It’s summertime in Hollywood, and the news is full of the beginning of the end of WW2. At this time of year, listenership tends to be lower, and many guest stars and production staff are on vacation. This might be the reasons why at the end of the previous week they announced this story as having three radio stars. In this case, that’s Joe Kearns, Gerald Mohr, and Conrad Binyon, who are announced in the credits at the end of the program. But also in the production are favorites Jerry Hausner and Jack Moyles as well as Peggy Rea. She was an assistant to William Spier who getting her acting career started. She’s had supporting roles in many episodes.
Radio schedules were often being interrupted by news bulletins at this time. Promotion of a big star on Suspense, on a planned broadcast, might have been considered risky in a budgetary sense, especially during a seasonal period of lower audience engagement.
The story is about a successful diner which suddenly has a mysterious customer. He has an atypical appearance and is assumed to be disfigured in an accident or combat. His appearance and his menacing attitude, makes the regular customers so uncomfortable that they no longer patronize the business. (Note the music used to identify his nefarious arrival in the diner each time he walks in; you just know something bad is about to happen each time. It’s similar to the way music was used in Lazarus Walks.). The owner and the new cook do everything they can to keep the business going, but they can’t. The owner has to sell. It turns out it’s a scheme to buy the restaurant at a distressed price, and the cook is in cahoots with the disfigured man! That disfigurement was not real, but was effected by make-up. But that’s not the end of the story. Save the spoiler alert for the diner’s cheesecake slice that’s been in the display for weeks.
The core of the plotline is somewhat similar to The Thing in the Window. In that play, a tenant is harassed into surrendering their apartment by constant accusations of foul play by the person who wants it for themselves.
Where Murder for Myra illustrated the challenges of radio drama, this episode is a good example of its power. What was the customer’s disfigured features? It’s never explained, and left to the listener’s imagination. In a visual medium, the makeup artist would have a challenge coming up with something that did not look like makeup. But the imagination of the listener needs no visual cue. Even learning that the disfigurement in the story was not real, the listener had already imagined what it was, and that it was created by makeup was equally imaginable.
Two network recordings have survived, one with 12 seconds to the network ID (“12”), and the other with 21 seconds (“21s”). The “21s” recording is the better one.
The original story was by John F. Suter, a research chemist at Union Carbide. He also wrote Fragile: Contents Death. It seems he was writing radio plays since the late 1930s. His first short story was not published until 1954, and a successful mystery writing career followed.
Short Order was included in Suspense Magazine #4. A PDF is included in the Internet Archive page with the audio files.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP450816
THE CAST
Gerald Mohr (Tanner, the stranger), Joseph Kearns (Signature Voice / Bailey), Conrad Binyon (Johnson), Jack Moyles (Ryan), Jerry Hausner (Chili customer), Peggy Rea (Customer)
This was the first of three appearances on Suspense by Gerald Mohr. He was one of radio’s most recognizable voices. He is often heard on The Whistler and especially as star of The Adventures of Philip Marlowe. He has more than 700 references at RadioGoldindex, and hundreds of uncredited appearances.
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