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.”
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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!
