This episode is an example of how Elliott Lewis was developing a reputation as being a “triple threat” of actor, writer, and producer. The story is about a stalker whose obsession leads him to murder. The familiar format of first person narrative is used and the events related in flashback. There’s an inside joke in the beginning as the character is talking to psychologist “Dr. Maher,” played by Wally Maher.
Lewis’ character certainly gets on your own nerves, not just the object of his misplaced affections whom he terrorizes. She’s recovering from surgery, and his desire to “help” her and be by her side just wouldn’t end. By the end of the story, spoiler alert, he does not kill her, but it’s clear he would have.
The original title for this episode was Full Confession. The title selected is much more enticing and it doesn’t take long to listen and and understand why it is better.
This is the episode where Ken Niles takes over for Truman Bradley. Niles tries to add his own nuance to the Roma Wines ad copy. Notice his different inflection when he says “right now, a glassful would be so pleasant.”
Spier used the script again for The Clock on 1948-04-15. He took over that series after his disagreement with CBS over the execution of the sixty minute format. (A future blogpost will explain Spier and Robert Montgomery’s big plans that were never implemented). Spier jumped over to ABC with a mission to save The Clock series with a similar strategy that built Suspense. Elliott and Cathy Lewis appeared as stars in many of the episodes those 13 weeks. Spier used some of the previous popular Suspense scripts in that period. Unfortunately, not many of those 13 episodes have survived. At the time of this 1946 broadcast, everyone was happy and optimistic, Spier, CBS, Lewis, and even the Roma ad agency.
There are two surviving recordings, and one is a network with the coast unidentified. The network recording is the best one. It unfortunately has a bad disc scratch in the first three minutes. Otherwise, the recording is very good. Over the years, some collectors attempted to graft on a clean show opening from a different episode. It is always difficult to do this. It was done with a good intention, but it is detectable. The disc scratch noise (“thumping”) is hard to remove because each disc scratch occurs during dialogue. The noise does not last long into the story. Just let it pass. The network recording is 20 seconds to network ID (“20s”).
There is another surviving recording of the episode from the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. The AFRTS Mystery Theater was on the AFRTS networks from the 1970s through the 1980s, with its own opening, followed by a classic radio program. If you want to hear the opening of the Can’t We Be Friends without the disc scratch noise, you can. Unfortunately, the AFRTS drama portion has a narrow range and is recorded at a faster speed. The AFRTS engineers changed the speed to allow for the drama to fit into the time slot allowed rather than editing out portions. The official AFRTS Mystery Theater openings and announcements are in high fidelity and at proper speed speed. Perhaps a different coast network copy, or a contemporary AFRS copy rather than a decades-later replay, will be found in the future.
The AFRTS Mystery Theater copy is drawn from the surviving network recording. We know this because:
Wally Maher's lines in the final scene and his performance throughout are identical for both recordings. Maher always acted in a natural way, with ums and uhs and pauses in different places in different recordings. When John Barker and Barbara Watkins were doing their initial work to identify which network recordings were broadcasts on different coasts, or to identify which network recording was used by AFRS, they quickly learned to focus on Maher’s performances to find key broadcast markers.
At about 9:40 Lewis has a little problem saying “without anybody seeing me.” That slight stumble can also be used as a marker for comparison.
Four years after this performance, Lewis would become the Suspense producer. He was recommended to CBS by Spier after they decided not renew Anton M. Leader’s contract. It’s clear that working with Spier was an important factor in Lewis realizing his “triple threat” radio reputation.
Researcher and voice artist Keith Scott makes an important observation that Lewis thanks the full cast by name and role at the end of the broadcast. This was not often done in this period. He would make it a regular practice in his early 1950s series On Stage.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP460725
THE CAST
ELLIOTT LEWIS (Michael Gordon), Lurene Tuttle (Fran Murphy), Wally Maher (Dr. Maher), Betty Moran (Bettejane), Irvin Lee (Boyfriend), Jerry Hausner (Jack the “Vout” kid / Tenant / Baby crying), Bill Johnstone (Signature Voice / Man in elevator / Old man Epstein)
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