Edward G. Robinson stars in an odd story as a quiet little man who pretends to have a wife so he can fit in better with his office co-workers. People get suspicious when they never meet her or have any sense that she’s around. They jump to the most likely reason: he must have murdered her! Robinson played so many strong characters like gangsters in his classic Little Caesar that playing a milquetoast character was part of the Suspense strategy of casting against type. The entire premise is detailed in the first five minutes and the story is told in flashback.
The story is by Larry Marcus and was his first for Suspense. It was adapted by Robert Richards. Marcus was a prolific and esteemed radio writer, with scripts for Suspense, many episodes of The Whistler and the Whistler-like series Dark Venture. He wrote many scripts for the superb series Night Beat. His television and movie scripting career began in 1950. He was executive writer for the spooky TV series One Step Beyond as well as individual scripts for many other 1950s and 1960s series.
Two network recordings have survived and it is not known which recording is east or west. The best recording goes directly to the network ID and is marked as “(dirID).” The other recording has a 20 second delay to the ID and is marked as “(20s).”
This is the first appearance of Edward G. Robinson on Suspense. He was one of Hollywood’s most famous actors. His career began in the 1920s and continued for decades thereafter. An overview of his career is at Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_G._Robinson He was a frequent guest on radio variety programs often lampooning his reputation for criminal roles. He performed in the popular movie-related series such as Lux and Screen Guild. He played the lead role in the 1930s and early 1940s on the newspaper series Big Town.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP450301
THE CAST
EDWARD G. ROBINSON (George Graham), Jeanette Nolan (Agnes Barton), John McIntire (Potter), Joe Kearns (Man in Black / Smith / Harry / Garage Man), Elliott Lewis (Holmes), Wally Maher (Fred Bell / Police Lieutenant), Howard McNear (Man on train), Harry Lang (Riley), unknown (Sales clerk)
This script was another Suspense script that William Spier used in his short 1948 stint for ABC’s The Clock.
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