This is the second performance of a Cornell Woolrich story. It was produced 14 months earlier. It features Van Johnson in the first of his many appearances on Suspense. The story is about a man, drugged by gangsters, who is being framed for a crime. All he can remember is that music seems to be coming out of the walls that surround him.
Details about the original story and the first Suspense production can be found at https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/03/1943-09-02-singing-walls.html
One of the first voices you hear is the hoodlum “Froggy,” named for his annoying voice. Ken Christy played that role in the first broadcast. He seems to have toned it down his portrayal in this broadcast. It’s still annoying, as it’s supposed to be, but it is easier to listen to and is less distracting.
Three recordings of the episode have survived. It is not known which of the two network recordings are east or west. One goes directly to the network ID “(dirID)” and the other has a 22 second pause between them “(22s).” The Armed Forces Radio Service (#76) is drawn from the “22s” recording. These are points of reference:
“22s” at approximately 4:00 and AFRS at about 2:55 have “Then it seemed as though I wasn’t dreaming---dreaming at all…”
“dirID” at about 4:04 has “Then it seemed as though I wasn’t dreaming at all….”
None of the three recordings are unblemished, but the network recordings are about the same with the “dirID” likely the preferred one for listening.
This was Van Johnson’s first appearance on Suspense. He started on Broadway in the mid-1930s and was selected as the understudy for Gene Kelly in Pal Joey. Lucille Ball got him an audition in Hollywood. From then on he was a “boy next door” handsome Hollywood star. At the time of this Suspense appearance, most all of the radio columns were commenting about the frequency of his appearances on radio’s biggest programs. He was on all of the big comedy and variety shows as well as dramatic programs, often appearing on radio multiple times a week, sometimes daily, during this period of his career.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP441102
THE CAST
VAN JOHNSON (Tom Cochran), Wally Maher (Denny), Ken Christy (Froggy Graziani), Joe Kearns (Man in Black / Joe), Joseph Granby (Larry the bartender), Gloria Blondell? (Mildred), Peggy Rea (Mrs. Sorrell), unknown (Desk clerk)
Wally Maher substituted for Keenan Wynn, who was announced as co-star for this show. It’s easy to have a suspicion based on Hollywood gossip about this change. Three years later Johnson married Wynn’s newly divorced ex-wife, Eve Abbott. It is possible that Wynn made himself unavailable for this broadcast because there were tensions brewing around Johnson back at home.
