Ray Bradbury’s first Suspense program sat in a file drawer for almost 18 months. It finally emerged at the end of the Roma series. The strange story about a tortured ventriloquist and his dummy, adapted by Mel Dinelli, is one of the most unusual Suspense productions. Not everyone will like it. Lurene Tuttle provides an excellent performance as the voice of Ria.
This broadcast often has a dreamy and “artsy” feel that you might think you’re listening to Columbia Workshop. Then you’re suddenly back in a police interrogation. It is not one of those Suspense broadcasts that you can have on in the background and still follow the story. This requires undivided attention.
Bradbury wrote this as a radio script, or at least a detailed radio script narrative, and later built it into a short story. It was not published until six years later in The Saint Detective Magazine (in the June-July, 1953 issue). The script was later adapted for television and was presented on Alfred Hitchcock Presents series (also by Mel Dinelli) and on Ray Bradbury Theater (Bradbury’s own adaptation).
This was not the first presentation of a Bradbury script, but it could be the first script he sold. The first broadcast of a Bradbury story was for Molle Mystery Theater in Killer, Come Back to Me in May, 1946. This page at The Internet Archive has much of Bradbury’s radio work from its beginnings https://archive.org/details/Bradbury_On_Radio Indiana University has a timeline of Bradbury’s life and career that includes radio events https://liberalarts.iupui.edu/centers/bradbury-center/ray-bradbury/timeline-of-bradburys-life/
This episode is probably the last one that was influenced by Kay Thompson. She had read Ray Bradbury's work and enjoyed it, resulting in the sale of this script to the series in April 1946. It was not until this time at the very end of the Roma contract and when the future of the series was in great doubt it was finally pulled out of the file cabinet. Why was it held? Probably because the script was so different to standard Suspense fare that Roma or others kept pushing it aside.
It is quite possible that this script may never have made it to the air unless Suspense was on the verge of cancellation. Lucille Ball was originally scheduled for this date for another performance of Dime a Dance. The show’s budget for stars and for big name scriptwriters were cut as Roma was minimizing its expenses on their way out. It’s possible that there was a scheduling conflict with Ball, but she loved doing Suspense and would not have agreed without a firm date for both sides.
There are very few newspaper clips about this episode, but many more about Ball's return. The decision was probably made about 7-10 days before the broadcast date, possibly less. For Bradbury getting on the air, this worked out to be a fortuitous radio circumstance, for sure.
June Havoc is billed as "Armina Fargay" in the episode. No one knows why the name was created or used, but it appears to be an inside joke. The name was also used for some of her appearances in the Sam Spade series. Armina Marshall was a director of the New York Theatre Guild and was a founder of the Westport Country Playhouse in 1930. It was at that venue that Havoc played in Girl of the Golden West in the Summer of 1947. It is not known where the "Fargay" or "Fargey" name originated at this time.
The east coast network broadcast is not available; the AFRS recording inserted a different announcer clip as it was often doing in their editing for other episodes in this period. There are two copies of the west coast network broadcast. One is a KNX aircheck. The other is a studio recording. The studio network recording is the one in the best sound.
A marker for the west coast broadcast is a flub at approximately 1:35 when Truman Bradley mispronounces the story title as “Riaboushinskee.” This matches the KNX aircheck.
The Armed Forces Radio Service recording has a different announcer for their release. The drama is from the east broadcast; times are approximate:
AFRS 3:58 “Why, she's appeared in London...”
WC 5:10 is “She's appeared in London...”
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP471113
THE CAST
ARMINA FARGAY aka JUNE HAVOC (Narrator), Joe Kearns (John Fabian / Signature Voice), Wally Maher (Detective Lieutenant Krobic), Lurene Tuttle (Riabouchinska / Ilya), Jerry Hausner (“Sweet William”), Frances Robinson (Alice Fabian), Byron Kane (Bernard Douglas)
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