This story is by Grace Amundson and first appeared in the August 1946 Good Housekeeping. She was a writer of short stories and her work appeared in Collier’s, Saturday Evening Post, and other publications. A stranded couple is stuck in the company of an over-the-hill and alcoholic cowboy film star.
Many classic radio fans have avoided listening to this broadcast. Here’s why.
The recording of the episode is incomplete, missing its first 15 minutes. The first transcription disc of the four necessary for a complete one-hour program was missing, broken, or unplayable. An alternative source is unlikely to be found. The Armed Forces Radio Service was probably not supplied recordings of the hour-long Suspense programs. This is suspected because no AFRS recordings of this Suspense era have ever surfaced. That unfortunately eliminates one of the most important sources of missing series recordings.
Luckily, the script of the episode has survived as part of the KNX Collection and was viewed at the Thousand Oaks Library when that collection was housed there. Access to the script is greatly appreciated.
This is the summary of the opening 15 minutes. It is worth reading before listening, otherwise there is great difficulty in following the story. It is a good production, and it can finally be enjoyed with this additional background:
The setting for the story is in the Dakotas near the Montana border. There are four primary characters, Sid Latch (Howard Culver), Roger Miles (Berry Kroeger), Iris Johnson (Sandra Gair), and Sid’s dog named “Bo” (Pinto Colvig).
Sid Latch owns a herd of sheep. He is raising them and plans to sell them at market. Sid and his dog Bo have been drifting for quite a long time. After all these years, Sid would like to be settled. He wants to better establish himself by using the money from the sale of the sheep to purchase land of his own.
A severe blizzard with very high winds is coming across the plains. Sid is worried for the safety of lambs and how they will survive the night in the snow and the cole. He will wait out the storm, with Bo, in the safety of his chuck wagon. That simple wagon is where he lives.
Sid and Bo hear a car approach. An unknown man, whom we learn is Roger Miles, gets out of the car and calls out. He can barely see Sid and the wagon through the falling snow. Sid tells Roger that his car is stuck because the snow is too high. He tells him to lock the car and to wait out the bad weather. Miles admits he is a little drunk but he will wait it out in the chuck wagon with Sid and the dog. Sid learns that Miles is a western movie star.
Sid soon realizes that there is someone else in the car, a woman named Iris Johnson. He goes to her, but she says she’d rather stay inside the car because Miles can be difficult when he is drunk. She feels safer there, away from him. Sid explains it’s not safe to stay in the car in the severe weather. He assures her she will be fine because he and Bo will look after everyone who stays in the wagon.
Iris warns Sid about Miles, saying that he is taking in a drunk and a fool. Iris ran away with Miles from her home in Wallace, South Dakota. She explains that, “a handsome movie actor whispered in her ear.” Once away with him, she realized she made a bad decision.
Miles later admits that he doesn't even know Iris’ name! Iris says she wants to go home and Miles says “it’s not that easy.” It’s clear Iris is trapped and fearful of him. Miles brags about how easy it is for him to pick up young girl fans, and boasts about how many people attend his public appearances.
The more Miles drinks, the more belligerent he gets. He asks for dinner. All Sid can offer is fried bread. Then Miles starts getting nasty. He hears the bleats of the lambs in the distance. He insults Sid by saying that cowboys hate sheepherders because the sheep eat away good grassland. Sid asks if Miles is a cowboy, and he says “I am a cowboy.” That means that Miles has a deep resentment for Sid, someone he just met, and despite Sid’s generous providing of shelter.
He continues to insult Sid by saying Sid doesn’t know who Miles is because Sid doesn’t go out to the movies. Miles accuses Sid of staying “cut off from the modern world.” Sid says the world seems to go along fine without him.
This is where the surviving recording of The Search picks up. The drunken Miles is antagonizing Sid and Iris with nasty words and belittling banter. Miles starts bragging about how much money his notoriety raised for sale of war bonds during World War II.
In the cast is Pinto Colvig, a name that might not seem familiar, but radio and animation fans have heard him at some time. In this broadcast, he’s a dog! Colvig was a voice actor, among other pursuits, who provided “voices” for characters like Goofy in Walt Disney animation. He had a long and varied career. More details at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinto_Colvig
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP480424
THE CAST
Howard Culver (Sid Latch [alias Phil Wolfe]), Sondra Gair (Iris Johnson), Ira Grossel ([aka Jeff Chandler] Copper Pete, the passenger), Berry Kroeger (Roger Miles / Driver), Pinto Colvig (Bo), Gil Stratton, Jr. (Paperboy / Radio announcer), Ann Morrison (Eadie / Woman on bus), Lou Krugman (Nick / Mac), Russell Thorson (Al / Constable), Doug Young (Will / Joe), Frank Gerstle (Ed Jacobs / Druggist), Bill Johnstone (Signature Voice)
The narrated introduction is presented by broadcaster Bobb Lynes
Bobb
Lynes is a classic radio collector and enthusiast with a long career
in nostalgia broadcasting. Born in Oklahoma in 1935 and raised in
California, he grew up listening
to and loving the radio shows broadcast
from Los Angeles. While in
the Air Force in the
1950s, he started recording programs and in
the mid-1960s he started
trading those recordings with other radio fans.
He was active in the
classic radio hobby’s non-profit organization, the
Society to Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety and Comedy,
better known as “SPERDVAC”
and had leadership positions for over 25 years. His broadcasting of
classic radio programs started in 1975 on KCSN in Northridge,
California, and later KPFK in Los Angeles, where he co-hosted and
hosted the show Don’t
Touch That Dial. He
was also the host of KPFK’s program, The
Big Broadcast.
Through the years, he also had shows on other Southern California
stations KSPC in Claremont and KCRW in Santa Monica, and others
through the 1990s and early 2000s. He was the announcer on the radio
series Doc
Savage
which was broadcast on National Public Radio stations in 1985. He was
honored
by fellow classic radio hobbyists in 1995
when he received the Allen
Rockford Award at the annual
Friends of Old-Time Radio
Convention. Bobb has
written and illustrated
books about the classic
radio era and has numerous
other broadcasting and
performance credits.
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