This episode is an adaptation of a famous Ben Hecht story that was a popular movie in 1934. The co-author was Charles MacArthur who collaborated on the famous play and movie The Front Page. They met as Chicago newspaper reporters and went onto great success as Hollywood and stage playwrights. The story was adapted by Bob Tallman.
Joseph Cotten plays a lawyer who believes his knowledge of crime and courtroom procedure will allow him to get away with the murder of his mistress. She is a night club dancer. He has tired of her and believes she is still carrying on with her ex-boyfriend. He kills her with a candlestick (which makes the murder sound to modern ears like a solution to a game of Clue; that game would not be published for another three years). The production is well done because of its technique that plays out possible courtroom interrogations in the head of Cotten’s character as he chooses the various alternative actions he can take to escape detection and scrutiny. Bill Johnstone is marvelous as the prosecuting district attorney in these imagined scenes.
Suspense had a serious interest in top-notch productions, but inside jokes between Spier, guest stars, and the ensemble cast show up at the most interesting times. At about 21:45, Cotten is going to the night club to help secure an alibi. He’s there frequently and says hello to many of the regulars, notably “Lenore, Kay, Bill, and Lud.” “Lenore” Kipp was the first wife of Cotten until she passed away in 1960. They were married almost 30 years. She was a pianist and a fashion editor. “Kay” and “Bill” were Kay Thompson and William Spier, still married at this time. “Lud” is Lud Gluskin who composed much of the Suspense music for all of the bridges, intros, and outros, for the series after its move to Hollywood. That music made Suspense unique, and in some cases could be considered as a cast member each week.
Near the end, Cotten’s character hurls an insult by calling someone a “dropkicker.” It’s an obscure slang term for an idiot or a worthless person. It has fallen out of use in American English.
Molle Mystery Theater had produced its own version of Crime Without Passion on 1944-08-29. That broadcast is not available. Molle Mystery Theater announced that they were re-staging the story for their 1946-05-03 broadcast! That was to be just a day after Joseph Cotten starred in the Suspense version. Magee Adams, superb radio critic of the Cincinnati Enquirer, noted that both series were doing the same play in his column of 1946-05-02. He said that listeners should compare how Cotten did against Berry Kroeger, the announced star of the Molle production! They didn't get the chance. It is unlikely that anyone from CBS would call Mutual to tell them to back off and change their scheduled production. It is more likely that Ben Hecht, who had much gravitas in Hollywood and in radio, would have intervened directly or through his agent to resolve the issue. The Molle producers changed to a different play, “Murder Without Crime” in the days before broadcast. Very few newspapers picked up the change. It was a script they had used in 1944. Kroeger starred in this 1946-05-03 production, and no mention is made in the broadcast about the change in script. Molle never re-staged Crime Without Passion.
The collaboration of Hecht and MacArthur was very successful. Hecht gets much of the recognition. These links provide more background about his long career:
Crime Without Passion was a very popular movie in 1934. It starred Claude Rains. It came to the screen quickly, as the original short story was published in 1933. The opening sequences of the movie are highly artistic and may have been considered disturbing and perhaps very suggestive in its time. MacArthur’s wife, “the first lady of the theater” Helen Hayes, has an uncredited role in the picture. For more details about the movie, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_Without_Passion
The movie can be viewed online:
There are two surviving recordings. One is a network recording, coast broadcast undetermined, that has two seconds to network ID. The network recording is the one in the best sound. The recording has some flaws, and it might be an edited aircheck. An Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#153) has survived. It is drawn from the surviving network recording.
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TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP460502
THE CAST
JOSEPH COTTEN (Lew Hendricks), Cathy Lewis (Carmen), Elliott Lewis (Henry the Sardi’s waiter / Eddie White), Bill Johnstone (Signature Voice / District Attorney / Foreman), Wally Maher (Defense Attorney), Jerry Hausner (Usher), Peggy Rea (Secretary / ? Apartment Clerk / ? Miss Moore), Hal March ? (Tom Healey)
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