A Tale of Two Sisters is another Mel Dinelli script about two sisters who formed a childhood pact to always be together. Later, one of them falls in love and marries. The spurned sister's jealousy takes a wicked turn and becomes very dangerous. The production has creative use of flashbacks and disturbing background sounds of a mental institution. Claire Trevor and Nancy Kelly star.
There are three different network recordings and it is not known why. We know that there are east and west recordings, but they cannot be discerned. The best sounding recording is labeled “(2s)” because of the two-second pause before network ID and begins with “Now, Roma Wines present...” There is another recording marked “(2s)” but begins with “Now, the Roma Wine Company of Fresno, California”… There is another recording that begins with “Now, Roma Wines present…” but includes a public service announcement honoring the anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. That recording has the mark “(5s).”
This script would be presented again in 1949 as The Ten Years with Joan Crawford. That broadcast has backroom negotiations and meanderings that rival a Suspense drama itself. Crawford’s 1949 appearance on Suspense involved her insistence that Suspense alter its production methods, had her stage two publicity stunts, Auto-Lite rejecting a new Dinelli script (“The Hand,” which would never be broadcast), and other hiccups along the way. But other than that, it was just another humdrum week's work for radio's outstanding theater of thrills.
A Tale of Two Sisters was Claire Trevor's first appearance on Suspense. The Hollywood star was already a radio veteran with a regular co-star role in the Big Town series of the 1930s and frequent appearances on Lux Radio Theatre. She had a very busy movie career in the 1930s and it continued and spanned decades. She won a supporting actress Oscar for Key Largo, and also won an Emmy in 1956.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP450208
THE CAST
NANCY KELLY (Adele Norris), CLAIRE TREVOR (Clara Foley), Joe Kearns (Man in Black), Wally Maher (Judge), Walter Tetley (Doug Foley, Jr.), Conrad Binyon? (Roy), unknown (Young Adele), unknown (Young Clara), unknown (Nurse Willard)
In the news at this time was Mel Dinelli being signed by Selznick International to adapt the Ethel Lina White novel Some Must Watch. It would be renamed The Spiral Staircase and would significantly raise Dinellis’s profile in Hollywood from radio scripter to a writer of screenplays. Dinelli was 33 at the time of this Suspense broadcast and his career was hitting a promising stride.
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