This episode’s plotline would never pass muster among today's advertising agency, sponsor, or broadcast executives. Roma Wines (and later Auto-Lite) rejected or changed scripts for less. The murder scheme, though not executed, would be considered a terrorist act because it was planned in a crowded subway, and it included an innocent woman carrying the bomb that she thought was a hidden camera. This George and Gertrude Fass script would definitely be rejected.
Had the Fasses been writing this story in current times, they would have developed a much different plotline or reserved it for one of today's television series or movies that specialized in this type of storyline as its theme, such as NCIS, S.W.A.T., 24, and others, but not an anthology like Suspense. The series Criminal Minds could find a use for some of the story elements. But those story elements are treated in a manner that's is much too light-handed for the effect they could have.
All writers consider the nature and context of their times, even subconsciously, as they build out their story ideas. While the actions of the story would fit a modern terrorism plotline, it would not have as its driving force marital disharmony and severance as the essence of this presentation. Spoiler alerts ahead.
Dennis O’Keefe plays a steadfast liar who ensnares an innocent and gullible department store sales person into a plot to kill his wife. He lies and tells her that he’s a detective, but never tells her what the real purpose of the plan is. All she has to do is take a picture using a secret “x-ray camera” that can help get evidence about people who are suspected of stealing from a diamond cutting firm. The young woman does not know that the women she is supposed to follow with the camera is actually his wife. The supposed camera is rigged with a live WW2 grenade that will blow up when the camera is engaged. The woman is instructed to use it in the subway when she and the wife are underground between stations. After a “rehearsal” of the plan with a box of similar shape of the camera, the woman is ready to take the “real” camera to carry through the plan. The day for the scheme arrives.
Meanwhile, O’Keefe’s character is at work to establish his alibi. He has a mild, staged disagreement with the boss that will be remembered in case he is ever questioned about his whereabouts at the time of the explosion. When he gets home after work, he assumes that the plan was complete. There is, however, a letter in the mail from his wife stating that she wants him back. He panics… because the “x-ray camera” would have already blown up his wife and the sales clerk and others in the subway if everything went according to plan. It turns out that a thief stole the camera from the young woman’s seat in the subway car. It was disguised as a package from the department store, with no external clue there was a dangerous device inside. Not heard in the production was the thief dying in the explosion that he caused by unwrapping the package in an attempt to get access to the contents. Police realized O’Keefe’s character was the source of the bomb because there was a department store receipt stuck in the wrapping paper that was in the explosion’s debris. They tracked him down from there.
It is one of the strangest stories in Suspense, with a deliberate use of an innocent person to commit a crime and be killed in the process. There are always evil people in Suspense stories, but the attackers and victims most always know each other in some manner or act directly and not through an innocent surrogate. This is literally a bad story.
This is another casting-against-type for Suspense because O’Keefe was starring in the 1947 Mr. District Attorney movie that was released earlier in the year. He plays a heroic attorney in that story, but a lower-than-low character here.
Where is the store where he meets and recruits the gullible woman for the plot? The clerk mentions “the 34th Street side” as an entrance. That area near New York’s Penn Station was where Macy’s and Gimbel’s department stores were located. Those were the big stores in the movie Miracle on 34th Street. It has always been a very busy and well-known area of Manhattan. There are many subway routes that include Brooklyn through that area. At that time, it was a prime commuting spot for people working in the textile business.
Lucille Ball is mentioned as upcoming guest, planned for a repeat performance of Dime a Dance on 1947-11-13. She would appear for Auto-Lite a year later in A Little Piece of Rope.
Subway with June Havoc was originally scheduled for this date, and delayed again.
This was the first of two appearances on Suspense by Dennis O'Keefe. He was a very busy actor at the time, with rising popularity. His portrayal of “Mr. District Attorney” was released earlier in the year. He also played the role in 1941; that version was written as comedic. O’Keefe’s parents were vaudevillians, and he was in their act as a child. He started in movies in the ealry 1930s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_O%27Keefe
The 1947 movie can be viewed at https://youtu.be/Dy603XWJZVo?si=XdkpJ8t9mf98IdzK
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP471023
THE CAST
DENNIS O’KEEFE (John [alias Jim] Lawrence), Cathy Lewis (Anna Lawrence), Lurene Tuttle (Joyce), Wally Maher (Inspector Brodie), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Granger)
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