Pay attention to this one because it gets complicated… and don’t assume a “cross-eyed bear” might have something to do with a child’s huggy toy. The “bear” is a hateful Swedish industrialist who made his money mining nickel… and left a cynical will that required heirs to kill each other in order to get the pieces of a check for his fortune. Once all the pieces were assembled together, the bank would release the funds, and not before.
The sons were separated at birth and a hunt is on to find them. One son is already dead, and a ruse is created to find the son who lives in the USA under an assumed name, and draw him out. The ruse involves a relationship with a woman hired for the task. There are many surprises along the way.
The original Dorothy B. Hughes novel was adapted by Robert Richards. It seems like he had a lot of work to do to get it to work in the compressed Suspense format, and it turned out well. Because there are so many pieces of the story that need to be condensed from the full length novel, it’s important to listen carefully for the details.
Cross-Eyed Bear was Hughes’ second novel, published in 1940. It received positive reviews, and her career was rising. In her home of Santa Fe, she won much attention, and was convinced to turn it into a stage play. It was presented locally in December 1941. One of the rumors around the book was that the “cross-eyed bear” was a reference to Russia in wartime, which she denied and was amused about.
Cross-Eyed Bear was still popular after the Suspense broadcast and was condensed for the November 13, 1943 Liberty Magazine, almost four years after its publishing.
Hughes did not get much advance notice about when the adaptation would be performed. This is from the 1943-09-20 Santa Fe NM New Mexican:
Mrs. Hughes... received news that day that it was to be done that night and said she thought the dramatization of her book was a beautiful job and that from now on out she was a Suspense fan especially since Orson Welles is to be heard for the next few weeks.
This is a good blogpost about the original novel https://prettysinister.blogspot.com/2012/08/ffb-cross-eyed-bear-dorothy-b-hughes.html
Her career is summarized well at this Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_B._Hughes and also this page http://womencrime.loa.org/?page_id=64
Some of her novels became screenplays. The Fallen Sparrow (published in 1942) was released just weeks before this broadcast and starred John Garfield. Ride the Pink Horse was released in 1947 with Robert Montgomery, who also directed. In 1950, Humphrey Bogart starred in In A Lonely Place.
The Suspense broadcast starred Virginia Bruce. She started her career on Broadway but made her mark in movie musicals in the 1930s in films such as Born to Dance (1936; known for her rendition of I've Got You Under My Skin, introduced in that movie) and as a showgirl in The Great Ziegfeld. Some ups and downs in her personal life led to a bumpy 1940s career, but when she worked it was opposite many of the biggest male stars in Hollywood. In 1949, she had an interview program on CBS, Make-Believe Town, about life in Hollywood. There are three broadcasts known to survive.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP430916
THE CAST
VIRGINIA BRUCE (Lizanne Steffason), JOHN LODER (Bill Folker), Bill Johnstone (Lans Vaught, alias Viljass), Robert Harris? (Hugh King), Cy Kendall (Inspector Tobin), Will Wright (Musicians’ Union man), Harry Lang (Conductor), Horace Willard (Musician), Natasha Lytess (Lydia Vinton / Matron), Joe Kearns? (Waiter), Jim Bannon (Man in Black)
Two recordings have survived, the original network broadcast and the Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#21). Many thanks to disc collector Randy Riddle who located and transferred that disc in 2008 and supplied this project with a lossless recording. Both recordings are about the same audio quality.
Joe Kearns is suspected of playing a waiter in one scene; he returns to his full schedule, including as “the Man in Black” next week. Jim Bannon’s career as “the Man in Black” is over as of this episode, as is that of director Ted Bliss. William Spier returns to schedule next week.
Horace Willard is in the cast. His initial Suspense appearance was in A Friend to Alexander as a butler, and he plays a musician here. Fellow researcher Ryan Ellett has a post about him at https://ryanellett.wordpress.com/2020/11/18/horace-willard-knx-hollywood/ with some newspaper clips I found. This is from the 1941-07-12 Phoenix AZ Index.
Willard’s career was covered in the black media of the time. News clips indicate he appeared in Scattergood Baines, Blondie, Favorite Story, Silver Theater, Screen Guild, Dr. Christian, and others, and he was often on Lux Radio Theatre. No information can be found about him after 1947 in newspaper or trade magazine searches. His known and surviving appearances are noted at RadioGoldindex http://radiogoldin.library.umkc.edu/Home/RadioGoldin_Records?searchString=Willard,%20Horace&type=Artists&count=22
For a while in the early 1940s, Willard was working in the CBS transcription department… and may have worked on creating or cataloging some of the very transcriptions that were used on Suspense.
At the end of the program, Bannon announces the next four shows will feature Orson Welles. According to researcher Keith Scott, the appearance was publicized as the tenth anniversary of William Spier’s first hiring of Welles for The March of Time. The final story of the four upcoming Welles broadcasts is announced as Donovan’s Brain to be presented in two parts, scheduled for October 7 & 14. This did not happen until May 1944, and two other scripts were used. It is likely that The Lady and the Monster, the movie based on the Donovan’s Brain novel, has slipped in its production schedule and was going to miss its original target release date. The studio did not want the Suspense broadcast to be the first release of the property.
###
