Last Night was an original story by Cornell Woolrich, titled The Red Tide when originally published. The story was adapted by Robert Tallman. Woolrich was very pleased with the adaptation. The stars in the lead roles are Margo and Kent Smith.
The plot centers around Jaqueline and Gil Blaine, are impoverished owners of a dude ranch. They are trying to borrow a large sum of money from Mr. Burroughs, one of their wealthy guests. Burroughs unexpectedly disappears from the ranch, but his secretary, Charles Marsh, remains. Gil informs his wife that he obtained a loan from Burroughs before he left. Jaque is suspicious about Burroughs leaving so suddenly. He left his luggage and Charles, his secretary, behind. Did Gil murder Burroughs to steal the money to pay off their debts?
The cast includes Mexican actress and dancer Margo (a few months later to become Mrs. Eddie Albert), and Kent Smith as the Blaines, and Ruby Dandridge as Leona.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP430615
THE CAST
KENT SMITH (Gil Blaine), MARGO (Jacqueline Blaine), Earle Ross (Ward), Ruby Dandridge (Leona), Bea Benaderet (Mrs. Burroughs / Miss Robles), Ted Von Eltz? (Charles Marsh), Joe Kearns (Man in Black / Police Officer), unknown (Jackie Carmen)
This is the first surviving broadcast of a Woolrich story on Suspense. The first broadcast was Night Reveals of 1943-03-02, a missing episode. That script would be performed again on the series. Woolrich was a prolific and highly successful mystery writer. There were so many Woolrich materials being submitted to his publisher and magazines that he also used the pseudonym “William Irish” to differentiate his various works on store book racks and shelves. Many of his stories were adapted for Suspense, Molle Mystery Theater, and other series, and also became screenplays.
There are two different network recordings. Both may be airchecks. The best-sounding and complete recording begins with an announcement about the Federal income tax.
The second recording is a real curiosity. It seems to be an aircheck from Seattle station KIRO. The station lost access to its network feed and the had a piano solo fill the time until the connection could be re-established at about two and one-half minutes into the Suspense broadcast. The pianist is Carol Marsh, who had a musical program of piano arrangements in the CBS schedule that usually aired weekday mornings in the early 1940s. It is difficult to search for information about Marsh because there was a young British actress with the same name who was in the news at the time. It is not known if it is a recording of Marsh that was played or if she was on call that evening to play live in case of a broadcast interruption.
###
