Paul Henreid plays a man convicted of murdering his wife and her lover – without defending himself in court -- and was given a 10 to 20 years in prison. The bodies were never found… did he hide them? Were they still alive? He had suspected that his wife and his best friend were having an affair, but it wasn't until he caught them planning to run away together that he knew the truth. A month later, he was on trial for their murders. He always believed he would have his chance to get his revenge. In the meantime, he ends up in jail with a real killer who talks about the murder he committed, and how he had put his murdered wife’s body into a wall in their house. Henreid’s character explains how stupid his cellmate was and that he was much smarter. He will be free at some point and his cellmate will be there for the rest of his life... except as entertainment Henreid’s character decides to drive the cellmate crazy.
He is released, having served his time, and he finds his friend and wife and murders them. After all, he has already served his time and will not be imprisoned again. That might be true, but his cellmate shows up and has a different idea.
The story is by Alan Cameron who was a Los Angeles scriptwriter whose productions were mainly local programs. One of those programs was a local version of The Hermit’s Cave named “Haunts of the Hermit” on station KMPC. Cameron had a number of positions in radio production and ad agencies over the years. The story is not the best and you don’t really get a sense of the search for his friend and wife, nor do you get a sense of how the ex-cellmate found him. The story promises to be more interesting than it actually delivers.
The original title of the script was “Before the Fact” and was originally intended for Lee J. Cobb. For his episode of a few weeks earlier they presented The Bet instead. Perhaps it was believed that The Bet was a better script (it was) and fit Cobb’s talents better. Perhaps “Before the Fact” just wasn’t ready for broadcast. It’s not likely we’ll ever know.
Three recordings of this episode have survived. The east coast network broadcast has the best sound quality, an aircheck from San Jose, California station KQW is available but is in lesser sound, and an Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#136) is known to exist but is not available. The aircheck is interesting because it has some station drift at about the 11 minute mark. As mentioned in previous posts, airchecks are a remind of how many in the listening audience heard the program, and also how lucky classic radio fans are today to have such marvelous studio recordings of these productions.
This was the first of two Suspense appearances for Paul Henreid. The Austrian actor studied theater in Vienna. His outspoken opinions against the Nazis eventually led him to move to Britain and then the US. His most famous roles in American film were as Victor Laszlo in Casablanca and Jerry Durrance in Now, Voyager. His career is summarized at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Henreid
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP460103
THE CAST
PAUL HENREID (John Forsyth), Raymond Lawrence (Willy Waters), Verna Felton (Housekeeper), Irene Tedrow? (Pamela Forsyth), Wally Maher (Raymond Tillotson / Henry Jenkins), Frederick Worlock (Judge), unknown (Servant), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Prison guard), Colin Campbell? (Attorney)
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