The story concerns two "ham" radio operators, who, though they live in widely separated parts of the country, are partners in a valuable invention. The have developed a "secret war weapon" during their shortwave conversations, and wartime enemies want to obtain the invention secret. One of the operators is murdered by mysterious strangers during their conversation; forcing the other, played by Sonny Tufts, to find the killer, protect the invention, and save his own life.
The story was by Hugh Pentecost and adapted by Robert L. Richards. “Hugh Pentecost” was a pseudonym of Judson Pentecost Philips, a leading and extremely very prolific mystery writer. His Cat and Mouse novel was published in 1940.
This episode was originally planned to air the prior week, but was postponed because of a change in guest star Sonny Tufts' film schedule. Suspense always had back-up plans in place for last minute replacement of the scheduled star, and also with a back-up script, usually a repeat that the cast and production staff had great familiarity. The planning for Suspense broadcasts generally worked with a rolling advance schedule of six weeks. There were always actors who knew they might be called at the last minute to fill in if they could.
The east coast network recording has survived and has the best sounding audio. An Armed Forces Radio and Television Service recording from the late 1970s / early 1980s is available; it was drawn from the east network broadcast.
From a historical perspective Sonny Tufts was not regarded as a top Hollywood talent, but his career was completing its rise at the time of this broadcast. He started in theater at Yale University and was also a singer. Gradually, his career took him to Hollywood. He had some success in musicals through the 1940s, often cast as a handsome supporting actor. He never really broke through as a star, and problems in his personal life led to a career decline through the 1950s. He was not a good radio actor. It’s worth checking out his Wikipedia biography; some of his story could be considered tragic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Tufts
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP440330
THE CAST
SONNY TUFTS (John Guthrie), Lurene Tuttle (Valentine Ames), John McIntire (Garvey), Will Wright (O’Brien), Joe Kearns (Man in Black), Jeanette Nolan (Mrs. Garvey), Eric Snowdon (Dr. Edwin Vaughn alias Hilary Lawrence), Lou Merrill (Howard Lockwood / Conductor)
Tufts’ performance was lacking and that has caused this episode to be considered to be one of the weakest episodes of Suspense. That may not be a fair judgment of the script’s quality. This script was re-used by Suspense producer William Spier on 1948-12-17 when he was running the 1948-1949 season of Philip Morris Playhouse. Spier did not re-use scripts on Suspense or other venues unless he believed they were superior compared to others. For that performance, he used Dennis O’Keefe in the starring role. Unfortunately, that broadcast has never been found, and may not have survived at all.
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