This is the “victory lap” repeat of this legendary Seeleg Lester - Merwin Gerard script after it was a prime factor in Suspense receiving a Peabody Award. It’s a marvelous story that puts you has you chuckling and squirming and riveted at different points of the performance.
Details about the history of the production and how the “Articles of Death” script was rescued from William Spier’s reject pile and became Dead Ernest are at the original blogpost and recordings pages:
The Award helped nudge Roma into renewing for two 13-week contracts after they had originally announced that 1947-05-22 would be their last sponsored broadcast.
This repeat performance of Dead Ernest was added after the Award was announced. Death at Live Oak with Robert Mitchum was originally scheduled for this date. It was delayed one week.
There is some research in the Darryl Shelton Suspense book that we have not been able to verify at this time. It seems that he had a research source that indicated that David Niven was originally scheduled to star in this broadcast.
Both east and west network broadcasts have survived. The east has a tease for The FBI in Peace and War. The west recording is the better one. There is another curious difference.
At the conclusion of the broadcast, CBS West Coast President Don Thornburgh appears before the microphone to announce the program’s Peabody Award. Well, on the east broadcast it’s him. He sounds somewhat Jimmy Stewart-like, is tentative and has long pauses between sentences. For the west broadcast, Suspense ensemble member John McIntire substitutes as Thornburgh. He delivers a much more polished presentation, as one would expect. McIntire was not in the cast of the production but may have been in the studios for a performance of another CBS program that evening. If not, then he was called in between the broadcasts. His wife, Jeanette Nolan, was, however, in this broadcast as “the landlady.” (Hat tips to John Barker, Don Ramlow, and Keith Scott for verifying McIntire’s voice). A separate audio file of both the east and west Peabody announcements is included with the episode files for easy comparison.
On 1947-05-08 Akron Beacon Journal radio critic Bee Offineer reminded readers that the Dead Ernest broadcast was not recommended for children. Offineer had been concerned for about violence on radio, especially after a 1946 Cleveland incident where arrested juvenile delinquents reported that listening to radio programs convinced them that vengeful actions were acceptable. She compiled an analysis of the mystery programs of the day and began to be concerned about what was being broadcast and its frequency, and reported such. She was a superb radio critic in her time and unfortunately passed away at age 34 in 1950, of cancer. Her concerns about Dead Ernest were well-founded, as there was a reason why listeners squirmed a bit at the concept of being mistaken as dead. The sense of impending horror of such a mistake makes the story so effective. But that tension was relieved at the story’s end, and adult listeners knew it was just a radio play right from the beginning. But younger listeners might not have had that mature perspective.
Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Magee Adams noted the same issue after the Peabody Award was announced a couple of weeks earlier. Syndicated columnist John Crosby of the New York Herald-Tribune won a personal Peabody Award for his 1946 commentary. He lauded the selection of Suspense for the award. He had a caution at the end of it that was “The weak-hearted and, I think, most children ought to be kept away from it.”
Despite its importance in Suspense history, Dead Ernest was broadcast only three times.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP470508
THE CAST
Wally Maher (Lieutenant Steve Healey who narrates / Bystander), Lester Jay (Payne), Howard Duff (Officer Abbott), Junius Matthews (Witness / Ernest Bowers), Bill Johnstone (Signature Voice / Bystander / Dr. Weldon the coroner), Elliott Reid (Tobin / Anthony the 2nd embalmer), Conrad Binyon (Bob Minelli), Joel Davis (Tommy Stoner), Jay Novello (Minelli / Clerk), Sidney Miller (Honest Jerry Murdock), Elliott Lewis (Henry Prince), Cathy Lewis (Frances Prince / Mrs. Bowers), Jeanette Nolan (Mrs. Brawley, the landlady), Peggy Rea (Honey, the coroner’s nurse), Jerry Hausner (Al Beniton the 1st embalmer)
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