Peter Lorre plays a greatly disturbed man who walks into a police station flashing a gun, and demands they listen to his life story. It starts with torturing and killing animals for pleasure and only gets worse from there. The police believe he’s in the station to confess to murdering a young woman… and he tells them what really happened.
The story was written by Herbert Clyde Lewis and adapted by Silvia Richards. It was published in 1937 and appeared in Hardboiled magazine. Lewis was a fine writer of books and short stories. He earned an Oscar nomination for the 1948 film It Happened on Fifth Avenue. He died in 1950 at age 41. There is an interesting video about his work at the Neglected Books website https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=2024
The Richards script was produced again on Lorre’s own ABC series Mystery in the Air, on 1947-07-31. No recording is available at this time.
A film of the Suspense production of this script was made for showing at Roma Wines distributors and their customers. It was either a rehearsal or a re-staging as the studio clock is in view of the camera and it is clear that more time elapsed than a half hour. You can see the actors moving around the stage and stepping up to the microphone as needed. You can see the orchestra, sound effects team, and William Spier’s staff. The film was shown a decade ago at a SPERDVAC meeting and it is hoped it will be shown or be made available again. https://peterlorrenews.blogspot.com/2012/11/rare-lorre-film-at-sperdvac-convention.html
There were news reports about the possibility of Suspense movies in 1944 and 1945. As early as January 1944, just a few weeks after the Roma sponsorship began, there were newspaper reports of the potential endeavor. In August 1944, it was announced that William Spier would direct a movie version of The Beast Must Die. (It didn’t happen). There were other Suspense scripts that had the interest of the studios, including The Man Who Couldn’t Lose which was planned for John Hodiak; and then it was planned for Robert Montgomery. (That didn’t happen, either). Whatever the case, good scripts could get studio attention. There was a different intent on the part of the Suspense producers. They saw the national success of The Whistler movies even though the program was heard only on the CBS Pacific Network. The idea of a series of Suspense movies never gained momentum.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP450830
THE CAST
PETER LORRE (Joe Reeze), Sharon Douglas? (Peggy Stewart), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Police Sergeant), Wally Maher (Police Captain), Ruth Perrott (Aunt Ellen), Conrad Binyon (Joe as a youth), Joel Davis (Alex), Horace Willard (Horace)
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