Keenan Wynn plays a smart-aleck Broadway gossip-columnist for a newspaper. When a priest friend is murdered and he starts getting visits about finding a Bible owned by the priest, he gets drawn into a plot to find a valuable painting.
Jo (not “Joe”) Eisinger wrote the original novel; it became a 1946 movie. Robert Tallman adapted the story for Suspense. Spier liked the story and adaptation so much that this script was used for the audition recording for The Adventures of Sam Spade, with the title Sam Spade and the Walls of Jericho (unfortunately no recording is available, and it was never broadcast). This accounts for some of the deja-vu feeling in the dialogue if you’ve heard a Spade show or two before hearing this episode. It was clearly the kind of writing Spier wanted for that series, and he became a regular scripter for it. Eisinger and others like Robert Tallman were not credited in early Spade shows because Spier wanted to create a sense that Dashiell Hammett had a pivotal role in the show.
Eisinger wrote for Suspense with The Kandy Tooth (in the 60-minute series, originally broadcast as a 2-part Spade story) and adapting James M. Cain’s Love’s Lovely Counterfeit. Eisinger was a writer for Jack Webb’s radio series Pete Kelly’s Blues. Some of his radio work was under the name “Jason James.”
Eisinger had a very successful screenwriting career. Two of his screenplays are considered classics of film noir: Gilda and Night and the City. He also wrote for the TV series Danger Man which was actor Patrick McGoohan’s series prior to Secret Agent and The Prisoner.
Listen for Hans Conried’s very amusing and over-the-top performance as Helms, a key part of the lighter nature of the production.
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https://archive.org/details/440629
THE CAST
KEENAN WYNN (“Darcy,” alias Patrick O’Donnell), John McIntire (O’Daigis the attorney), Gloria Gordon (Catherine Walsh), Norman Field (Father Walsh), Lurene Tuttle? (Patricia Behrens), unknown (Susan Finch), Lou Merrill (Captain Griffin / Klinger), Hans Conried (Ernst Helms / Hotel man), Joe Kearns (Man in Black)
The address of the columnist’s office is the same street name, Sutton Place, as Mrs. Stevenson in Sorry Wrong Number.
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