This seems like a formulaic story of strangers trapped in a circumstance and they know one of them is a murderer but no one knows who it is. This Suspense production might be formulaic, but it is quite good. Four people are trapped in a bus after leaving for a visit to an asylum. A threatened snow storm hastens their departure, even though they were warned of a homicidal escapee that was not yet found and returned. The looming storm has them leave anyway to get ahead of the rough weather and avoid being stranded on the road. It’s Suspense, so the rough weather comes and they are stranded. There wouldn’t be a good story otherwise. The three passengers and the driver (played by Elliott Reid) realize that one of them is that escapee… now what? The production conveys the claustrophobic environment, the fear, the accusations, and the suspicion in just 24 minutes of story time.
Maurice Zimm authored the script. He was a successful writer for many shows including Murder by Experts, Family Theater, and Hollywood Star Playhouse. This was his only Suspense script. His radio career would shift to films in the 1950s, and he is best known by nostalgia fans as the story author for the film The Creature from the Black Lagoon. He wrote eight episodes of the television Perry Mason series. More information at IMDb https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0956592/ and Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Zimm
There are three recordings of this episode. The east coast one has a 13 second time to network ID. There an aircheck from Los Angeles station KNX (where the Hollywood CBS network shows originated), and what seems to be a west coast studio recording. Those two recordings go directly to network ID. The KNX ID is cut off, and there are many copies of this recording where it has been edited out completely. (There is a chance that the west coast recording might be the KNX recording that has been edited and professionally processed).
The opening of the KNX aircheck is a glimpse into radio history. It opens with a “Bulova watch time” commercial, one of the most successful ad campaigns in radio history. It started in 1926, and is known for its effective simplicity and longevity.
All of the recordings are flawed in some manner, but the KNX aircheck is the preferred recording because of its Bulova commercial opening. Though flawed, the recording has better overall sound than the other two recordings, but is not crisp like so many of the Suspense network recordings. There were no discs of this episode in the collection that was transferred with the other Roma episodes. Perhaps a clean network recording, or an AFRS recording will be found in the future.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP460627
THE CAST
ELLIOTT REID (Greg), Cathy Lewis (Female bus passenger / Nurse), Wally Maher (John Willard), Raymond Lawrence (Mr. Kenniston), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Officer Denton), Lou Merrill (Second cop), Herbert Rawlinson? (Superintendent Andrews)
###
