This episode is the only appearance of Frank Sinatra on Suspense. Blogger Christine Miller says that To Find Help is so plausible that it is genuinely scary. Not everyone agrees. I suspect they just don’t understand the story or the presentation, but she does. This is a really creepy story, and is one of the best presented on Suspense. It might be the case that the focus on the big guest star impaired the acceptance of the underlying story.
Variety was not a fan of Frank Sinatra’s performance. They were not exactly cordial in their January 23, 1945 review:
Academy award winners must have breathed easier last Thursday after Frank Sinatra completed his straight dramatic stint on CBS' Suspense, in which he co-starred with Agnes Moorehead. They did To Find Help, a thriller. Sinatra's portrayal of a depressed, screwball killer was delivered in a deadly monotone, effective in a way, but his contrib undoubtedly caused little excitement around the Theatre Guild offices.
That monotone was exactly the way it was supposed to be played! The emotionless character could explode at any moment, without any buildup. That’s the suspense of the story… would it happen? what would happen? how would it happen? what dangers would ensue?
Ben Gross, radio critic of the New York Daily News, was generally positive and opined in his 1945-01-19 column:
Judged as a bit of professional acting, we'd say his work was competent but uninspired. However, seeing Frankie as a crooner trying to become an incipient Boris Karloff, we'll report that he did far better than anyone had a right to expect. The real star of the show was that sterling actress Agnes Moorehead.
The plotline has a lonely middle-aged woman who needs some work done around the house. Because so many able-bodied men are in military service, such help is hard to find. That emotionless nature of Sinatra’s character seems like childhood innocence and conveys trustworthiness. The need for the work outweighs the scrutiny needed before such a hire is made. That’s the starting point and the fear and tension starts from there. It’s subtle and it grows. It’s not long before she worries she is about to be murdered.
The episode was written by Mel Dinelli. He was developing a stage play, “The Man,” with this storyline, and he turned it into a radio script. A few months later, it was published as a short story in the May-June edition of Story Magazine. It would be performed on Suspense again in 1949.
Only the Armed Forces Radio Service recording has survived. It is not known if it is drawn from the east or west broadcast. It is AFRS#87. The sound quality has some issues but this recording is better than most that have been available in past years. There is also an AFRS recording in lesser sound that has a tease for the next week's episode, Drury's Bones with Boris Karloff. It is quite possible that they have the same source but the better recording has been edited to exclude that excerpt.
Getting Frank Sinatra onto Suspense was challenging. All parties wanted the event to occur, but getting the Suspense schedule and Sinatra’s commitments to mesh was quite difficult.
In the Summer and Fall of 1944, Sinatra was in Hollywood for the filming of the MGM musical Anchors Away with Gene Kelly. It would become a box office success. Kelly and Sinatra were good friends. Sinatra, however, was on a rocky road of his own making in Hollywood.
A September 9, 1944 Salt Lake UT Telegram United Press wire report by columnist Nina Paredes started the troubles. It includes quotes by Sinatra being very unhappy about Hollywood and its people. The column mocks him as “The Voice” (his nickname at the time, but in this context it was definitely a sarcastic slight) and implies that his success was undeserved. This is a portion of the column:
“Pictures stink. Most of the people in them do, too,” Frankie, who now finishing his third movie, declared. In the second emancipation proclamation of his startling career.
The big-eared crooner, whose off-key groans have earned him a sizable fortune on radio and in the movies, asserted his independence the first time when he declared himself free from Maestro Tommy Dorsey, the genial gentleman of swing.
“I don't want any more movie acting," The Voice said in a strangely grumpy tone, so different from the dulcet sounds that send millions of young females into trances.
Ten days later, Sinatra was retracting the statements as a misunderstanding with the frantic but calming help of the MGM publicity department. He was still a hot entertainment property, despite the incident.
Suspense was ready to do whatever it could to get Sinatra and pursued him for many months while he was in Hollywood. Spier was interested in a Suspense appearance because of the ratings possibilities and reinforcement of the successful strategy of casting musical stars in unlikely and sometimes nefarious roles. His wife, Kay Thompson, was urging him to do so. She performed with Sinatra in her singing and dancing career in night clubs in prior years and came to know him well. She was working with him, but this time in her role as the musical and performing coach and design of choreography for MGM musicals.
According to a 1970s interview with sound effects artist Berne Surrey, Sinatra was paid $12,000 for his appearance. That caused some grumbling among the Suspense regulars. That is about $205,000 in today's US$2023. Sinatra and two “guys,” likely bodyguards to avoid or navigate crowds, and also to keep him busy and focused, would also show up with him.
Sinatra was scheduled multiple times for his Suspense appearance and circumstances forced postponements. These are the dates he was originally scheduled to appear and some background about each of them:
September 14, 1944: CBS was originally planning a big splash with Sinatra for the opening of the Fall season. Instead, You’ll Never See Me Again with Joseph Cotten was selected. The bad publicity in the September 9 wire stories did not cause the cancellation as the change was made before that appeared. Cotten was already announced as the guest at the end of the prior week’s show. Sinatra’s availability was likely more affected by the move of his own radio program from Hollywood to New York for its September 24 broadcast.
November 23, 1944: Sinatra was unavailable, and a repeat performance of The Fountain Plays was broadcast. Charles Laughton was announced as the guest at the end of the prior week’s show; it was not a sudden cancellation.
November 30, 1944: Sinatra was unavailable, and a repeat performance of The Black Curtain was broadcast. The change was “covered up” by describing it as an anniversary re-performance for the first year of Roma sponsorship. Cary Grant was announced as star; again, it was not a sudden cancellation. Having Sinatra for such an anniversary would have been a great publicity opportunity, but it was not to be.
Finally, after all the fits and starts, To Find Help was presented on January 18, 1945. It was performed again on January 6, 1949. That 1949 broadcast was intended to include Sinatra once more. Yet again, he became unavailable and but friend and Anchors Aweigh partner Gene Kelly subbed.
After Suspense, Dinelli’s play went to Broadway in 1950 with Lillian Gish and Richard Boone. It closed after 92 performances. (The Playbill can be viewed at https://playbill.com/personlistpage/person-list?production=00000150-aea3-d936-a7fd-eef752760002&type=cp#cc ) The play had a successful life away from Broadway. It was very popular in regional and community theaters throughout the 1950s and was still making the rounds of those venues in the 1960s.
The story, radio play, and stage play coalesced into a screenplay. Dinelli’s work became the movie Beware, My Lovely featuring Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan. It was released in 1952. It can be viewed at https://youtu.be/e3_lFPYWd7Y and at The Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/bewaremylovely1952_202001
It also became a TV production in 1960 on Ford Startime with Audie Murphy and Thelma Ritter. The program can be viewed on YouTube https://youtu.be/PRQDCOm1Ttg In following years, there were British, French, and German TV productions. There was also a 1971 TV presentation in Argentina.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/450118
THE CAST
FRANK SINATRA (Howard Wilton), AGNES MOOREHEAD (Mrs. Gillis), Joe Kearns (Man in Black), Wally Maher (Stevens, the telephone repairman), John McIntire (Armstrong), Charles Seel (Milkman), Earl Keen? (Sarah the dog)
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