Vincent Price plays an artist (Dorrance) who is obsessed with completing a picture of a murderer, even if it means he has to help cover up the crime to do so. He started the painting, and his model (Elmer) agreed to return for another sitting. The next day, that man fails to return and the artist goes looking for him. He finds him in a cheap motel, but he’s covered with blood. It doesn’t matter that he may have killed someone. It’s more important to put first things first, and finish the painting! Oh, and there’s some stolen jewels in the story, too. Some parts of the story are a bit overdone with some stretching of plausibility, but Price is very good and the story is creepily entertaining. The author is Robert Tallman.
The title of the story is based on the phrase found in Revelation 13:17 and some lines that follow. In a broad sense without more scholarly context, it refers to a situation or person of pure evil. Price always played sophisticated evil quite well. But who is the beast in the story? Price acts as if it his character’s model, Elmer. The way the story goes, we know the beast is actually the artist played by Price, Dorrance.
Three recordings have survived, two network and one Armed Forces Radio Service (#150). The intended coast of the broadcasts is not known. One recording is six seconds to network ID (“6s”) and the other is direct to ID (“dirID”). The “dirID” is the best sounding of the three recordings.
The AFRS version is derived from the “dirID” version. There is some overlapping dialogue in that network version at approximately 4:30 and at 3:40 in the AFRS version. The “6s” version’s dialogue is cleanly read.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP460411
THE CAST
VINCENT PRICE (James Dorrance), Cathy Lewis (Jeannie Baker), Elliott Lewis (Elmer Krebs), Wally Maher (Radio show host), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Police Inspector), Jerry Hausner (Desk sergeant)
The next week’s program is as Return Trip with Keenan Wynn, but it was changed to the third of four performances of The Night Reveals. It was clearly a favorite for the series. Return Trip was not broadcast until almost three months later and starred Elliott Reid.
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