This is the first of two appearances on Suspense for John Garfield. There were supposed to be more, but his career was hung up by Red Channels and the resultant blacklists, and finally by a heart ailment that took his life at the age of 39.
The gimmick to start the story is its explanation of the one word title, “reprieve,” and its multiple meanings. This is used by authors to preview the content of a story and then to tie up the story’s plotlines at the conclusion. It helps keep the attention of the listener and gets them to buy into the storyline. It is similar to the original opening of Suspense in 1942 that listed its meanings and was used again at the beginning of the 60-minute debut broadcast in January 1948.
The story has Garfield’s character, Steve, participates in a payroll heist with two others. In the process of getting away, one accomplice shoots and kills the other. Steve is arrested for the crime and is sent to jail, proclaiming his innocence. A reporter hears about his story and helps win his release. But the accomplice is still at large… and has the money.
It’s a good story but not among the best of Suspense. It was written by William Johnson – or is it? No matter what research path has been taken, writer “William Johnson” cannot be found. The script author is not mentioned in the story. We know it was adapted by Silvia Richards, then-wife of Robert Richards who was the Suspense editor. Silvia was a successful scripter in her own right. But adapted from what? It may be that the storyline and script outline was created by William Spier. One clue may be using the definition of the term “reprieve” at the beginning of the episode, which was used two other times in Suspense history when Spier was involved, indicating it was a style he liked. This authorship is still being investigated. The archive of Spier's papers at University of Wisconsin does not have a production script with attributions, only a working copy of the script that looks like many of the others that Spier edited for the series. (The favorite Spier attribution is when he used “Sebastian Moriarty” for a writing credit in January 1948).
Reprieve was originally planned for 1945-04-26, but was kicked out of that slot when Two Sharp Knives was rescheduled to that date after it was postponed on 1945-04-12 for coverage of the death of FDR. 2SK was kicked out of the schedule yet again when the United Nations peace conference was held and finally was broadcast in June. Reprieve was just bumped up two weeks to its broadcast date of May 10. Many times the rescheduling had to do with the movie set schedule of the guest star.
Two network recordings and an Armed Forces Radio Service (#102) recording have survived. It is not known to which coasts the network recordings were made, but they each have different timings to the network ID. The 4 seconds to ID recording designated “(4s)” is the best sounding recording. The other network recording is in low quality sound and is 10 seconds to ID, “(10s),” and the AFRS recording is drawn from it. Times are approximate:
4 sec to ID 1:19 “(humf) well the first part I guess...”
10 sec to ID 1:21 “Well the first part I guess…”
AFRS 0:34 “Well the first part I guess...”
At the time of this broadcast, John Garfield's career was going well and growing. Destination Tokyo and They Made Me a Criminal were in the theaters. A few years later the trajectory of his career would head downward as he had Red Channels issues. He was in the process of correcting them with the planned publication of I Was a Sucker for a Left Hook, but died suddenly in 1952 from a suspected but undiagnosed heart defect at age 39. There was no heart imaging technology at the time to make an accurate diagnosis, but a defect was suspected. The extent was not known until his death. Many blamed the stress of the blacklist for his demise. It is likely his heart problems would have been treated successfully with today’s cardiology knowledge and technology. His problems affected Suspense in the Lewis years and will be discussed in better detail at that time.
LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TPS450510
THE CAST
JOHN GARFIELD (Steve Hannibal), Cathy Lewis (Laurie Ware), Wally Maher (“Murph”), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Joe Tonelli / Foreman), Joe Granby (Rail Detective / Judge), unknown (Gurley the lawyer)
###
