Walter Abel makes his only series appearance as a bank employee who sees an opportunity for a big score by stealing financial instruments, staging his death by accident, and then fleeing west to start a new life. The plan, which includes his masquerading as his bank’s president, is going along well until he bungles it when his impatience turns him into a murderer. The plot would not be possible today because the idea of “bearer bonds” and similar financial instruments has been regulated away where they are registered automatically and held in accounts. His character would not be tempted in the same way because his plan would not be possible. Let it go and enjoy the story. It turns out the financial instruments were not of the kind he assumed anyway. His myopic view of what else could have great value led to his frustration and the failure of the plan.
We get a clue about it at about 22 minutes into the story. There is a scene where he returns to camp (where he is supposedly relaxing on vacation while he is actually working on his diabolical subterfuge) and talks to Emil, the camp owner. He mentions that he has a hobby of philately, just like the bank president, which is why they are friends. It finally starts to click that the “securities” are actually rare stamps. Many attentive listeners may have figured that out already because of the evasive language in the story about what kinds of financial items were involved. It’s not often you hear “philately” in a radio drama, so you know it will be plot-related.
Scripting veterans George and Gertrude Fass authored this episode, and it’s not one of their best. It’s worth a listen because Walter Abel does a fine job, especially in the character’s solitary moments, keeping the story and his character interesting, even though he’s incompetent and despicable, and the script is somewhat weak.
There is a moment in the story where Abel’s character claims his hobby is to be an avid reader. In a scene where he recounts his actions, he describes his killing time in his hotel room, saying in monologue “for once with all that time on my hands, I didn’t read a book.” Yes, no book... in a hotel… at a time when most hotels had Gideon Bibles in nightstands or desks. It could have been a veiled statement that he had an opportunity to change his plan but he resisted reading that book because of the moral introspection it may have caused. Getting the money was more important than doing the right thing.
There are two surviving versions, and each has a different time to network ID. The intended coast of each recording is not known. These markers may be helpful if that detail becomes known. One recording is 12 seconds to ID (“12s”) and the other is 10 seconds (“10s”). Times are approximate:
12s at 9:30 “I gulped down some food at the cafeteria, pic..picked up my bags at home and went to the station”
10s at 9:13 “I gulped down some food at the cafeteria, picked up my bags at home and went to the station”
The 12s recording is preferred. The 10s recording has disc damage after the 15 minute mark where the change of discs occurs. There is strong surface noise of that disc, and removing it by audio processing makes the rest of the recording dull and mildly distorted. The 12s recording is not perfect, but its problems are very minimal and still offers enjoyable listening.
This was Walter Abel’s only Suspense appearance. Abel did not appear on radio often, mainly for movie-related series and serious drama series such as Theater Guild. He was a stage actor, making his first appearance on Broadway in 1919 and his final one in the 1970s. In between, his film career, mainly as a respected supporting actor, began in the 1935 and in the 1950s moved him into television. It was a very long and successful career, and it has an overview at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Abel
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP470807
THE CAST
WALTER ABEL (Homer Bigelow), Cathy Lewis (Hester Vail), Wally Maher (John Pearson), Will Wright (Corbin Vandergriff), Jerry Hausner (Desk clerk), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Emil), Frank Albertson (Scott)
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