1945-11-08 The Bet

Lee J. Cobb plays an artist traveling in Trinidad. At an antiques shop, he meets the attractive wife of a very wealthy and very narcissistic owner of a large and stratospherically profitable sugar business. She lures him to their massive home where she treats him with generous hospitality (that will, of course, be revealed to have a sinister motive). It doesn’t take long for the husband to insult Cobb’s character that being an artist is not really work and his efforts produce no true value. The husband suggests that he would find the daily work at a real job to be impossible. The husband bets Cobb’s character that he can’t spend two years in their tropical paradise (where it rains a lot, it seems) working at his laboratory. That lab just happens to be doing research on tropical diseases. All Cobb’s character has to do is maintain administrative lab records for two years. If he does, he will get $50,000, or in US$2023, $840,000.

That’s the set-up: a man infatuated with a rich man’s wife who loves his money but hates him. How convenient the man will be working in a lab where there are tropical disease organisms that could be used to murder that very annoying husband, and inherit the money, all without creating any suspicion. They just have to make sure the husband eats the diseased-infected sauce that the wife adds to the caviar. Which Roma Wine does Elsa Maxwell suggest for poisoned caviar?

The story is by Martin S. Ryerson. He was a freelance writer for many radio series and also for theatrical productions.

CBS promoted the script “Before the Fact” with Cobb for this date; The Bet replaced it. That other script was renamed The Angel of Death and broadcast on 1946-01-03.

There is one surviving network copy of this episode and it is not identified as east or west. The time to network ID is 16 seconds and the recording is identified with “(16s).” An Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#128) has survived. The AFRS version is from the missing network broadcast. Times are approximate:

• 16s 5:53 there is a verbal stumble on the name Ada

• AFRS 5:09 is a clean read

• 16s 6:20 “So you're an artist, Mr. Turner. (short, hearty laugh) Well, I envy you”

• AFRS 5:38 “So you're an artist, Mr. Turner. (no laugh) Well, I envy you”

The network copy is the better sounding recording.

This story was included in Suspense Magazine #1. A PDF of the story is available on the Internet Archive page with the recordings.

This was Lee J. Cobb's first and only appearance on Suspense. He started in theater and did some work in films, but his career was not yet in high gear at the time of this appearance. His reputation as an actor rose significantly when he played Will Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman on Broadway in 1949. He had four nominations for supporting actor in film, two for Oscars, two for Golden Globes. He had three Emmy nominations for actor. He was nominated for a Grammy for the audio version of Death of a Salesman. His career is summarized at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_J._Cobb

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP451108

THE CAST

LEE J. COBB (Scott Turner), Cathy Lewis (Ada Barton), Elliott Lewis (Siam), Wally Maher (Paul Barton), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice)

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1945-11-01 The Dunwich Horror

Ronald Colman stars in a Silvia Richards adaptation of the famous H. P. Lovecraft short story. It was originally published in the April 1929 issue of Weird Tales. The story is quite different from the Suspense usual fare. The CBS publicity release that was picked up by many newspapers and is as good a summary of this very strange story as any:

The story is an eerie tale of a deformed albino, her insane father and her two sons, one of them invisible. The invisible son, who lives in an old barn and puts in most of his time trying to work out a formula that will make him visible is the focal point of the story.

The Wikipedia page about this famous Lovecraft work is very detailed and highly recommended https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dunwich_Horror

The original story is at https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/dh.aspx

William Spier is back in the studio after his time away to recover from his mild heart attack. Charles Vanda would be back to cover for him again for Elwood 1947-03-06.

Dunwich Horror is an odd story selection for Suspense and it may have led to a refinement of Spier’s general guidelines for script solicitation and submission. This show was broadcast in late 1945, and in Summer 1946, CBS issued a press release about the script guidelines for the series. The guidelines were developed months before. These excerpts are from the 1946-08-18 Tampa Bay FL Times:

• Suspense is not a horror show or a detective story program.

• Though there can be an element of horror in a Suspense drama, it must be believable. No sawing people in half mad scientists or ape-man stuff which depends on terror alone for dramatic effect.

• Suspense is not a ghost story broadcast. The most successful shows have been those which were realistic and in which the listener could easily identify himself with the predicament of the main character.

There are many fans of this episode who really enjoy it and make it part of their Halloween listening playlist. But, it possible that Spier was not happy with the Dunwich Horror production and believed it strayed from the thematic strategy he set for the series. Perhaps he felt he needed to better define and promulgate the specific and standard guidelines for the series? The items mentioned in the news release were also printed as guidelines for writers submitting scripts to the series. It was likely sent to authors whose scripts were rejected so they could possibly make revisions for re-submission or write new scripts that fit the objectives in a better way.

There is only one surviving recording of this episode, and it is an Armed Forces Radio Service issue (#127). The disc seems to have been recorded only one time by a collector, decades ago, and never re-done. (Most Suspense discs of the 1940s shows were transferred multiple times over the years, usually by different collectors.) The recording is flawed by disc damage at the at the outer edge. Collectors have often tried to clean up the recording, but it remains flawed at the opening minutes. AFRS issued many copies of its programs, and it is hoped that one day a better disc will be found. Even better, it would be great if one of the network broadcasts would appear. It is not known if this AFRS recording is drawn from the east or west network broadcast.

Dunwich is a fictional Massachusetts town. Based on landmarks in the story it is believed that Sentinel Hill is Wilbraham Mountain near Wilbraham. The city is more famous to non-Lovecraft readers as the birthplace of the Friendly’s Ice Cream brand and its many shops throughout the Northeast US. A plateful of cherry vanilla would be so pleasant...

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP451101

THE CAST

RONALD COLMAN (Professor Henry Armitage), Bill Johnstone (Dr. Ken Houghton), Elliott Lewis (Wilbur Wately), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Wizard Wately), Wally Maher (Corey), unknown (Dr. Rice), unknown (Lem Brown), [Peggy Rea?, Cathy Lewis?]

Hearing Bill Johnstone in this kind of story sounds almost like he is playing Lamont Cranston on The Shadow once again as he did about five years earlier before he moved to Hollywood. The presentation also has the feel of Witch’s Tale episode because of the occult storyline.

###

1945-10-25 A Shroud for Sarah

Lucille Ball plays a manipulative, narcissistic woman who plays everyone she deals with to her selfish advantage and pits one against the other. Eventually, they’ve all had enough and conspire against her. Such nasty people make such good stories. A robber-murderer, a crooked politician, an unethical doctor… she’s “friends” with them all and undercuts each one of them. In the end, she is killed in a manner that each of those “friends” could be blamed for her murder and they use that to blackmail each other into silence. Everyone is evil in this story and there is nothing heroic among these lead characters. The story is by Emil C. Tepperman and adapted by Silvia Richards.

In the prior week’s episode, Charles Vanda was filling in for Spier and his name was mentioned at the show open. That likely ruffled someone’s feathers and Vanda’s not officially mentioned here, even though he’s still filling in while Spier recovers from a heart attack. The story goes that Ball was not happy about Vanda’s lack of identification, so at 5:30 an inside joke was inserted that a crime was committed at the “Vanda Finance Company.”

There are three surviving recordings, east and west network and the Armed Forces Radio Service (#126) recording. The network recordings have 11 seconds “(11s)” and 6 seconds “(6s)” to network ID. It is not known which is east or west. The AFRS recording is drawn from the “(6s)” network recording. Times are approximate.

• 11s 25:40 “...listen carefully, Varney, and you, George...”

• 6s 25:40 “...listen carefully, Mar...er, Varney, and you, George...”

• AFRS has the same dialogue stumble as the “6s” recording

The “(11s)” recording is the slightly better of the network recordings. The AFRS recording has the lesser sound quality of the three.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP451025

THE CAST

LUCILLE BALL (Sarah Martell), Elliott Lewis (George Monk), Wally Maher (Police Inspector), Lou Merrill (Steven Archer), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Dr. Varney), Alan Hewitt (Peter Martell), unknown (News announcer), unknown (O’Connor)

###

1945-10-18 Summer Storm

Henry Fonda plays a man with a police record who decides to skip out of paying his rent, but his landlord won’t let him. The landlord is having a meal of pigs knuckles (remember that… I think the meal was picked so it would be easily remembered by the listeners). An argument about the rent becomes violent and Fonda’s character shoves him and believes he killed him. He realizes he can’t get away and has to hide in the house until he has an opportunity to flee. The facts of his past means that even though the death was accidental, it was more likely he’d be accused of murder.

The story is by Louis Este, who was also a writer for The Whistler. Some previous resources attribute the script to William Spier. No verification of that has been found. The Suspense TV version clearly credits Este as the author. Este has very few radio credits, and the name cannot be found in directories of authors or mystery magazines or other resources. There is no indication that the name was a pseudonym of Spier. But… Suspense history is full of mysteries. The script was used on Murder by Experts on 1950-10-30 and attributed to Este. (Hat tip: Karl Schadow)

The episode nearly veers into the problem that Murder for Myra had where the character has to explain everything that they are doing for the listeners. In this case, however, we learn early in the episode that Fonda’s character likes to talk to himself. Much of his internal chatter is his thinking about how to extricate himself from the situation. Unlike Murder for Myra, but there is background activity of people moving in and out of rooms and conversing, and we eavesdrop on them as he does. The internal dialogue also includes the character talking to himself, and referring to himself by his first name, and that makes us wonder about his general mental competence. There is enough variety in Fonda’s performance that it stays interesting and you even start feeling claustrophobic about being stuck in the attic along with him.

The ending of the story involves that pigs knuckles meal and the fortuitous realization that it wasn’t murder… but you still feel he got away from punishment for the wrongful acts of skipping the rent and an assault.

There are three surviving recordings, both east and west network broadcasts and the Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#125). The AFRS recording is drawn from the east broadcast. Times are approximate. East and west broadcasts are about the same, with the west slightly better to some ears. The AFRS recording is from a damaged disc, but the sound improved at about 5 minutes into the program.

• East 3:27 “Better wait awhile, Eddie”

• AFRS 2:53 “Better wait awhile, Eddie”

• West 3:17 “Better... better wait awhile, Eddie.”

Summer Storm was produced and directed by Suspense creator Charles Vanda. He gets on-air credit at the very opening of the program. The image shows the revision made to Joe Kearns’ copy of the script (great thanks to the SPERDVAC script library).

Vanda was producer of the CBS series Theater of Romance at the time of this broadcast, and was filling in for Spier as he was recovering from another heart attack. He left for military service during the Summer 1942 season of Suspense and helped create the Armed Forces Radio Service. Lt. Col. Vanda served in 19 different countries in key communications roles. In April 1945, he returned from the service and to CBS as an executive producer. Before he left, he was promised a return to Suspense as its producer when his military service was over. The executives who made that promise, however, were no longer in their positions. It was also clear that William Spier had taken the series in a different direction and created a big success that CBS was likely reluctant to tamper with. Some of that success was by Spier’s abandoning aspects of Vanda’s original vision for the series. The relationship between Vanda and Spier was cordial and professional, for the most part, but Vanda did not get credit for all of the times he was filling in (the next week’s program does not recognize him, but Lucille Ball sticks his name into the script in a creative way). By the time the 1950s came around, Spier was incorrectly getting credit in the press as creator of Suspense. Spier never claimed he did. Vanda sent an angry telegram to Variety at one point to correct the record. There was personal animus between them at times, but Vanda was already in a different and lucrative direction by then. He became a highly successful and wealthy producer and investor in television programming. He was a very generous philanthropist to the arts after his retirement.

Interestingly, there is no producer named in the next episode. Perhaps Vanda caused a bit of trouble by having his name mentioned in this episode.

It must have been confusing for the listeners: there was a movie of the same title, Summer Storm, in the theaters. Starring George Sanders and Linda Darnell, it was an adaptation of Anton Chekov’s The Shooting Party.

The story was re-done on the Suspense television series with the addition of a son to Henry Fonda’s character. That took the edge off the monologue segments that are a major part of the radio production. https://archive.org/details/Suspense--Summer_Storm

This was Henry Fonda’s only Suspense appearance. He was not on radio often, but had on-air appearances in the late 1930s and would also appear in some public service programming. His very long and notable career is summarized at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fonda

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP451018

THE CAST

HENRY FONDA (Eddie), Verna Felton (Mrs. Waters), Lou Merrill (Mr. Waters / Dan the Policeman), Ken Christy (Mike the Counterman), Wally Maher (O’Farrell), Elliott Lewis (Graham), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice)

###

1945-10-11 Beyond Good and Evil

Joseph Cotten stars in a Ben Hecht play. It was inspired by a movie idea of Hecht’s agent, Douglas Whitney. Cotten is a prison escapee who takes nefarious advantage of an opportunity to hide in plain sight from the authorities. The story concept is good but many aspects are not developed well in the limited time that a Suspense radio play has.

A young minister has been recruited to replace a retiring pastor in a small town. Cotten’s character kills him and takes his clerical garb. He steals his identity and masquerades as him. The elderly pastor has has medical issues that prevent him from continuing his position. He realizes that Cotten’s character is an impostor when he compares a picture of the murdered incoming pastor with Cotten’s character. Shocked by that reality, the pastor has a severe stroke and can no longer speak, so he cannot tell others about the scheme. Somehow, the fake pastor, who was a trained as a lawyer, provides enough platitudes and Bible verses to the congregation to survive months without detection. That is hard to believe because learning rubrics of liturgy or celebrated ministry take years of study and personal experience. Combined with the administrative responsibilities of leading a community, it does not seem possible without a planned period of transition or counsel of other ministers who surely would have been suspicious of the circumstances The listener just has to accept that it is possible to for the impostor to go along with the flow and successfully continue the elaborate ruse.

Over time, it’s not the parish that cracks under the pressure, but the masquerading pastor once he develops personal relationships within the town. The elderly pastor turn out to be the hero in the story. The story of “the good thief” (Luke 23:39-43) is referenced directly and indirectly in the story as its ultimate theme.

The title would have been recognized as the same as the 1886 work of the philosopher Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche. Where Nietzsche railed against religion and its negative effects on society, by the end of the story Cotten’s selfish and amoral character seems to embrace the idea that his acts were evil and seeks some redemption from them. Hecht may not have been defending religion with the conclusion of the story but likely realized it would be a good ending that would resonate with the listening audience of that time.

This play was originally intended to be a movie. There were news reports in late 1944 that this Hecht-Whitney idea would be perfect for Alan Ladd. The project did not come to fruition. Instead, it became this radio script, perhaps in hope that it would catch some studio attention. It moves with such haste that details about the main plotline and subplots are not developed. They could be explored and the plot weaknesses could have been explained in the span of a 90-minute movie.

There are three surviving recordings of the broadcast. There is a different commercial introduction in each of the network broadcasts after the 9 minute mark. The east recording has Truman Bradley starting the Roma commercial with “between the acts of Suspense...” while the west recording has "Here's a suggestion from…" The Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#124) has not been determined as to its source. AFRS recordings have commercials edited out; detailed analysis still needs to be done to determine whether the source is east or west. Perhaps a fellow classic radio enthusiast reading this blogpost can contribute to the project by volunteering for that task.

The best sounding recording is the east coast broadcast.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP451011

THE CAST

JOSEPH COTTEN (Dr. Howard Pierce, alias Philip Gentry), Cathy Lewis (Lucy McKillup), Wally Maher (Mack), Gloria Gordon (Mary), Norman Field (Dr. McKillop), Bill Martell (Tom Hubbard), Alan Hewitt (Reverend Pierce), Victor Rodman (Officer Owens), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice)

###

1945-10-04 Death on Highway 99

George Murphy makes his first Suspense appearance in a story written by Larry Marcus and Robert Light. Murphy was known for his appearances in Hollywood musicals and was president of the Screen Actors Guild at the time of this broadcast. Marcus was known especially for The Whistler and was a prolific radio writer. Light wrote other Suspense scripts as well as scripts for Box 13 and Dark Venture.

The story begins with Murphy’s character writing from jail to a girl in high school that he loved… but he really had a crush on her… and she never really noticed him. Why he thinks of writing to her we never really know, but this is a story theme that begins with his cowardice of never confronting that girl and comes full circle in the story’s surprise ending. Murphy’s character says he knew the girl seven years ago, making him about 25 years old. After the target of his unexpressed affection marries, he marries someone else and ends up in a very unhappy relationship. That sets the stage for a car accident caused by their arguing about a divorce and not paying attention to the road. They think the man they hit is dead… and hide his body in bushes along the road. Guilt and a cover-up are key elements of the story, leading to the murder of the wife because she is the only witness and threatens to use that fact against him, and his cascading fear he will be caught and punished. That leads to the surprise ending.

The original title of the script was “Death on Highway No. 99” or “Death on Highway Number 99.” Someone decided “number” wasn’t necessary, and is more in line with common expression.

There are three surviving recordings. The surviving network recording is in the best sound of the three. It cannot be identified as east or west. There are two Armed Forces Radio Service recordings. The first (#123) is contemporary to the original broadcast. The second is from the late 1970s or early 1980s with very rough editing of the open and close. Both recordings are from the missing network recording. Times are approximate:

• AFRS 0:31 “The clock here in my room has just struck 7:00”

• Surviving network 1:17 “The clock here in my room just struck 7:00”

There are other differences between the surviving network and the Armed Forces recordings. The later AFRTS has the file name Suspense 1945-10-04 Death on Highway 99 AFRTS RU-9-0-1046. It has the compiled opening of various Suspense eras that sounds so unnerving in its editing.

This is the first of three appearances on Suspense by George Murphy. His entertainment career began in the 1920s as a dancer and then in Broadway musicals. When he moved to Hollywood, his work in musicals continued. He retired from acting in 1952 and became active in politics. He was US senator for California from 1965 to 1971. His page at Wikipedia has more information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Murphy

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP451004

THE CAST

GEORGE MURPHY (Morton Blake), Cathy Lewis (Pauline Blake), Bill Johnstone (Officer), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Haggerty), Joe Granby (Captain Shannon), Dick Nelson? (Sergeant Graham), Jack Edwards, Jr. (Doctor)

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1945-09-27 The Earth is Made of Glass

This episode is a Silvia Richards story that is based on the theme of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1841 essay Compensation. Emerson’s premise can be summarized as “You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.” He contends that crime damages a person’s soul, making it, their environment, and their relationships more fragile, easily broken, prone to further corruption.

The episodes stars Joseph Cotten in this creepy story of testing the concept in real life in a random  motive-free murder as an experiment. The purpose is to find out if there is a “karma-like” effect on the perpetrator and how it affects their conscience. Cotten is really cold-blooded in the part.

In Emerson’s time and at the time of this broadcast, glass was assumed to be fragile and not durable as some of the versions of glass available today. The title’s reference was commonly understood by and obvious to many listeners, and many may have read the Emerson piece in high school.

Richards’ reference to the Biblical “eye for an eye” is used out of context, and was commonly misunderstood as condoning revenge. Its misinterpretation is still common today, if not more so. It actually means that punishments should be appropriate and proportional to the crime and not more more than that. Human history is rather brutal with crimes subject to retribution beyond the injurious act, often with death or maiming. Authorities would consider disproportionately harsh punishments as deterrents to smaller crimes.

Clifton Webb was the originally planned and heavily promoted star. Cotten fills in with a marvelous performance on relatively short notice.

Only one network recording has survived, and it is not known if it is the east or west broadcast. There are two versions of it, however. The commonly circulating program is missing the Truman Bradley opening of “Now…” The two files close with a 14 second pause before the network ID. The file with the clipped open is the better sounding recording.

• COMPLETE: Suspense 1945-09-27 The Earth is Made of Glass (14s - complete open)

• BETTER SOUND: Suspense 1945-09-27 The Earth is Made of Glass (14s - missing 'now')

This was Gale Gordon’s only documented appearance on Suspense as he plays “Dr. West.” He was one of radio’s greatest and most reliable voices. He was best known for his comedic work, especially for Fibber McGee and Molly and Our Miss Brooks. He would work extensively with Lucille Ball in her 1960s and 1970s television comedy programs. His radio work began in the 1930s with many uncredited dramatic roles. His career is profiled at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gale_Gordon

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP450927

THE CAST

JOSEPH COTTEN (Richard Steel), Gale Gordon (Dr. West), Bill Johnstone (Salesclerk), Cathy Lewis (Miss Adams), Wally Maher (Mr. Jeremy), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Elliot), unknown (Librarian), unknown (Nurse)

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1945-09-20 Library Book

This episode was based on the Cornell Woolrich short story The Book that Squealed which appeared in the August 1939 issue of Street & Smith’s Detective Story Magazine. It was adapted for Suspense by Silvia Richards.

Blogger Christine Miller writes about this episode:

This episode stars Myrna Loy as Prudence, a public librarian who stops at nothing to discover who vandalized the library's copy of Gone With the Wind. She is the stereotypical librarian - until she takes off her glasses. Then, for reasons she can't understand, men call her “toots.” Of course, the audience understands because Prudence is really Myrna Loy, the sexy star of The Thin Man movies. In her heyday in the 1930's, she was voted “The Queen of Hollywood” by fans.

Loy’s character is realizes that individual words are cut out of the book. She checks what words they are and realizes that when they are arranged in a particular order, they comprise a ransom note. She follows through the loan history of the book and investigates what happens.

If the “Eddie” character sounds a lot like “Froggy” in The Singing Walls, it should. It’s actor Ken Christy playing a gangster once more.

There are funny librarian jokes here as a young customer is taking out Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O’Neill believing it to be about radios. Gone With the Wind is supposedly about aviation but upon reading was nothing like that at all. The other is the running gag (and stereotype of its time) about nerdy woman librarians who wear glasses and become like Hollywood starlets when they remove them. Loy’s character throws her glasses out at the end of the story as she decides that the romantic advances of the police lieutenant who saves her are worth pursuing. It’s a story of its time, similar to movie fare of the era. Today, it would likely be adjusted and its edges sanded and rounded with the verbal interplay updated into a “rom-com” story. (Cornell Woolrich and a rom-com? Really?) It’s a light story and has none of the grittiness of episodes of prior weeks. The listeners needed a break to catch their collective breath.

Loy seems a bit stilted in her acting before the microphone here and there, so Spier may have held a script like this to suit an actor of her radio experience. One of the rules of Suspense in its relationship with the studios was to put the guest stars in the best possible situation to succeed. Scripts that would maintain or raise their profile with their fans and with the radio audience were important with the hope of stimulating box office revenues. This one of the reasons why Suspense was always planned out six weeks before and oftentimes more. There was always a backlog of scripts, and as the show continued with every week, the file cabinet grew deeper with scripts that could be performed again if necessary should a search for the “best skills match” arise. That backlog wasn’t always in case availability of a planned guest star changed.

Loy’s character takes a cab ride and the cost is $7.85; she doesn’t have the money for it. That’s $132 in US$2023 value.

There are two network recordings. One has a close that goes directly to network ID (“dirID”) and the other has an 8 second pause “(8s).” The “dirID” recording is the better of the two. The “8s” recording has some opening disc skips which is why it was not widely circulated. There are some copies that start mid-commercial with the disc skips edited out. The edge of the disc was obviously damaged with the usual opening unplayable.

There is a miscue in the “(8s)” version. At the beginning of the drama, Loy says she’ll answer the phone and says “public library” while the phone is still ringing. Audio segments like this help identify which network broadcast was used for the Armed Forces Radio Service recordings. No AFRS recording of this episode has been found, but this will be used to help identify its network source.

This is the only appearance of Myrna Loy on Suspense. She is likely best known for the 14 movies she co-starred with William Powell. Six of which were in The Thin Man series. Radio appearances were generally limited to the movie-based programs such as Lux and Screen Guild. Her very long career is summarized at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrna_Loy

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP450920

THE CAST

MYRNA LOY (Prudence Roberts), Cathy Lewis (Maggie Hughes), Wally Maher (Lieutenant Murphy), Conrad Binyon (Boy in library), Ken Christy (Eddie), Junius Matthews (Older library patron / Duke), Peggy Rea? (Miss Baumgarten), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Police Captain), Jeanette Nolan? (Mrs. Rudnick), unknown (Melanie Stevens), unknown (Landlady), unknown (Cab Driver)

###

1945-09-13 The Furnished Floor

Lucille Fletcher’s The Furnished Floor is not what we’ve come to expect from one of her scripts. It’s considered a weak one, but it is still better than average radio age listening. Some of it seems eerily amusing rather than serious, more Haunting Hour than Suspense-ish. Just the week before, the legendary Sorry, Wrong Number was re-presented, so in some ways Furnished Floor is a letdown. Read the notes below and it may seem like a better program than the classic radio fan common wisdom. Its strength may be in its open ended closing events that lead to entertaining speculation.

A landlady is pleased when a former border wants to return after losing his wife just a year ago. He asks to rent the very same single-floor apartment they shared. He’s pleased to learn that the apartment is still exactly the same and has not been cleaned or painted. Why is he returning? Is it with a new wife or does it still have something to do with his deceased wife, and if so, did she die or is he entertaining a ghost? He could still have her body with him, could he? The landlady is suspicious as he starts to re-assemble the apartment the way it was before he left. He relocates various furnishings he had disposed of, and even finds their pet bird! It falls to pieces when the landlady decides to rent to someone else because she thinks the whole thing is strange since she never sees the new wife even though he insists she’s upstairs and ill. It’s pretty clear that the man’s grief has turned into psychological trauma as he really believes his deceased wife has returned and he does not want others to know. At the end of the program, the spiritual Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is played on the piano… who is playing? The man? The ghost of his wife? He tells her to sing, but we hear him as he sings it. It’s safe to assume it’s him playing the song, though in his tortured mind he likely believes her hands are on the piano keys.

The traditional song, an African-American spiritual, has multiple meanings. In this case, it represents his grief and desire to be reunited with his wife. What’s next for him? Will they find him one day in the future having taken his own life? The story seems to be headed that way in the long run; the landlady said as much at the beginning of the episode when she says he was so forlorn she expected to hear that he drowned himself after the wife died. (The song was also popular in an allegorical manner for the Underground Railroad movement which helped slaves escape to free states in the north.)

Is the landlady okay? Has she passed out? Has she had a fatal heart attack upon gazing at this scene and realizing she’s with a madman or because she’s seen a ghost? Yet again a Fletcher story includes the sound of a body fall during the concluding scene. In SWN, we know what the body fall meant. In this story, we’re not so sure. Perhaps the epilogue that we don’t hear is that she wakes up and calls the police. Perhaps medical personnel to take him away after what is clearly a psychological breakdown. The lack of finality and the open end possibilities of the story actually make this story more interesting than its core premise seems to be.

The story was also presented on the Lights Out television series seven years later as The Upstairs Floor. https://youtu.be/LxcYCb9Knmk or https://archive.org/details/LightsOut-TheUpstairsFloor

There are two surviving recordings of the episode. The network recording is the better of the two. It is not known whether it is east or west. The recording goes direct to network ID and is identified as such, “(dirID).” The Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#120) is derived from the missing network recording. Times are approximate:

• dirID 3:21 “You were always so very kind”

• AFRS 2:23 “You were always so kind”

The two stars in this episode, Mildred Natwick and Don DeFore, make their only Suspense appearances. Natwick’s relationship to the series, however, is quite interesting.

 

Mildred Natwick was primarily a stage actor who also found great success in film and television. She rarely had leading roles and was rarely on radio. This was her only Suspense radio appearance, but she had other roles that are important parts of Suspense history. In January 1946 she starred in the experimental television broadcast of Sorry, Wrong Number on the New York City station WCBT owned by CBS. Pictures can be viewed at the Getty Images website https://www.gettyimages.com/search/more-like-this/526035622?assettype=image&family=editorial&phrase=sorry%20wrong%20number%20natwick She also appeared on the Suspense television series, twice. She had roles in the TV adaptation of On a Country Road https://youtu.be/lKT098z1tX8 and the original episode Murderers Meeting https://youtu.be/Aw84td-79ac Her long career is summarized at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Natwick

Don DeFore’s career started on the stage on Broadway, but he became very popular in Hollywood in supporting roles of all types, and had a very successful television career in the 1950s and 1960s. Most boomers would know him for his roles in the television series Ozzie and Harriet and Hazel. His long and successful career can be viewed at https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0214529/ He was rarely on radio, but performed on Lux Radio Theatre, Family Theater and a few others. Of all the strange radio gigs he could have, he was in multiple episodes of the somewhat erratic quality syndicated psychological mystery series Obsession.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP450913

THE CAST

MILDRED NATWICK (Mrs. Hawkins), DON DeFORE (Mr. Jennings), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice), Harry Lang? (Canary whistling)

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1945-09-06 Sorry, Wrong Number

This is the “fourth” production of SWN on Suspense. Because of east and west broadcasts in the past and on this date, this is the sixth and seventh time Moorehead performs the script.

This page has the details https://sites.google.com/view/suspense-collectors-companion/click-for-home-arrow-for-more/agnes-moorehead-and-sorry-wrong-number

An abridged version of the script was performed by guest Ida Lupino on The Kate Smith Show of May 20, 1945. A recording has not survived. Lupino was the only actor other than Moorehead to perform SWN during radio’s golden age.

Previous posts about SWN are

• 1943-05-25 (this has the most detailed background about the script)
  https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/02/1943-05-25-sorry-wrong-number.html
  https://archive.org/details/TSP430525

• 1943-08-21
  https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/03/1943-08-21-sorry-wrong-number.html
  https://archive.org/details/TSP430821

• 1944-02-24
  https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/03/1944-02-24-sorry-wrong-number.html
  https://archive.org/details/TSP440224

There are four existing recordings: an incomplete east recording, two west recordings (one from the studio feed and the other is a KNX aircheck), and an Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#119). The east recording does not have an opening and has a clipped end and has a gap at about the 12 minute mark; no intact east network recording exists.

The AFRS recording is drawn from the East broadcast as follows, with times approximate

• West KNX 14:06 “Now, just, now I’ve got a couple of other matters here on my desk that require immediate attention. Good night, ma’am, and thank you”

• AFRS 11:48 “Now, now, just now I’ve got a couple of other matters here on my desk that require immediate attention. Good night, ma’am, and, and thank you”

• The abridged East recording matches the AFRS starting at 11:41

The file named “Suspense 1945-09-06 Sorry Wrong Number NETWORK WC” is the best sounding recording. The recording has some flaws, but is richer sound by a wide margin.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP450906

THE CAST

AGNES MOOREHEAD (Mrs. Stevenson), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice), Harry Lang (George’s Contact / Western Union), Jack Edwards, Jr. (George), Wally Maher (Sergeant Martin), unknown (Operator), unknown (Chief Operator), unknown (Hospital Nurse), Peggy Rea? (Information)

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