1942-12-22 Two Sharp Knives

Two Sharp Knives was a 1934 short story by Dashiell Hammett, known for creating the character Sam Spade. The idea that one mystery writing legend is adapting the work of another legend, Hammett, is one of the curious convergences that can happen on Suspense.

It’s an interesting story where police are tricked into holding an innocent man in jail and he dies under mysterious circumstances.

Stu Erwin starred in this New York production of Suspense. He had just finished appearing in Mr. Sycamore on Broadway, which closed after just 19 performances. He was a fine comedic actor, well-known in films, theater, radio, and television. His Wikipedia page details his long career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Erwin

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https://archive.org/details/TSP421222

THE CAST

STU ERWIN (Scott Anderson), Santos Ortega, Mark Smith, Ian Martin, Paul Luther, William Podmore, Berry Kroeger, Mercedes McCambridge?, Ted Osborne (Signature Voice),

This script would be used again on Suspense in 1945.

Producer William Spier would later acquire the rights to produce Sam Spade as a radio series, and used Two Sharp Knives as a Spade story that explained why he left his job with the police and became a detective. It’s likely that the script was re-written from scratch for that to include more smart-alecky comments appropriate for the Spade character. That broadcast had Sam’s partner as “Wally Shane,” likely played by Wally Maher. He was the star of the mid-1940s radio series Michael Shayne, Private Detective. Maher was one of radio’s great actors and was beloved by his fellow actors. He was usually in supporting roles. The 1946-08-16 program is not in circulation but sounds like it was hilarious and packed with inside jokes and ad libs.

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1942-12-15 Till Death Do Us Part

This is the first episode under the Suspense “big star” policy and it stars a favorite of William Spier and of the movie audience, Peter Lorre.

The story takes place in rural England. Lorre plays a foreign-born math professor who believes his wife has betrayed him in favor of a young American doctor. Lorre’s character lets his jealousy get to him.

The newspaper coverage of the change in the Suspense casting strategy was positive, but the description of Lorre was interesting. This ad for an upstate New York station described Lorre as “noted for his characterizations of weird types.”

1942-12-15 Rochester NY Democrat & Chronicle

His most recent and memorable role prior to the broadcast was in The Maltese Falcon in 1941, but was often playing odd foreign types. He was a Hungarian Jew who worked on stage and movies in Hungary and Germany prior to moving to the United States. His strangest casting to our modern sensibilities was as the Japanese agent and detective Mr. Moto in a series of movies. Such casting today would not be possible. Back then it showed the wide range of his acting abilities. His big role was as a serial killer of young girls in German director Fritz Lang’s M. 

Lorre had a long career but died at age 59. He was 38 years old for this Suspense appearance. For years, his distinctive voice and speech pattern was a favorite of night club and television impersonators. Getting the well-known Lorre for Suspense was a very big deal.

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https://archive.org/details/TSP421215

THE CAST

PETER LORRE (Professor Erwin Krafft), Alice Frost (Cynthia), Mercedes McCambridge (Lady Randolph), David Gothard (Dr. Craig), Ted Osborne (Signature Voice)

Mercedes McCambridge was a highly regarded radio, stage, and movie actress, and yet another member of the Mercury Theater.

This script was later adapted for the 1948-12-19 broadcast for John Dickson Carr’s radio series Cabin B-13. When Carr returned to the US after the war, CBS hired him to base a radio series on one of his most famous stories. He had difficulty keeping up with the weekly requirement for new scripts, so he resorted to re-working some of his Suspense scripts to keep up with the broadcast schedule.

The title ‘Til Death Do Us Part was used for a totally different Suspense broadcast in 1961-11-05. Having a title that is pronounced the same and subject to a variety of spellings confused many collectors over the decades into thinking it was the same script used 19 years apart. The 1961 script was written by Ben Kagen. “ ‘til” is a contraction of “until.” “Till” is correct but is not the same as “until,” and also has multiple meanings (a place to store cash or to prepare ground for planting). It gets confusing after a while. As the style guides say, “ ‘until’ is always correct” but it seems like a clumsy title and does not reflect casual everyday speech. Below is the image from the 1961 script cover.

On the Old Time Radio Researchers Group Facebook page, Elizabeth Tankersley commented

"Till" instead of " 'til" in this title is not wrong, or even questionable. "Till" as a preposition and conjunction actually predates "until" in English, and "till death do us part" (or more properly "till death us do part", or earlier "till death us depart") is the correct spelling of the phrase from the marriage liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer. [Jan 30, 2023]

Carr had lived in England for more than a decade and likely would have been familiar with the Book of Common Prayer usage.

Collectors also believed at various points that the same script was used on Inner Sanctum because one of their broadcasts had the same name. The same title was used three times on The Whistler, with each one being a different story. The title is popular because it is one of the most widely known and recognizable lines in a marriage ceremony. It is funny that a line used in a happy event that joins people together always means someone is about to be murdered when it’s a title for a mystery program.

A related item is how Jack Benny was asked if he ever thought of divorcing his wife, Mary. They had one of the happiest marriages in all of Hollywood. Jack replied “Murder, yes… divorce, no” which drew a laugh with his trademark pause in delivering the line.

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1942-12-01 The Bride Vanishes

A newly married couple is on their honeymoon, and the locals think they recognize her as a bride who went missing on her wedding day in the town. The locals are wary of them… and they get a warning from a boatman who takes them to “the Blue Grotto” that may have something to do with the disappearance.

The John Dickson Carr script was adapted for the first issue of the Suspense comic book.

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https://archive.org/details/TSP421201

THE CAST

Hanley Stafford? (Tom Courtney), Lesley Woods (Lucy Courtney), Jack McBryde, Ted Osborne (Signature Voice), others

Keith Scott has some well-founded suspicions about the cast listing:

Hanley Stafford has been credited as playing the husband in this program in various sources over many years, but I just don’t hear it. Besides which, this New York production would have clashed with Stafford’s regular role of J. C. Dithers on Blondie, produced weekly in Hollywood. (I suspect a collector mistook Ted Osborne’s signature narration voice for Stafford’s, then further errors of attribution followed.)

The comic book story can be downloaded from the Internet Archive link above.

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1942-11-24 The Body Snatchers

Christine Miller’s discussion of this episode on her Escape-Suspense blog starts out like this: “Suspense's 'The Body Snatchers' is a light-hearted drama…” What? But once you read that phrase you just know there’s a qualifier coming. “… but the true history on which it is based is dark and gruesome.” Whew! Sounds like a Suspense story then!

Her blogpost is at https://www.escape-suspense.com/2007/05/suspense_the_bo.html

The program’s introduction gives some background, but she adds some details as follows:

• in the early 19th century when the legal supply of human bodies for medical research in Britain was limited only to criminals given the death penalty

• the supply was insufficient for the number of medical students who needed cadavers

• the difference was made up by "body-snatching"

• families who lost loved ones had to use lead coffins, locks, vaults, grills, and mortsafes to deter robbers

• the story is based on criminals who committed murder for profit, notably William Burke and William Hare in 1827-1828 in Scotland

Wikipedia has details about the Anatomy Act of 1832 which reduced the need for body-snatching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_Act_1832 and a pages that details the Burke and Hare murders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders. Burke and Hare were found guilty, and executed, and their bodies were used as medical school cadavers.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP421124

Unfortunately, the only cast information available is that Ted Osborne is the Signature Voice of Suspense. None of the actors are mentioned in the program.

There are no newspaper clips about this episode to be found, unfortunately. They often shed light on the cast of the programs, but not this time.

This is another script that was adapted for the Suspense comic book (issue #1). The title was changed to “Graveyard Ghouls.” The PDF of the story can be downloaded from the same Internet Archive page.

Suspense would slowly abandon this style of storytelling in favor of more current time frames in first-person narrative style. This kind of story, however, was close to what Charles Vanda had in mind in his creation of the series. By the time he returned from WW2, Suspense was quite different.

In just about two weeks after this episode, Suspense would implement its “star” policy and in five months would be officially moved from New York City to Hollywood.

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1942-11-17 Menace in Wax

Bait and switch? Perhaps because we’ve seen so many stories about wax museums in a Vincent Price movie, a Twilight Zone episode, a Superman TV episode, and even a Suspense script (The Waxwork). Maybe that’s why some listeners to this episode are disappointed – the wax museum is just in the beginning of the story and it’s “just a place” with not much spooky about it all. But all of those movies and such happened after this episode, and those newer experiences are being projected to the old ones. So it’s not really fair to consider this episode with those later productions. The bottom line: even without the wax museum befuddlement, it’s just an okay story.

It’s really a WW2 espionage story where Brit journalists uncover a German plot to sabotage a factory. They find a secret code in Madam Tussaud’s wax museum. The backstory for one of the actors that might be of more interest.

As for Tussauds (they no longer use the apostrophe), is still going strong with museums around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Tussauds

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https://archive.org/details/TSP421117

THE CAST

Joseph Julian (Rogers), Ted Osborne (Signature Voice), Alfred Shirley, Stefan Schnabel, others

Alfred Shirley was in theater from the early 1900s and on radio. He played Dr. Watson when actor John Stanley played Holmes in the later 1940s. Stefan Schnabel was a Berlin-born actor who had a long and successful career on stage, radio, television, and movies. Both Shirley and Schnabel were in Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater. Everyone seems to focus on Welles alone. But when you look at the intertwined history March of Time, Columbia Workshop and Mercury Theater which was on stage as well as on radio, and then see the casting of Welles’ movies, you see a cast of highly regarded and highly skilled actors who were successful in multiple media for decades, often together, even after the Mercury Theater had run its course.

Complete cast information is not available for these early programs. Only the lead players are announced and keen listening can help identify those actors with distinctive voices. While we have scripts for many of these programs, they tend to be early in the process of editing and rehearsals, and not the final scripts that list complete casts and production staff.

The script was also used in the BBC’s Appointment with Fear series 1943-11-18.

The 1942-11-28 Billboard review of this episode was not very kind. Nor were the reviews really kind to most of the Suspense performances. They tended to be “ho-hum,” and “just like all the other stuff on the air.”

Such reviews were likely part of the reason and urgency that Spier and CBS had to re-design the show around guest stars in Hollywood. All the other aspects, such as the more effective use of music and more insightful editorial standards for scripts were critical to the series gaining positive audience momentum.

The lead actor, Joe Julian had a long career on stage, radio, and television. Some mistake his voice at first listen for Mason Adams. Both Julian and Adams were on Inner Sanctum quite often.

Julian’s career had him traveling worldwide during WW2 and he was in Japan when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He was often in plays by Norman Corwin. He was a highly respected New York actor, and then suddenly, his career froze when he was listed in Red Channels. For three years, he had no meaningful work. He did his best to sue the publishers of Red Channels for libel, but the suit was dismissed. He eventually returned to work, but not in the higher profile roles he had before. Many of the performers listed in Red Channels had done notable work in support of the war effort, which is what confused so many of them when their work dried up. CBS was among the most vicious of the blacklisters, hiring RKO executive Daniel O’Shea to help build their media business, but then shifted him to be in charge of screening actors and other performers. Elliott Lewis referred to him as “the vice president of treason.”

What is so strange about Julian’s plight is that the loyalty test that CBS used for screening was developed by Bill Paley, head of CBS, and Ed Murrow, dean of the WW2 radio journalists and a news reporting legend. Julian had wartime travels with Murrow so they knew each other and had high respect for each other. Julian still got caught in the undertow. For some reason, Murrow did not or could not help him. Neither could he help William N. Robson, but that story is for later in the series (when the 1950s programs are posted).

It was Murrow’s reporting that brought down Senator Joe McCarthy and ended much of the “Red Scare.” It is important to note, however, that the real action in the “Red Scare,” especially with Hollywood, was happening in the House of Representatives and not in the Senate. McCarthy ended up being the big and obvious target, but there were many others in Congress behind the policies that affected Julian’s career so negatively, who never received scrutiny for their political harassment.

Julian’s autobiography, This Was Radio, does not dwell on those issues, but focuses on his long and successful career and all of the people he met and worked with. It was published in 1974, and is considered a classic. It can be found as a used book, but it is also available as a free PDF at the World Radio History website. It is highly recommended, especially to newcomers to the classic radio hobby.

https://worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Biography/This-Was-Radio-Joseph-Julian-1975-.pdf

An interview of Julian from the 1970s Golden Age of Radio interview program is also highly recommended.

https://www.goldenage-wtic.org/gaor-66.html

Suspense was more affected by the blacklist than originally believed. If you want to “jump ahead” and see how it played out, go to https://sites.google.com/view/suspense-collectors-companion/click-for-home-arrow-for-more/the-blacklist-and-suspense

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There are multiple versions of this episode in circulation among collectors. This is a verified recording that is unfortunately missing the complete show opening. There are other recordings where a collector, many decades ago, “patched” the opening sequence of Lord of the Witch-Doctors onto a recording of Menace in Wax.

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1942-11-10 Will You Make A Bet With Death?

This story might seem a bit familiar because variations of the plotline can be found in many other stories. In this one, a young man who needs money to continue a failing venture makes a bet with his uncle that he can escape being murdered… directly or indirectly... by his uncle. The prize is $25,000 and his life. In today’s US dollars, that’s almost $475,000.

The script was used again in the BBC’s Appointment with Fear radio series 1943-10-14.

This is one of the few Carr stories that was repeated after he left the series. There is a missing hour-long Suspense version of the story broadcast in 1948. That 1948 script was re-worked by Les Crutchfield, who would become better known for many of his 1950s CBS scripts for many series, but especially for Gunsmoke.

In 1952, Carr’s novel The Nine Wrong Answers was an expansion of this script.

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https://archive.org/details/TSP421110

THE CAST

Michael Fitzmaurice (Bob Penderel), Lesley Woods (Betty), Nicholas Joy (John Destry), Ted de Corsia (Police sergeant), Charles Slattery (Inspector Mullen), Ted Osborne (Signature Voice)

Keith Scott notes that Marx B. Loeb directed, substituting for CBS staffer John Dietz. Over the years, Loeb directed programs such as Columbia Workshop, MGM Theater of the Air, Counterspy, and Crime Does Not Pay.

This story was in the first Suspense comic book as “I Bet with Death!” The comic version is likely based on the aforementioned longer script used in the still-missing 1948 broadcast. A PDF of the story can be found at the same Internet Archive link noted above. Here is a panel from the story:

The Suspense comic book, published in 1950, failed just as the Suspense Magazine did. The comic title continued after its second issue but the stories were no longer based on Suspense episodes. The magazine lasted four issues and was discontinued a few years earlier. The only media spin-off of the radio series that succeeded was the television series that began in 1949 and lasted until 1954. There was always an interest in expanding into a series of Suspense movies, rivaling the successful Whistler movies, but those desires never materialized.

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1942-11-03 Devil in the Summer House

The program begins with the reading of the various definitions of "suspense." The opening was used again at the beginning of the ill-fated hour-long Suspense series in January 1948.

This story is about a reconsideration of an old suicide case because it may have been a murder. It has a stereotypical “dark and stormy night” opening scene. The setting of the “summer house” in Tarrytown, New York, is no longer a summer location, but a suburban commuter community in Westchester County, New York, with convenient train access to Manhattan. It is near Sleepy Hollow, known from Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow and also a sprawling residence of the Rockefeller family. The Tappan Zee Bridge, which connected the Tarrytown side of the Hudson River to the other, was not built until the early 1950s.

It was originally a BBC "Detection Club" hour-long presentation featuring John Dickson Carr's character Dr. Fell and was broadcast on 1940-10-15. It was broadcast again on 1946-08-21 on BBC “Mystery Playhouse.” It was adapted to a short story that appeared in a 1946 edition of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

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https://archive.org/details/TSP421103

THE CAST

Martin Gabel (Joe Parker), Ted Osborne (Signature Voice), Arthur Vinton, Alice Frost, Lesley Woods?, and others

At 15:20 in the recording, there is dialog that incorrectly calls “Parker” with the name “Barker.” It sounds like it’s in the script and not a flub because it happens twice and is handled smoothly. Could it be an inside joke reference to actor and animal imitator Brad Barker?

Despite Suspense being in the CBS Fall schedule, there was very little news coverage of the series. The program was listed in radio timetables, but the titles and plotlines of the upcoming broadcasts were not. It would not be until Suspense would make its move to Hollywood and implement its “Hollywood star” policy, including greater priority by the CBS publicity department, that newspaper coverage would improve. That coverage would take another step higher when the show would finally have a sponsor, but that would not be for 13 months after this broadcast.

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1942-10-27 Lord of the Witch-Doctors

With this broadcast, Suspense began the Fall 1942 season as a regularly scheduled program in the CBS schedule. It was a sustained program, in the schedule without a sponsor, in hopes that it would draw a sufficient audience to attract an advertiser. At that time, when a show had a sponsor, they picked up the entire cost of production; they were not buying measured advertising time. While programs were on a sustaining basis, their budgets were often limited. It was when a sponsor arrived that programs were able to hire better-known talent, use more actors, and increase production elements such as larger orchestra, more than one sound effects artists, use freshly composed music, and have other important aspects of production. If you listen to Suspense prior to the Roma Wines sponsorship and compare those sustained broadcasts to those with Roma or Auto-Lite sponsorship, the difference is often stark.

With this episode, John Dickson Carr became the main writer for the series. That may not seem like much today, but Carr was a big name in popular mystery novels and short stories. His hiring gave credibility to the series and was considered to be a draw for listeners and potential sponsors.

The Wikipedia page about Carr is worth reviewing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dickson_Carr

Carr was in his mid-30s around the time of this broadcast. He was born in Pennsylvania, and in his mid-20s moved to England. He spent 10+ years there, and met and married his wife there. With the US entry into the War, Carr was recalled from UK to the US for the draft in 1942. He was given permission to return to the UK to work in their war information agency in support of the effort in late 1943. He was not involved in Suspense for long, with his last new Suspense play, The Locked Room, broadcast in January 1944. Only a handful of his scripts were used in the following years of the series (notably Pit and the Pendulum and Dealings of Mr. Markham).

His writing style and “locked-room” mysteries led many to believe he was a native British author. His work was popular in both countries and many of his Suspense scripts were used in an almost sound-alike program on the BBC, Appointment with Fear. Unfortunately, few of those recordings exist. Some many not have even been recorded in light of the need for raw materials to support the War effort rather than making transcription recording supplies.

Carr’s exploits were followed in the newspapers in his original hometown in Pennsylvania. This clip is from the 1942-10-27 Uniontown PA Evening Standard.

This particular episode was an adaptation of a BBC play by Carr that was originally broadcast there on 1941-09-13. The fan site www.oldtimeradioreview.com describes the plot as:

In British-controlled Zanzibar, the colonial rivalry between Britain and Germany threatens to erupt into violence, while at the same time a newly arrived witch doctor appears to be stirring up the natives.

The reviewer believes that modern racial sensibilities may make this episode a bit cringe-worthy and disappointing. Keep that in mind when listening. It was a different era, and this episode is one of those different things. (That site is worth a multi-hour visit if you want a different perspective on episodes or recommendations about what to listen to. We may differ on many of our impressions of the episodes, but the comments are well-reasoned, and our mutual affection for the series and the medium is quite clear).

THE CAST

Nicholas Joy (Richardson), Ted Osborne (Bill Harris / Signature Voice), Brad Barker (Nero the Lion’s roar), others unidentified.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP421027

One of the more interesting names in the cast list is Brad Barker, an animal imitator. Yes, that was his real name. He had a busy and prosperous career. There is a brief article about animal imitators at the Metro Washington Old Time Radio Club site https://mwotrc.com/rr2004_10/animals.htm Barker was Little Orphan Annie’s dog Sandy, was one of the roars of the MGM lion, and was challenged to play multiple animals in rapid succession for Let’s Pretend. His work was mainly in New York. He died in 1951 at age 68.

Is it "witchdoctors" or "witch doctors" or "witch-doctors"? According to the listing of papers in the Spier-Havoc collection at University of Wisconsin, Spier's review script has the hyphen. In the listing of the BBC newspaper broadcast listings, there is no hyphen, just a space. They rarely obsessed over such things back then. But we seem to.

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1942-09-30 One Hundred in the Dark

This episode was teased for 1942-08-19 but was delayed for unspecified reasons and Cave of Ali Baba was presented instead. The plotline is a hostess is robbed of a jewelry during her party, and she demands it be returned before any guest can leave. The story author was Owen M. Johnson and it was published in the early 1900s. It can be read at https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12686/pg12686-images.html#ONE_HUNDRED_IN_THE_DARK

The story was adapted by Jacques Anson Finke, a name which some persons speculated was a pseudonym, but it was his real name and he was a real person. He labored in the obscurity of Hollywood script departments as an editor but did write for Columbia Workshop and some episodes of FBI in Peace and War. He is sometimes listed in classic radio directories, incorrectly, as “Jack Fink.” He wrote for early TV under the name as “Jack Anson Fink.”

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP420930

Eric Dressler (Peters), Alice Frost (Mrs. Kildare), Ted Osborne (Quinney), Berry Kroeger (Narrator), Helen Lewis, Paul Luther, Ian Martin, Joan Shea, Frank Readick, Stefan Schnabel, Henriette Kaye

This episode was expected to be the conclusion of the series, because Suspense could not find a sponsor or a spot in the Fall 1942 schedule. There was, however, significant CBS executive and listening audience support for the series to continue. Researcher and voice actor Keith Scott says that the network received phone calls and letters of a volume sufficient enough to capture the attention of CBS executives, notably programming head Davidson Taylor.

Is this episode a good luck charm? When Roma Wines cancelled their sponsorship of Suspense in October, 1947, the last broadcast was One Hundred in the Dark on 1947-11-20. Did Spier select the script because they were renewed after it was aired in September 1942?

Twenty years later, on September 30, 1962, Suspense aired its final episode. How strange that this (almost) final episode was aired on a September 30. Perhaps Suspense would have had some better luck airing it on September 30, 1962, instead of Devilstone!

1942-09-23 A Passage to Benares

Adapted from T. S. Stribling’s 1926 short story of the same name.

The story is about the investigation of the murder in Trinidad of a young bride a few hours after the marriage. An American tourist is caught up in the investigation.

NOTE: Christine Miller, author of the Escape and Suspense! blog, reminds us that some of the cultural language would be considered offensive today, but to stick with the story because it “shifts into a different level of consciousness.”

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP420923

THE CAST

Horace Braham (Mr. Lowe), Paul Stewart (Poggioli), Berry Kroeger (Hira Dass / Judge / Narrator), Alan Hewitt, Guy Repp.

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1942-09-16 The Kettler Method

This episode re-uses Peter Barry’s Shadow script Nightmare at Gaelsbury (1941-02-02). His script was used again in the Shadow series with the title Terror at Wolf's Head Knoll (1948-02-15). Barry had a long writing career outside of numerous The Shadow scripts extending into television programs such as Studio One, Combat!, and Man from UNCLE. His Suspense script, Suspicion, which he adapted from the original Dorothy L. Sayers story, was presented on radio and on the Suspense television series.

Christine Miller, author of the Escape and Suspense! blog, says that this episode “is one of Suspense’s classic early episodes. So classic, it borders on parody.” This is one of those “mad scientist” episodes that was a popular horror and science fiction theme in the mid-1900s in movies and films, and that the scientist is ostracized by peers because they are jealous of his new medical techniques.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP420916 

THE CAST

GLORIA STUART (Claire Winton), John Gibson (Leslie Winton), Roger DeKoven (Doctor Kettler), Winfield Hoeny (Kato), Ralph Smiley (Caffrey / Arturo Alvarez), Martha Falkner (Miss Carter), Guy Repp (Dr. Morrisey / Radio Voice), Berry Kroeger (Narrator)

Guy Repp and Roger DeKoven are two of the five actors to appear in the Summer 1942 season of Suspense and in its final season.

There were no newspaper listings for this broadcast. This implies that the series had not been renewed and that CBS publicity efforts were being used elsewhere, such as the promotion of the new Fall 1942 schedule.

1942-09-02 The Hitch-hiker

The Hitch-hiker was a legendary Suspense script by Lucille Fletcher, author of Sorry, Wrong Number. Well, that’s almost right.

The script was written for the Lady Esther Orson Welles Theater and was broadcast on 1941-11-14. Fletcher had not yet written Sorry, Wrong Number, and newspapers identified her as the author of a magazine short story adapted by Norman Corwin to become entertaining 1940 Columbia Workshop episode, My Client Curley. That story about a dancing caterpillar would eventually become a movie. Obviously, The Hitch-hiker was much different. A man is driving cross-country keeps seeing the same hitch-hiker on his trip. There was no dancing, and no charm to this story.

Rod Serling remembered The Hitch-hiker story from radio and wanted it for The Twilight Zone. Fletcher was interviewed about the story in 1960 when it was adapted for The Twilight Zone with some modifications for actress Inger Stevens. She said in an interview “I made a trip across the country in 1940 and saw a sort of figure similar to the hitch-hiker three times along the road, originally first beside the Brooklyn Bridge.” That trip was with then-husband and famous composer Bernard Herrmann. He would soon write the famous and haunting Suspense theme that was used early in the series and then on and off through the years.

Most everyone in the classic radio hobby believes it’s a Suspense script because that’s the presentation they first heard and the earliest recording available. It’s easy to understand why. Suspense is a show that is well-known and sought by fans, so it’s natural for it to seem this was a Suspense original.

There’s another implicit assumption many classic radio hobbyists make, though they may not realize it. It is easy to assume that all recordings of a series had about the same size listening audience. Most collectors don’t even think about such things: why should they? They just want to enjoy the recording and savor the era.

The Hitch-hiker had a far bigger audience when it was heard in 1941 on The Lady Esther Orson Welles Theater. Suspense had a comparatively very small audience as a 1942 summer replacement series. The Lady Esther broadcast is not widely circulated, is not complete, and is in low quality sound, and therefore relatively unknown to the hobby. The big network show in 1941 was Lux Radio Theatre with nearly a 31 Hooper rating. Lady Esther had a little over 20, an impressive showing, just behind Lux in the category of “prestige drama.” That was an achievement, owing to the weekly performance of Orson Welles. The Lady Esther show had a bigger audience than golden age radio drama legends such as such as Mr. District Attorney, The Shadow, Sherlock Holmes, and many others. Suspense in its Summer 1942 series was not about to match that. The fledgling Suspense series wasn’t SUSPENSE yet!

This makes the broadcast history of The Hitch-hiker a very curious one. There are four documented performances of the script, all with Welles, and all on different series. And, only two of the four were teased in the newspapers around the country on the day of their broadcast! Two of the performances, Suspense and Philip Morris Playhouse may not have been planned far in advance. It seems so strange!

Suspense, a low-rated Summer replacement series, could certainly have used a national publicity boost of a Welles appearance. He was at a height of celebrity from 1941’s Citizen Kane and Magnificent Ambersons released just weeks before this broadcast, and his numerous radio appearances (and the reputation ripples that were still coming from War of the Worlds almost four years earlier). Yet, there was no such newspaper publicity.

Producer William Spier and Orson Welles were close friends. It was Spier who gave Welles his first radio job on March of Time, and Welles often showed his appreciation for it. This was Welles’ first appearance on Suspense, and it could possibly have been his last, because the series was not yet renewed for the CBS Fall 1942 schedule. It could be assumed series was on the verge of cancellation, especially if sponsors appeared for series other than Suspense. If Suspense could find a sponsor, the decision to renew would be automatic.

It could very well be that The Hitch-hiker, the perfect Suspense script that wasn’t a Suspense script, and a script that Welles adored, was possibly the performance and broadcast that helped push Suspense over the renewal finish line. One thing’s for sure: The Hitch-hiker broadcast didn’t hurt its chances of renewal! It was a prime example to those who did hear it, and CBS executives, about what Suspense could become. Suspense finished its Summer 1942 season on September 30. A month later, on October 27, it took its first step to becoming a fixture in the CBS schedule for many years, with some hiccups along the way.

During the week off when CBS pre-empted Suspense to broadcast a promotion of the Holiday Inn movie, it’s clear that Welles and Spier were in contact. Did Welles offer to do The Hitch-hiker to help Spier’s program get some attention and momentum toward a renewal?

According to the New York Daily News, Welles arrived in New York on Tuesday, August 25 (more curious details are at the end of this post). One news report said that part of his trip was to put things in motion to move the Mercury Theater to Hollywood. On August 29, he was master of ceremonies for a special war bond drive broadcast that lasted six hours on the NBC Blue Network. That program raised $14 million, which in 2022 US dollars is more than $250 million!

The Daily News also reported that while he was in New York he was scheduled to be on the Stage Door Canteen broadcast of September 3. He was also scheduled that Saturday at a Russian War Relief fundraiser. With Welles in New York a week before the broadcast, there was plenty of time to assemble a cast of regulars and perform a script of which they were already familiar. Everyone was in town for one reason or another, so why not?

Daily News radio critic Ben Gross, who liked the initial performance done in 1941, liked the Suspense one, as noted in the September 3, 1942 edition:

For a real spine-chiller, Orson Welles in Lucille Fletcher's "The Hitchhiker"... more than filled the bill last night. The Mercury Theatre broadcast this play last year and it deserved repetition. It really has got what it takes to bring down your temperature. Aided by the first-rate atmospheric music of Bernard Herrmann and a good supporting cast, good old Orson scared the wits out of me.

Just six weeks later, in the Daily News of October 17, 1942, Gross was just as enthusiastic about the Philip Morris Playhouse rendition:

“The Hitch-Hiker” has by now become one of the standard thrillers of the air. This eerie drama of an across-the-continent drive packs more than a dozen average blood-curdlers. Orson Welles was in it again during the Playhouse period last night and gave a performance that brought one a tight feeling around the heart. When it comes to chilling your blood over the radio, Orson is still the master of them all.

These were four performances of the script, with three of those in the span of 11 months. This may be the only script to be broadcast this many times on three different series, with the same actor in the lead role. Lucille Fletcher said in the 1960 Twilight Zone publicity that after the Lady Esther broadcast Welles “repeated this performance on almost every radio series in which he starred thereafter.” These are the four:

• 1941-11-17 Lady Esther Presents Orson Welles - there are newspaper references to “this new Fletcher play” and the longer radio page teases often reference Fletcher’s My Client Curley. A recording of the drama portion of the program has survived, though in low quality sound. Researcher and voice actor Keith Scott notes that you can hear Mercury Theater players Ray Collins and Agnes Moorehead in supporting roles.

• 1942-09-02 Suspense - the program was pre-empted the week earlier to air a promo of the movie Holiday Inn (released on 1942-08-04). There are virtually no newspaper references to Welles appearing on Suspense or the identification of the play for that evening. Assuming the publicity window for newspapers at that time was 10-14 days for detailed coverage and a few days for timetable detail, this indicates that the decision to perform The Hitch-hiker was not done in time for almost any newspaper coverage. The only newspaper listing that can be found in searches is the New York Daily News timetable for that very day, in the very same city as the broadcast and the CBS publicity department, listing Welles and the play by name. The New York Times timetable, obviously in the same city, does not list anything special about the Suspense broadcast for that night.

• 1942-10-16 Philip Morris Playhouse - this performance has NO newspaper teases. The most detailed tease about PMP for this night is that Welles will star in a new script about Rumanian guerilla fighters in the War. This wartime script was obviously not ready for broadcast and they substituted The Hitch-hiker for it. Unfortunately, no recording of this broadcast has been found.

• 1946-06-21 Pabst Mercury Summer Theater - this broadcast was promoted well in the newspapers. Much of that coverage stressed that Pabst was foregoing the mid-show commercial to maintain the integrity of the story’s dramatic flow. A complete recording exists. This was the final broadcast of the script.

It was a very strong script, and Fletcher’s composition of the story in first-person narrative style, a format Welles believed was exceptionally effective for radio. Welles’ opinion had a big influence in Spier’s production vision and development of Suspense. If it was so good, and so well suited for Suspense, why wasn’t it repeated?

Perhaps Welles liked the script so much, he wanted some exclusivity about it, and not allow others to have it. Fletcher may have felt that it was worth letting Orson have his way, making it “portable” for wherever he wanted to do it.

In contrast, she seems not to have felt the same way about Sorry, Wrong Number and Agnes Moorehead in the beginning. For example, she allowed Ida Lupino to perform SWN on The Kate Smith Show in February 1945, and Mildred Natwick on the CBS experimental TV station in New York (Moorehead was in Hollywood and air travel was time consuming at that time). Fletcher could have insisted on Moorehead for the “big screen” version, which instead went to Barbara Stanwyck. (Morehead attempted to buy the movie rights for SWN to ensure her lead casting, but her offer was spurned). Moorehead’s deep association with SWN was much the result of a constant steadfast effort to make it so. She never strayed, performing SWN on Suspense even when the movie was in theaters, for a Decca record set, and in one-woman stage shows around the country throughout the 1950s. Why was The Hitch-hiker different?

Such Moorehead-like efforts to keep The Hitch-hiker set aside for himself were not required for Welles. The reason it was not done on radio after Mercury Summer Theater in 1946 was that Welles was doing other things and on radio less often. When he was, he was usually cast as the “celebrity Orson Welles,” playing himself or a public caricature of himself. He would eventually do the radio series Black Museum and The Lives of Harry Lime, but those were syndicated, on his own terms of availability and his own desires for its production, without having to fit into any rigid network broadcast schedule. It’s likely that The Hitch-hiker was not heard again because Welles no longer did network radio drama, and many of those venues were disappearing. Audiences and ad dollars were shifting to TV so there was less radio network drama to do. The desire to perform The Hitch-hiker again faded away.

It is interesting that a collection of best radio plays, published in 1947, excluded Sorry, Wrong Number but included The Hitch-hiker. The book was edited by Joseph Liss (who wrote for Columbia Workshop and others), who believed that SWN was definitely a good play, but that The Hitch-hiker was better. (The book can be viewed, but not downloaded, at https://archive.org/details/radiosbestplays00jose)

The Hitch-hiker could have turned into one of Suspense’ most beloved plays over the years if there were more performances of it. It is ironic how that one particular performance became so strongly associated with Suspense. Of all four of its broadcast presentations, the one on that September night in 1942, with likely its smallest of the four audiences, became the legendary one. The miracle of recording technology and the actions of classic radio hobbyists many years later have made it so.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP420902

There are multiple recordings available, with three of the Suspense version. One is a studio recording, which is the best one, another is a broadcast aircheck (thank you, researcher Don Ramlow). There is also a 1970s Armed Forces Radio and Television Service release that is heavily edited. The drama portion of the 1941 Lady Esther broadcast is available, but in lower quality sound. The 1946 Mercury Summer Theater broadcast is also included.

THE CAST

Orson Welles (Ronald Adams), Berry Kroeger (Narrator), others are not identified. It is not known if Mercury Theater actors were included. No production script has been located. 

Karl Schadow has identified John Gibson as the Pennsylvania Turnpike service station attendant. Gibson was another one of those actors who was constantly busy from the 1930s and into the television era. You can hear him in Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police, as Blue Note Cafe bartender Ethelbert in Casey, Crime Photographer, and you can catch him here and there in the "Classic 39" episodes of TV's legendary The Honeymooners.

There is a possible inside joke after the 18 minute mark. Welles' character is on a lonely road through a farm area and there is a continuing sound of mooing cows in the background. Ronald Adams laments that he is "udder-ly alone." The same effect is in the 1941 performance with the same line, so it’s not new to Suspense. Because the October 1942 Philip Morris performance is missing, it is not known if it was used then. The background sound effect is not used in the 1946 Mercury Summer Theater performance.

Welles was a jokester, and probably had a grand time with the little gag, deadpanning it in front of the microphone while others in the studio smirked or rolled their eyes. William Spier also ran loose and lighthearted rehearsals and would occasionally plant in-joke items in stories. It was obviously left in with Spier’s acquiescence. It must have been really something to remember to see Welles and Spier and the Suspense ensemble casts together for desk readings and rehearsals as they slipped in wordplay and wisecracks but still turned in compelling, innovative, and superior performances when it counted on the air.

NOTE: The Clock (ABC, 1946-1948) had a Hitchhiker program with different plotline; the series Detour (ABC, 1950), which re-used many Clock scripts, had one by a different writer (Michael Sklar), and is likely the same script as used on The Clock. This script is about an actual hitchhiker.

NOTE: In 1952, Fletcher created a one-act theatrical play from the radio script. It is available from the Dramatists Play Service. In the Twilight Zone publicity it is mentioned that it had been performed in theater groups in every US state and internationally since it was released.

The Wikipedia page for the radio play is well done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitch-Hiker_(radio_play)

The teleplay for The Twilight Zone performance is also worth reading. Serling changed the main character to a woman because he felt it would add more dramatic tension to the story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitch-Hiker_(The_Twilight_Zone)

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Keith Scott sent me a note about Welles’ schedule. Welles arrived in New York at the end of August. Keith explains that the timetable of it all is in the 1992 book This is Orson Welles by Welles and Peter Bogdanovich. (There are lots of used copies available online). Keith summarizes that Welles was in New York on his return to the US from South America (his second trip there in 1942) as he was shooting material for It’s All True (which he never finished – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_All_True_(film) ). He stayed in New York for two months. In that time, he appeared on shows and at events:

• The Kate Smith Show
• Suspense – The Hitch-hiker
• on the very same night as Suspense, a benefit for Russian War Relief in Croton-on-Hudson, about 30 miles north of CBS New York studios (note: raising money for Russian War Relief efforts in the early 1940s unfortunately landed some performers in the Red Channels listings just years later)
• 1942-09-11 Men, Machines, and Victory
• 1942-09-18 Information, Please
• 1942-09-25 Philip Morris Playhouse – Crime Without Passion
• 1942-09-28 Cavalcade - Juarez: Thunder from the Hills)
• 1942-10-05 Cavalcade - Passage to More Than India
• 1942-10-11 Radio Reader's Digest - High Flight,
• 1942-10-12 Cavalcade - The Admiral of the Open Sea
• 1942-10-13 Annual United Fund Appeal – performed a playlet Hospitals in Wartime on CBS
• 1942-10-16 afternoon speech at Carnegie Hall with Charlie Chaplin, Sam Jaffe, Lillian Hellman and others for "Artists' Front to Win the War"
• 1942-10-16 Philip Morris Playhouse – The Hitch-hiker
• 1942-10-18 Texaco Star Theatre with Fred Allen
• 1942-10-20 a talk to film students at New York University
• 1942-10-25 Nazi Eyes on Canada
• 1942-10-26 Cavalcade - In the Best Tradition
• Welles then departed for the West Coast to edit the film Journey into Fear and commenced the radio series Ceiling Unlimited in November.

Not mentioned in Keith’s note from the Welles book were the Stage Door Canteen (1942-09-03) appearance and another Russian War Relief that Saturday (1942-09-05). Welles certainly made the most of his time in New York.

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1942-08-19 The Cave of Ali Baba

This episode opens with a WW2 Victory public service announcement. There are usually two different versions in circulation, one full program and the other with the Victory PSA edited out.

The script was adapted by Peter Lyon, this broadcast is based on Dorothy L. Sayers’ short story The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba featuring her detective character Lord Peter Wimsey.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP420819

THE CAST

Romney Brent (Lord Peter Wimsey aka Joseph Rogers), Berry Kroeger (Narrator), William Malten (Number One), Ara Gerald (The Lady), Cathleen Cordell, Victor Beecroft, Roland Bottomley, J. W. Austin, William Podmore, Ian Martin; CBS network announcer: Ed Fleming

Robert Lewis Shayon was guest studio director, subbing for John Dietz who was unavailable. Dietz was a staff producer and director at CBS New York and could be heard on many programs, including Casey, Crime Photographer. Shayon would rise to become a top CBS executive responsible for groundbreaking radio documentaries and You are There. He would leave CBS and become a noted media critic and an Ivy League professor of media and broadcasting even though he did not have a college education!

With Charles Vanda away for military service, William Spier is in charge. This is the earliest surviving complete program produced by him. Spier developed his production savvy over the years in March of Time and other early programs, building on his extensive background in music as a critic and composer, some of which he earned in his early twenties. Suspense researcher Keith Scott notes this episode as the first indication of Spier’s influence on the musical side of Suspense, especially in the bridges between scenes.

Newspaper listings indicated One Hundred in the Dark would be broadcast this date, but that script was withheld until 1942-09-30.

This performance includes Ian Martin, one of five actors (the others are Guy Repp, Roger DeKoven, Ted Osborne and Joan Lorring) to appear in the inaugural summer season of Suspense and its final season in 1962.

Suspense was pre-empted the following week for a special promotional program about the movie Holiday Inn, which would add Irving Berlin’s White Christmas to favorite songs of the holiday season. The movie was released a few weeks prior.

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1942-07-29 Philomel Cottage (partial)

The full performance of this episode is missing, but the second half has survived.

Philomel Cottage is based on Agatha Christie’s Love from a Stranger about a newlywed who suspects her husband is planning to have her killed. It was adapted by Harold Medford.

The script was performed again on 1943-10-07 and yet again on 1946-12-26.

A new performance of The Lodger was originally announced for this date. The muddled version used for the Suspense audition on Forecast in 1940 was re-written to be more appealing to listeners. It was also planned for week prior to this broadcast, but for unknown reasons was not used until December 1944.

This is the first surviving recording of a Suspense episode produced by William Spier. Charles Vanda had left CBS for military service. Under Spier, Suspense would deviate and evolve from Vanda’s original vision for the series.

The scheduling of specific Suspense performances was always in flux, and newspapers rarely had any information for the day of broadcast beyond show titles. Those would often be inaccurate. Suspense was a summer replacement series and those kinds of programs were not always covered by the press in a serious manner. Sometimes even the network publicity departments allocated only small budgets and time to promote summer programs.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP420729

THE CAST

Eric Dressler (Gerald Martin), Alice Frost (Alix Martin), Alfred Shirley (George), Dick Widmark (Dick), Berry Kroeger (Narrator).

Yes, “Dick Widmark” is famous movie actor Richard Widmark. He was very active in New York radio in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He would become a favorite actor of Suspense producer Elliott Lewis in the early 1950s.

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1942-06-24 Wet Saturday

"The Life of Nellie James" was originally announced for this date. It was based on the well-known axe murders of Lizzie Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts. The script was broadcast the following week, but no recording exists. Nellie James was also one of the scripts considered for the Suspense premiere, with The Burning Court selected instead.

Wet Saturday was a popular short story by John Collier. He was a British writer and many of his short stories appeared in The New Yorker. This appeared in 1938. He lad a long writing career that included novels and screenplays. Wet Saturday was performed multiple times on Suspense. This script was adapted by Harold Medford. One of Collier’s other stories, Back for Christmas, was also a favorite of the series.

The story involves getting rid of a dead body to cover up the murder. That seems to happen a lot on Suspense and other mystery series of the era. The difference here is that it’s a family doing the cover-up and how calm the process seems to be.

The star is Clarence Derwent, who was “old” for Suspense at age 58, compared to one of the other actors, Joan Lorring. She was only 16!

Derwent was a long-time actor in his native England and the USA, and was also a director and a production manager. Four years after this performance, he was elected president of the Actors’ Equity Association and served for seven years. He retired from acting on stage in 1948. Actors’ Equity has an award named for Derwent to this very day. It honors rising new performers on Broadway.

Lorring worked under the name of “Dellie Ellis” as a teenager (her given name was Madeline Ellis) and was featured in the radio program A Date with Judy. Using her stage name in this performance was likely to keep her differentiated from her regular teenage role and to help her establish her adult career. She had a long career on stage, movies, television, and radio. She is one of five actors to appear in the inaugural summer season of Suspense and its final season in 1962.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3

https://archive.org/details/TSP420624

THE CAST

Clarence Derwent (Frederick Princey), Berry Kroeger (Sergeant Yancy / Constable Mountain), Joan Lorring (Millicent Princey), others unknown as Mrs. Princey, George Princey, Captain Smollett, Phone Operator; CBS Staff announcer: Ed Fleming

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