This episode starts the final calendar year for Roma and Suspense. The series is doing well in the ratings and offering notable and memorable productions. Roma is spending a lot of money bankrolling the series, but the wine business is not responding to the size of their investment. Wine consumption slows as post-war life ends the scarcity and rationing of everyday goods that households gave up in wartime. Those goods are now part of household spending, elbowing out wine and other products, and new households are forming as the country goes back to work… and can work to achieve their aspirations for home ownership and other postponed aspects of life. Rome believes they can get the same sales result and maintain brand recognition by spending less on a different series and “tough out” the change in consumer consumption patterns.
It is a roller coaster year for the series in other ways. The relationship of Bill Spier and Kay Thompson is heading toward separation and divorce. Suspense gets a Peabody Award. Roma cancels and then renews and cancels. Spier and June Havoc start their relationship. Suspense is in New York City for a visit along with the Sam Spade series so Spier can direct and Duff can film The Naked City. At that time, Spier visited June when she was appearing in Connecticut’s Westport Playhouse in Girl of the Golden West with Robert Stack. There were also meetings with CBS executives about the future of the series and its sponsorship. Thompson was in Las Vegas establishing residence for the upcoming divorce and inventing what would become the standard format for Las Vegas shows for decades to come. Suspense is cancelled at the end of the year, the east and west broadcasts end, and the concept of hour-long Suspense broadcasts is developed to save the series and attract a replacement sponsor. Radio is thriving in one of its biggest years with 1948 to become even bigger… but Suspense is not participating in the way one would expect for a program of its stature. Yes, 1947 will be quite a year for Suspense.
Oh… this week’s episode: Tree of Life concerns two husbands who have a single thought: to do away with their wives. They live next door but they barely know each other. Neither is aware of the other’s plans, but this is the kind of gruesome desire that one would keep secret anyway. Mark Stevens’ character tires of his wife’s expectations for them to achieve a level of “gracious living.” He decides he’s had enough and decides to do away with her. The husband next door, Mr. Roxborough, is tired of his wife, too, except he hires experts (a/k/a “hit men”) to take care of the problem. Uh-oh. It can’t end well.
A similar “tree of life” decoration on each of their homes causes contract killers to go into the wrong home to commit their crime. They have broken into the home of Mark Stevens’ character by mistake and have murdered his wife. He innocently walks home and enters the scene. They start referring to him as “Roxborough” and make all sorts of threats against him. He has to go along with it all, and even dictate a confession letter to blackmail him and keep quiet about their “work.” It’s clear they’ll kill him if he doesn’t cooperate or tells them of their mistake. He doesn’t know how to sign it because he doesn’t know his neighbor’s first name! A few more twists and turns from there, including an “it just so happens” chance encounter with Roxborough add to the mystery and the conclusion.
The title “Tree of Life” is a purposeful contradiction with the storyline because death and deception play key parts in it. The symbol of a tree is Celtic in origin and represents the connection between earth and heaven, past and present earthly life and heavenly afterlife. There is not one specific design for the symbol, but all share a very old and established tree with a wide trunk, and many long and high branches. It is often inside a round border and can be found in jewelry, paintings, and other art forms.
A more positive meaning behind “tree of life” has a role in the authorship of the story. The scriptwriter is announced as “J. Douglas Ware.” But the author was actually his sister, Joan Ware. She worked at the CBS script department. Joan and her brother would talk about stories and their conversations would often result in some curious plotlines, like this one. Douglas was called to serve in the Pacific as a pilot, and was killed in action. She had the script attributed to him as a memorial. She paid tribute to her beloved brother and their happy times together.
At the time of the script submission, Joan worked in the production department of CBS at KNX. By the end of January 1947, she was named head librarian of the CBS continuity department. In May 1947, she became a junior writer in the program writing department. Another script, also under the name J. Douglas Ware, was presented on The Whistler. It was 1947-04-21 Backlash. Details about Joan after this Suspense episode are sketchy, but there are some indications that she left CBS to work in public relations for television in the 1950s for General Public Relations. That was a division of the ad agency Benton & Bowles and she worked there as Joan Ware Holland. It has been difficult to verify this career change, but it fits a common career pattern of many writers of the era.
The Suspense production staff had a lot to do as they juggled guest schedules and tried to fit script requirements with guest star capabilities. Mark Stevens was supposed to star in the 1946-10-10 A Plane Case of Murder but was replaced by John Lund. That switch was mentioned at the end of the broadcast. Chester Morris was cast to do Tree of Life on 1946-11-28 but his script assignment was changed to The Strange Death of Gordon Fitzroy. Mark Stevens finally starred in this delayed Tree of Life episode. It was a good choice of script for him.
Why is Mark Stevens’ character referred to as “Curly” in the story? As classic radio fans it seems strange to hear Elliott Lewis refer to anyone other than Phil Harris as “Curly” when Lewis was played the guitarist Frankie Remley. The name in this story has nothing to do with the Phil Harris-Alice Faye show and pre-dates the popularity of that character. It’s actually a little inside joke about Mark Stevens. He had naturally curly hair, which he did not like. It was often dyed and straightened for his movie and television roles. Calling him “Curly” was a joke among them all. Many movie workers and fans might have detected the joke because his natural hair was often mentioned as gossip in movie magazines and was known on movie sets.
Only one recording of this episode has survived. It is not known to which coast that network recording was broadcast. The closing announcements go directly to network ID (“dirID”).
This was the only appearance of Mark Stevens on Suspense. He had much radio experience prior to his movie career, and it is fairly obvious in this production. When he moved to Hollywood he was a contract actor at Warner Brothers, and in 1945 was signed by 20th Century Fox. That was when his performing name was changed from “Stephen Richards” to “Mark Stevens.” He was the last actor to play the lead role in the live productions of the successful early TV series Martin Kane, Private Eye following predecessors William Gargan, Lloyd Nolan, and Lee Tracy. His successful career is summarized at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Stevens_(actor)
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP470102
THE CAST
MARK STEVENS (James Dawson), Cathy Lewis (Helen), Wally Maher (Max), Elliott Lewis (Rico), Hans Conried (Roxborough), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice), Jerry Hausner (Harvey), Sandra Gould / Bea Benaderet? (Lillian)
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