in the late 1800s. They were prominent family in New York (there is a town named after them) and became active in philanthropy, finance, politics and government. His brother Averell was a much better known figure. Roland joined the American Red Cross in a number of high-level positions in management and fund-raising. He was appointed by President Truman to succeed General George Marshall in 1950, and was reappointed in 1953 by President Eisenhower. He was active in many philanthropic organizations.

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1954-03-08 Circumstantial Terror

Ronald Reagan makes his second and final appearance on the series as an innocent man who finds himself arrested for murder. An argument over a pack of cigarettes sets up a chain of circumstantial evidence that threatens to send him to prison and possibly the electric chair. Reagan’s character is a short-tempered young man who gets into a verbal beef with a liquor store owner. The proprietor doesn't want to stop talking to a friend long enough to get the impatient young man a package of cigarettes. Later, Reagan's character realizes how wrong he was and is embarrassed over the incident. He walks back to the store to apologize and buy the cigarettes. Just as he arrives, he hears a shot and sees a man rush out of the store, leap into a car, and drive away. He runs into the store, sees that the proprietor is has been murdered. As the police get involved, he finds himself under arrest as the murderer. The dead man's friend, present during the argument with the victim, is a powerful witness against him. Even his own public defender attorney admits that his case looks pretty hopeless. Hoping to get a sympathetic jury selection, he tells the attorney he sees the killer in the jury pool! He demands his lawyer to make certain that the man is selected as a juror! But how does he turn his situation around? He runs away from the courtroom… surprises his lawyer at his office... and in their secret meeting they realize who the real culprit is… and he goes to confront him.

This is another interesting story by sound effects artist Ross Murray. Howard McNear is marvelous as the public defender.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP540308

ALTERNATIVE DOWNLOAD LINK FOR FLAC and mp3
while Internet Archive recovers from its DDoS attack
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/jc4jo6rg6ps2l/Suspense_-_Circumstantial_Terror

THE CAST

RONALD REAGAN (Frank Thompson), Charles Calvert (Sam), Clayton Post (Eddie), Kurt Martell (Officer / Voice), Howard McNear (Ernest Gibbons), Vic Perrin (Charles the Killer), Hal Gerard (Irv), Larry Thor (Narrator)

COMMERCIAL: Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), unknown actor (Charlie, the Nash dealer)

GUEST FOR THE AUTO-LITE CHARITY PROMOTION: General George Kennedy, President of the Arthritis and Rheumatism Foundation. The Foundation was relatively young, founded in 1948. General Kennedy became the president in 1951. He was commander of the Allied Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific area during WW2. He was head of Strategic Air Command until 1948, and retired from the Air Force in 1951. The organization is now known as the Arthritis Foundation.

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1954-03-01 The Barking Death

William Powell returns to the series in a topic that likely sent shudders down the spines of every parent and pet owner in its day: the threat of rabies infection. It is hard to imagine such a time because rabies are rarely known today. But in the 1950s, vaccination requirements for pets were only beginning to be implemented. Rabies was a very serious disease. In 1950, for example, there were 4,979 cases of rabies reported among dogs, and 18 reported among human populations. Over the years, the vaccination campaigns worked. There were fewer than two human cases per year in the 1960s and 1970s and fewer than one case per year during the 1980s. By the time this show aired, rabies cases were already way down, but the newsworthiness about the infection and the need for vaccination did not calm down until years and decades later.

In 1954, this plotline was plausible and very concerning. Morton Fine and David Friedkin had no problem making the story “real” just by reading the newspaper. At the opening of the program, Larry Thor promised “a story based on fact,” and that’s what listeners got. Fine and Friedkin selected the news items they could build a compelling plot around, and it developed into a reasonably good episode.

The story opens with the discovery of a burglary in the laboratory of the county health officer. Thieves have stolen some valuable microscopes and, oddly enough, a dog which had been inoculated with rabies virus. If the disease takes effect in the dog, anyone bitten by the animal, and not receiving prompt treatment, will surely die. As the police comb the city for the missing dog that has a purple streak painted down its back, a boy is hiding the dog in his garage, afraid to tell his mother for fear she'll make him give it up.

The working title of this episode was “The Deadly Rabbit” which likely means that the original animal with rabies in the story may have been a rabbit rather than a dog. There was a news story in September 1953 about a Council Bluffs, Iowa boy who had been bitten by a rabbit. The rabbit escaped after chewing through a leash. The audience has a much greater affinity for dogs as so many more households own them... which makes the story hit closer to home much more than a rabbit could. There is no indication that Fine and Friedkin knew about or used that Council Bluffs news item. It’s also practical: rabbits don’t make noise. Dogs do. Dogs work better in radio shows.

There were plenty of rabies stories that they could have seen in the news in California. The public debate about the efficacy and ethics of the Pasteur treatment could have inspired development of their storyline as well.

There is another factor for how this story could rattle listeners. The temptation for sensationalizing rabies stories was significant for reporters. Most cases of rabies were in children because of their innocent outdoor play and contact with dogs and other wild animals such as squirrels and rabbits. The combination of childhood innocence and such a dangerous and mysterious disease could be used by unscrupulous reporters to stoke fears among readers.

Another aspect of the story is stolen microscopes. There were a few stories in 1953 such robberies. Like in the script, one man posed as a doctor to steal microscopes and moved across the country stealing them along his way. Portland, Oregon police actually returned a microscope to a Pennsylvania college. A different pilfering of microscopes from Texas Christian University did end up being pawned, and police were notified. Microscope thefts were occurring around the country from physician offices, labs, and colleges. They were usually returned. The microscopes were targets for theft because they were worth more than $5500 in approximate US$2024 value.

Night Beat had a very effective story involving rabies on 1951-06-08. In Search for Fred it is claimed that a man has been bitten by a rabid dog but doesn't know it and there is a city-wide search to find him. It is a very good story by Larry Marcus and is highly recommended. It also reflects the great concern about human contraction of the disease with great drama and a surprise ending.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP540301

Alternative link to the FLAC file if needed
https://www.mediafire.com/file/glb87m7l4zcdft3/Suspense_1954-03-01_The_Barking_Death.flac/file

THE CAST

WILLIAM POWELL (Paul the Doctor), Joe Kearns (Joe the Lab Man / Dr. Kremer), Hy Averback (Paul the Police Operator / Lieutenant Stevens), Junius Matthews (Cliff Loomis), Jack Kruschen (Harry Wood / Roberts), Paula Winslowe (Mrs. Rokey), Ted Bliss (Collins the Newspaperman / Phil), Dick Beals (Peter Barrett), Jeane Wood (Mrs. Stone), Larry Thor (Narrator)

COMMERCIAL: Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), unknown actor (Studebaker man)

GUEST FOR THE AUTO-LITE CHARITY PROMOTION: William J. Ziegler Jr., was President of the American Foundation of the Blind. He was adopted into a wealthy Iowa family when he was five years old. The family had a history of generous charity and philanthropy. Ziegler went to Columbia and Harvard Universities. He served on may boards of directors. It was his mother, Matilda, who published a magazine for the blind (financed by the Ziegler family) and worked with the American Foundation for the Blind. When she died, he took over those positions. It was Helen Keller who brought the organization great attention in its early years. Ziegler passed away about four years after this broadcast, at age 66.

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1954-02-22 Murder by Jury

Herbert Marshall stars in a courtroom drama as the prosecutor attempting to convict a man of killing his wife. The husband testifies of a dream in which he is clutching a huge snake to avoid being bitten; he awakens from the dream to find he had just strangled his wife. Is he guilty of murder? The husband man has several excellent witnesses to bolster his story of the vivid nightmare. His sister recalls that he almost strangled her one night when they were children while under the spell of this very same dream. Another witness testifies that she narrowly escaped being strangled in the same manner after she and the defendant had fallen asleep while lounging on the beach. The prosecutor tries unsuccessfully to shake the stories of these defense witnesses. He is convinced that the defense is phony, that the husband committed premeditated murder. Marshall’s character sees his case crumbling before him, and the husband is found innocent. The wife’s brother is inconsolable with the verdict, yelling at the court about this miscarriage of justice.

The prosecutor persists after the trial, knowing he has an apparently impossible task of eventually proving the husband’s guilt. There is nothing he can find that can initiate another trial. He pieces some information and realizes the husband’s plot. He increased the value of the insurance policy on the wife. The husband was planning this for years, including the cultivating of a special witness who was also aware of “his dream.” He made anonymous monthly payments to her, using a pseudonym, continuing them as long as she agreed to keep the mysterious benefactor aware of her whereabouts. He knew he might possibly need her testimony in a trial, should it come to that, which it did.

The prosecutor never gets a chance to bring the murdering husband to justice. (Spoiler alert… mentioned here because the dialogue starting at 25:45 makes it easy miss as key details are delivered as mostly matter-of-fact without fanfare...) The husband seems to have jumped out of a hotel window in a suicide or an accident involving a broken balcony rail. It just so happens that the distraught brother of the murdered wife, happened to be staying in the room next door.

The story was by Michael Gilbert and was adapted by Antony Ellis. Gilbert was a lawyer in England who wrote on the train commuting back and forth. He was a very prolific and successful author. His legal and justice system background was often used in the stories, as was this one. He started writing professionally in 1947. This story was published in Britain in 1951, and was picked up in the January 1954 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine which is likely where Ellis (or Lewis or both) got the idea of adapting for Suspense. In print, Gilbert had a favorite character, Chief Inspector Hazelrigg, but the Ellis adaptation changed it to Marshall as the head of the prosecution’s case. Wikipedia has information about Gilbert’s life and career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gilbert

At 15:30 there is an exchange with Miss Mason where she is asked her age. It is an amusing exchange to modern ears. It fits in with the old politeness of “never asking a woman her age.”

The company highlighted in the Auto-Lite spot is Wyllis Motors. The company created the “Jeep,” is its main legacy after many financial problems, auto industry takeovers and ownership changes.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP540222

THE CAST

HERBERT MARSHALL (Peyton), Joseph Kearns (MacCrae), Ben Wright (Edward Mason), William Johnstone (Inspector / Foreman), Herb Butterfield (Judge), Richard Peel (Hector Easterday / Riegel), Norma Varden (Miss Mason), Betty Harford (Amy Burke), Keith McConnell (Director of Prosecutions), Larry Thor (Narrator)

COMMERCIAL: Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Dorothy Collins? (Miss Drake)

GUEST FOR THE AUTO-LITE CHARITY PROMOTION: Mark H. Harrington, President of the National Tuberculosis Association thanks Auto-Lite for its spotlight on charitable causes. He had a long and distinguished legal career while serving in local and national capacities for charitable organizations in Colorado in the early years of his career and Connecticut in the later years. He developed a personal interest in tuberculosis because his wife contracted the disease in the mid-1930s. The association was famous for its “Christmas Seals” campaigns. As tuberculosis came under control, the organization revised its name to become the American Lung Association and all related diseases. He passed away in 1974.

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