This is a new performance of a script used about 10 months earlier. For details about the storyline go to https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/02/1943-08-03-friend-to-alexander.html This new production was originally scheduled to include Robert Young again, but he was replaced by Richard Whorf. This blogpost is mainly focused on production details.
Wartime radio was fascinating; producers had to be ready to adapt to any news event that would affect their scheduled time. This particular Suspense production is a prime example of that.
This broadcast was in the midst of the ongoing D-Day invasion, and interruptions by the news department could occur at any time. The networks did their best to keep the news at scheduled times so listeners to follow the news in a predictable way. There are times, however, when the news was really big and breaking. The east broadcast begins with an attempt to contact a CBS reporter in Normandy. It doesn’t work. The announcer reads a report of fighting in Japan. They finally get a report from Normandy. It’s noisy and varied, but you can imagine millions of households glued to their radios just to hear it. The opening of Suspense was delayed for 3+ minutes.
That’s a lot of time for a drama that’s around 25-26 minutes. That means they had to find more than 10% of the program to cut out as they were going onto the air. This means that there is a big difference between the east and west broadcasts because the west had its full allotment of time four days later. The studio was probably warned about an hour before broadcast time that this would happen, but even with warning there had to be a feverish effort to figure out how to revise the script. John Barker, a collector who has assisted in this Suspense project with Barbara Watkins, details the differences:
The west broadcast has an entire scene (an initial visit to Dr. Fox, running from 10:05 to 11:49) which doesn't appear in the east. Those three minutes of news had to made up in some way, and this accounts for at least part of that.
The AFRS recording is edited differently, even though it is drawn from the east broadcast. It has almost a full minute of dialogue between Geraldine Fitzgerald and Richard Whorf chopped out of a scene. Whorf gets cut off in mid-sentence and it jumps right from there to the final line of the scene. You can hear it at the 2:53 mark:
"Maybe it’s Madame Dumesnel, or Mittens. Oh, I’m going to bed.”
The AFRS recording is taken from the east Coast broadcast, in which the drama portion was shorter than was the case with the west broadcast anyway, so this couldn't have been done in the interest of cutting down the running time.
But the really interesting thing here is one big difference between the East and West coast broadcasts.
In the west broadcast Elliott Lewis appears as Dr. Fox, both in the above mentioned scene and in the final scene at 23:19.
In the east broadcast, though, it's Hans Conreid who plays Dr. Fox (his scene comes at 22:35).
In the east broadcast Elliott Lewis does appear very briefly, playing [with what sounds like an attempt at a black dialect] the servant Madison at the 12:23 mark.
There's a different actor, unidentified, playing Madison in the west coast broadcast.
There are three recordings. Both the east and west network recordings have survived, and the Armed Forces Radio Service is drawn from the east broadcast. Differences noted with approximate times:
East 8:34 Whorf stumbles on the line, “Every time I tell, sta…start mentioning it…”
West 5:25“Every time I mention it…” without a flub.
As stated earlier, the AFRS version matches the east broadcast.
The west recording is the best recording to listen to in terms of sound quality and completeness; the east recording is in fine quality for listening and for its historical importance. The AFRS recording (#56) is also a fine recording.
Richard Whorf started on stage in Boston and Broadway, then moved to Hollywood as mainly a contract character actor in the 1930s and 1940s. Whorf did not do much radio, but he was also heard on Cavalcade of America. He found notable success directing in television for Richard Diamond, Have Gun Will Travel, Johnny Staccato, Gunsmoke, My Three Sons, The Beverly Hillbillies, and many others.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/440615
THE CAST
GERALDINE FITZGERALD (Bess Andrews), RICHARD WHORF (Harry Andrews), Hans Conried [east] & Elliott Lewis [west] (Doctor Fox / Madison), John McIntire (Man in Black / Bob Crowley), unknown (Alice)
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