Burt Lancaster stars as a handsome young engineer who seeks adventure. He gets it, by taking a job with an illegal mining operation in Mexico. It’s part of a scheme to sneak valuable gold ore across the border while hiding the mine from authorities. Others in the crew are jealous of his good looks and he soon finds a woman with whom he falls in love. He soon realizes he can scam the scammers and develops a plan to get the money himself and run away with his girlfriend. But sometimes the scammer who is scamming the scammers can get scammed himself!
The original story was written by Brett Halliday and published under the name “Davis Dresser” in the 1938-10-22 edition of Argosy. Halliday was famous for creating and writing the Mike Shayne character and stories. This story was adapted by Lawrence Goldman, who was a radio and screenwriter and worked on other Suspense episodes.
Lancaster was originally announced for this date in a production titled “Breakup.” That script was held until the broadcast of 1948-12-30 and starred William Bendix.
Hitch-hike Poker with Gregory Peck was originally scheduled for this date. It was broadcast the following week.
The network recording is the best of two surviving audio files. There is a strange Armed Forces Radio and Television Service recording (AFRTS Inner Sanctum #5) with this Suspense drama wrapped with the openings and closings of Inner Sanctum. it is not known if this is a mistake or if this was done on purpose by the AFRTS production staff, but there are similar mis-labels of other programs in AFRTS releases. It was released by AFRTS sometime in the 1970s or early 1980s. It is odd to hear the Inner Sanctum opening followed by Burt Lancaster’s opening lines.
This was Burt Lancaster’s first appearance on Suspense. Lancaster did not start acting until after his military service. His rise in Hollywood was rapid. An overview of his career is at Wikipedia. His pre-WW2 entertainment experience was as a circus performer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Lancaster
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP480909
THE CAST
BURT LANCASTER (Charles Morton), Charlotte Lawrence (Lolita), Ken Christy (Quinn), Tim Graham (Joe Logan / Worker / El Chico), Paul Frees (Signature Voice) + unknown (Voice / Kid’s Voice)
COMMERCIAL: Bill Johnstone (Hap), Wally Maher (Doc Lewis), Ann Morrison (Mary), Sylvia Simms (Operator), Frank Martin (Announcer)
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