This is the final performance of the Seeleg Lester - Merwin Gerard script about a cataleptic who is believed dead and luckily avoids embalming. It’s a marvelous story that has you chuckling and squirming and riveted at different points of the performance.
It is somewhat sad that this story, which played a major role in Suspense receiving a Peabody Award, was only heard three times in its 20-year history. It is sadder that the initial performance, and its post-award “victory lap” was cast with the supporting radio performers who made that performance and the series so great. Instead, Tony Leader cast Pat O’Brien to play the role that Wally Maher played so well in the first two broadcasts. Leader was not a favorite among the CBS executives, nor was he among many of the actors, even though the program was doing extremely well in the ratings and the broadcasts were top-notch.
The first broadcast was done in the summer of 1946, when Hollywood stars and others were typically on vacation and hard to recruit for the series. If the usual supporting cast members could take what was once a rejected script and turn it into a Peabody winner, should they not be able to take another “victory lap”?
Information about the first two performances can be accessed at:
1946-08-08 (with details about the rejection of the script and how it was saved)
https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/1946-08-08-dead-ernest.html
https://archive.org/details/TSP460808
1947-05-08 (with details about how it won a Peabody Award and the reactions of critics)
https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/10/1947-05-08-dead-ernest.html
https://archive.org/details/TSP470508
Why Dead Ernest was not repeated on radio is not known. Perhaps it was felt that it was “too dated” and the producers who followed Leader decided to move on.
The story was presented on the Suspense television series, however. The broadcast was 1949-05-03, just a few weeks after this final radio presentation. It can be viewed at https://youtu.be/VxoWmUbw8ak or https://archive.org/details/Dead_Ernest--Suspense Television production was primitive at the time, and it was hard to replicate the power of a radio listener’s imagination to the screen. The television production falls flat, especially in comparison to the radio ones. There is a funny typo in screen as one of the authors is billed as “Seelog” Lester. It’s worth watching the program just to see the attempt to bring it to the tube.
This was the first of two Suspense appearances by Pat O’Brien. His movie career began in the 1930s and continued through television into the early 1980s. He often played characters of Irish descent, which mean he played a lot of priests and police. But his career was more varied than that. One of his most famous roles was in the movie biography of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. The scene where he urges the team to press on despite the death of beloved teammate George Gipp led to the famous line “win one for the Gipper” that was always associated with O’Brien (and of course, Rockne). Most of his radio appearances were as himself or in radio adaptations of his movies. More details about his life can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_O%27Brien_(actor)
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP490324
THE CAST
PAT O’BRIEN (Lt. Steve Healy, the narrator), Paul Frees (Signature Voice / Dr. Weldon), Herb Vigran (Officer Abbott / Minelli), Ed Max (Payne / Al, the first embalmer), Alan Reed (Honest Jerry Murdock), Jeanette Nolan (Mrs. Brawley the Landlady), Frank Nelson? (Theodore Tobey), unknown (Bobby Minelli), Jerry Farber? (Tommy Stoner), Ruth Perrott? (Nurse / Mrs. Bowers), unknown (Henry Prince), unknown (Frances Prince), unknown (Anthony, the 2nd embalmer), unknown (Ernest Bowers)
COMMERCIAL: Bill Johnstone (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer)
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