This episode is the debut of an original Lucille Fletcher script, the first of many for the series. The Hitch-hiker was the first Fletcher script on Suspense, this was the first premiere, and it was the first time that Agnes Moorehead performed one of Fletcher’s scripts. The next would be Sorry, Wrong Number.
The plotline has forty-year-old single Saphronia Winters starting a new chapter in her life. Her invalid father has died, and she no longer has the responsibilities of caring for him. To get break away and a fresh start, she stays at St. Petersburg, Florida. She ends up meeting a handsome hotel owner from Maine, and they fall in love. There is one quirk about him as he keeps mentioning his sister, who also has the uncommon name Saphronia. They marry and arrive in Maine to live at the remote, large and old hotel. Things feel strange when it’s revealed Hiram’s sister killed his brother with an axe… and another murder may be in the offing.
The script also includes Ray Collins, yet another Mercury Theater player like Moorehead. Most people know Collins for his greatest television role: Lt. Tragg on the Perry Mason series.
William Spier described this script in CBS publicity as “one of the most terrifying scripts he has ever read.” You can tell he liked the script because he used it again 14 months later when Suspense had a sponsor, Roma Wines. Then he did it yet again when he was producer of Philip Morris Playhouse six years after this broadcast.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP430427
THE CAST
AGNES MOOREHEAD (Sophronia), RAY COLLINS (Hiram), Mary Jane Croft? (Nurse), Joe Kearns (Man in Black)
This episode was the topic of the podcast Golden Days of Radio classic radio program collector John Tefteller and Suspense expert Don Ramlow. Don has great insights into Fletcher’s work because he interviewed her over the years and at radio conventions many years ago. The podcast can be accessed at YouTube https://youtu.be/c-Xtu74_Fnw
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