1945-01-04 I Had an Alibi

Keenan Wynn plays a newspaper reporter who marries an heiress with a severe heart condition to get her inheritance. When she fails to die as soon as he expected, he plans an elaborate murder which includes tricking her into writing her own suicide note and making sure his fingerprints are in places where he did not actually visit as a means of creating an alibi. In the end, he gets the blame for a murder he didn’t commit, and the real killer gets away! This episode is a good listen, but pay attention or you’ll miss some of the plot turns.

There are two surviving network recordings. The better network recording has 13 seconds to network ID and is the east coast recording (EC). The other recording is the west coast recording (WC). It has a clipped open and goes directly to network ID. The following dialogue difference is a marker for identifying east or west (if some documentation of such appears) or the source of an Armed Forces Radio Service recording should an AFRS recording be found. The dialogue difference is from Wally Maher; note the juxtaposition of two words and the change in emphasis on the word “alibi.” Times are approximate:

• EC 26:40 “No, but it could be a pretty spectacular little allllibi for just on the spur of the moment, couldn’t it?”

• WC 26:15 “No, but it could be a pretty little spectacular alibi for just on the spur of the moment, couldn’t it?”

Mindret Lord did some stage writing and was also a pulp author in the 1930s. He moved into radio scriptwriting and to screenplays and television writing. He had a successful writing career. His true last name was Loeb, and but he changed it to Lord for what was a good reason at the time. He did not want people to think that he was related to fellow Chicagoan “Dickey” Loeb, the thrill murderer, or his wealthy Chicago family. Loeb was the subject of the Leopold-Loeb trial and the stage and movie (Rope) plays about him (the 1942 Suspense script was based on the Broadway production). Unfortunately, Lord committed suicide in 1955. He was 52.

The original title of this script was “Murder is Simple.” It was twice adapted into movies. The first was the 1946 The Glass Alibi and the second was the 1955 The Big Bluff. The 1946 movie is not available online, but the 1955 one is at YouTube https://youtu.be/YUu6t-QRbOQ and at the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/big_bluff

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP450104

THE CAST

KEENAN WYNN (Joseph Eichner), unknown (Belle Schaffner), Lurene Tuttle (Linda Vale), John McIntire (Doctor / Warden), Joe Kearns (Man in Black / Saunders the butler / Priest), Wally Maher (Lt. Vale / Gas station man), Cathy Lewis (Miss Lamson)

This is an interesting item about Mindret Lord from the Kenosha WI News, June 16, 1943

War Workers Fete Script Writer

Mindret Lord, who works at the Lockheed Aircraft plant in Burbank, Calif., learned this week that war workers form a huge portion of the audience listening regularly to “Ceiling Unlimited” on CBS each Monday.

Four weeks ago Lord, who formerly was a writer before going into war work. submitted a radio script to “Ceiling Unlimited.” It was accepted and Cary Grant was cast in the leading role. The following week he submitted another. It was accepted. The third week he submitted another. It was accepted.

This week, as Lord prepared to leave tor lunch hour on the war plant grounds, he was ushered by group of fellow workers to a specially prepared area where 200 men and women of the aviation company were gathered to tender him an informal banquet as a testimonial to his work. All 200 had box lunches and Lord, the guest of honor, brought his own lunch!

Lockheed was the sponsor of the series. The episode was Where from Here? and was broadcast on May 31, 1943. It seems that the episode has not survived.