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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