Wet Saturday was a well-known story by author John Collier. It was published in The New Yorker, July 16, 1938. The original story can be read at https://literaryfictions.com/fiction-1/wet-saturday-by-john-collier/ It was adapted by Harold Medford and was first presented on Suspense as the second broadcast of the series on 1942-06-24. The blogpost for that broadcast can be accessed at https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/01/1942-06-24-wet-saturday.html
Variety favorably reviewed the broadcast in its 1943-12-22 edition:
Roma Wine's Suspense stanza, Wet Saturday, Thursday (16) (8-8:30 pm) on CBS featured Charles Laughton in a slick dramatization of a father trying to extricate his daughter from a slight case of murder. Laughton emphasized the dramatic nuance of the script by deliberately underplaying his part as the calm, collected parent who in the end has to sacrifice his son in order to save the daughter. The son had always been a problem to his parents anyway. Remainder of the cast all contributed performances that added up to a click airing.
Last week, Suspense offered The Night Reveals, a script that had been previously performed just months before. The same is true for Wet Saturday. Why is Suspense repeating its scripts? This was the first time that Suspense was being broadcast in a prime listening time slot. The first time the scripts were aired, listenership was lower than it would be for this broadcast because of a less desirable and accessible time slot with little or no promotion to encourage audience growth. These were good scripts, and worth repeating to a new and bigger audience, most of whom would be hearing them for the very first time.
The east recording is the only network broadcast that has survived. An Armed Forces Radio Service recording has survived and it is drawn from the missing west network broadcast. There are dialogue differences between the two (times noted below are approximate):
East at 26:30 has “I told you to keep still, George, I am thinking”
AFRS at 24:00 has "I told you to keep still, George, I’m…your father’s thinking”
This difference indicates that the AFRS recording was derived from the west broadcast of Monday, 1943-12-20. Therefore, the AFRS recording file name includes that date.
This has been identified and verified by two experienced classic radio collectors at the Cobalt Club online forum. They are exceptionally skilled at detecting and documenting these and other recording differences. They are lasombra (Barbara Watkins) and chasedad (John Barker). Their work has been essential to constructing the history of the Suspense program, and especially the east and west broadcasts of the Roma Wines sponsorship. Their generous dedication to classic radio and this project is greatly appreciated.
The network recording is in more enjoyable sound quality.
Roma Wines supplied advertising “blanks” to their distributors around the country. The distributor would bring the ad to the local newspaper and have them add the station call letters and the broadcast time. It is likely that the distributor received an advertising allowance from Roma Wines to fund a portion and possibly all of the advertising space contract with the newspaper. This ad appeared in the 1943-12-16 Shreveport Times of Louisiana and directs readers to station KWKH at 7:00pm Central time. Ads similar to this could be found in newspapers around the country.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP431216
THE CAST
CHARLES LAUGHTON (Frederick Princey), Dennis Hoey (Captain Smollett), Gloria Gordon (Mrs. Princey), Raymond Lawrence (Sergeant Yancy), Hans Conried (George Princey), Joan Lorring? (Millie Princey), Joe Kearns (Man in Black / Policeman)
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