John Garfield stars in a fine noir-style story by Lou Lusty and adapted by Les Crutchfield. Garfield plays a detective whose effective work turned a gangster over to the police. This annoyed the thug’s boss and disrupted his schemes. He’s so annoyed that he warns Garfield’s character he has just seven days to live. He flees to Las Vegas in the hope of eluding the boss’ hit man. There, he meets a woman named Helen, and it’s clear they are falling in love… and then he learns that she was the gang leader’s girl, and she’s under a death sentence, too!
Variety had a very positive review of this episode in its 1948-11-05 edition
The combination of John Garfield and Lou Lusty’s gripping gangster tale Death Sentence would whet the interest of studio story scouts on the prowl for fresh approaches to dramatic action. It was a tight and punchy script that Lusty fashioned for Garfield, and it came off with all the suspense that the title implies. Not until the last bark of Garfield’s Roscoe was the tension eased for the nail-biters around the home sets... Garfield was in his usual capital form as the pigeon marked for death by the gang boss... Tony Leader's direction was sharp and moving...
Other comments in the review encouraged movie producers to take Lusty’s script and adapt it to the movie screen. It didn’t happen, but it wasn't often that critics offered such an enthusiastic review.
This is the first appearance on Suspense for Raymond Burr. He had a long and successful radio career prior to his landing his famous role in the Perry Mason television series. Burr appeared on Suspense many times, even after the television series began. He did his best to get many of his radio peers into that series, and they can often be seen in supporting and bit parts.
The day after this broadcast, William Spier returned to CBS as producer of Philip Morris Playhouse. Few recordings of his year running that series have survived. He used some prior Suspense scripts, employed some of the freelance Suspense writers, and some scripts of PMP would be used later in Suspense. Many of the Suspense actors and production staff worked on that series. PMP was not renewed after Spier’s season, and he would replace Tony Leader in Fall 1949.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP481104
THE CAST
JOHN GARFIELD (Tommy Cochran), Gloria Blondell (Helen Ludlow / Operator), Raymond Burr (Lou Cromwell, alias Maxie Dunn), Wally Maher (Brad Cummings / Operator), Ross Forrester (Mugsy / Man), Paul Frees (Signature Voice)
COMMERCIAL: Bill Johnstone [Ken Harvey] (Hap), Ann Morrison (Mary), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer)
###
