Madeleine Carroll stars in an unlikely and disturbing story by Pamela Wilcox. Carroll’s character marries a physician who is called to wartime service. Her desire for a child is great, but she does not become pregnant in the time before he leaves. A series of events leads to her kidnapping an infant and claiming the boy is theirs. She has fake documents created to support the ruse. When the husband returns he is always suspicious of the child’s paternal origin, believing she had an affair while he was away. When an accident occurs, he realizes that the child is not hers, either!
Blogger Christine Miller had some curious comments about the story:
One can only wonder what the people at Suspense were thinking when they presented this episode. The Morrison Affair starts out well and keeps us interested until the second half of the episode. Then we realize it is a stupid story. By the end of it, we are certain that it is a stupid story. How does it keep us until the end? Well, it has something to do with the small child who appears to be in constant danger throughout the last half of the show. We can't help but be worried.
The story hinges on the knowledge about genetics at the time. In these days, if the husband was suspicious he could gather items that had genetic material and have them tested privately without her knowledge. He would have known about the deception much sooner than this plotline allows. Finding it out in an unfolding tragedy that requires a blood donor is what creates the suspense of the storyline and what leads to a mildly surprising ending.
Christine Miller’s comments are well-taken. It is one of the series’ weaker entries and is clunky in the plotline transitions. Some of that may be that there is a more general knowledge about genetics than there was at the time of broadcast. In some ways, even that casual public knowledge has been lost today. There is such reliance on genetic testing that the general understanding of probabilities of genetic combinations that result in outwardly visible traits such as eye color, or traits such as blood type have left the common discourse. Genetic testing provides richer information for geneaolgy and other interests and is widely available at low cost with greater certainty of results.
Details about Pamela Wilcox and her relationship with Suspense are at the post about Overture in Two Keys. https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/09/1947-01-16-overture-in-two-keys.html Wilcox was British, and some of the plotline may have come from her familiarity with American - British married couples who started their courtship after they met in Britain during the war.
Gerald Mohr makes one of his unfortunately rare appearances on Suspense. One of radio’s finest voices, he played a wide range of characters that included nefarious villains of numerous episodes of The Whistler and the entertainingly sarcastic investigator Philip Marlowe for the CBS series based around that Raymond Chandler detective.
This was Madeleine Carroll’s only appearance on Suspense. The British actress made her big movie splash in The Thirty-Nine Steps which was one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most important films. After success in Britain, she moved to Hollywood and was also successful. At the time of this Suspense performance she had returned from post-WW2 Britain where she was known for her volunteer work. Carroll had a long and varied and most interesting career. The Wikipedia overview is a worthwhile read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Carroll
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP480902
THE CAST
MADELEINE CARROLL (Sheila Morrison), Gerald Mohr (Dr. Paul Morrison), John Hoyt (Mr. Ballon), Leone Ledoux (Baby / Jamie), Erik Rolf (Conductor), Carol Smith (? Mary / A mother), Edith Tachna (? English mother), Ruth Perrott (Sheila’s Mother), Paul Frees (Signature Voice) other roles doubled but unidentified on script: Secretary / Johnny / Dr. Lucas / Operator / Driver / Maid / Nurse
COMMERCIAL: Bill Johnstone (Hap), Sylvia Simms (Operator), Frank Martin (Announcer)
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