Joseph Cotten stars in the adaptation
of a Dorothy L. Sayers story that was first published in London’s
The Daily Mail on a serialized basis in April 1936. It was
included in many later collections of Sayers’ works. The story was
adapted for Suspense by Malcolm
Meacham. Cotten
plays an actor named “Johnny
Scales.” His
sudden circumstance has him choose
a strange murder
weapon of opportunity
– a blood
transfusion – against
someone he has grown to despise.
Cotten is always so calm and
matter-of-fact when his characters are filled with evil, making the
portrayal even more diabolical.
Scales
is an ambitious
young playwright
with
mounting hatred for the big narcissistic
star who butchered Scales’
play to fit his glamour-boy
personality.
Scales neglected to protect
the content of his
play in his contract, so the actor could make whatever revisions
he wanted without
consultation or permission.
The hated actor, Garrick
Drury, was good at “good
cop, bad cop” double-dealing
masquerade for
his own personal benefit and acclaim, and
crushing the hopes and desires of the person he’s doing it to.
While he took credit for the success
of the play and made
annoying unilateral
changes to it, he did help negotiate the deal that sold
Scales’
play
to a movie studio
for a very large
sum,
$200,000 (almost
$2.7 million in US$2024). The
story opens with their celebration of that deal.
When
leaving the theater, the two
are involved in
an auto accident, and the actor suffers a severed artery. By the time
a doctor arrives on
the scene, it
is clear that an immediate
transfusion will be
necessary to save Drury’s
life. Once back in the
theater to get Drury as stabilized as possible, the
doctor checks the blood of Scales,
hurt in the accident but not in dire condition, and
Drury’s
valet. He hopes that one
of them will
have the O “universal
donor” blood type. After
an emergency test, it is
believed that the
actor’s blood that is a match, and the life-saving
transfusion begins. But…
is it really?
At
9:40 there is a key part of the story where the doctor marks a
conveniently available
dinner plate for
a blood test. The plate had
the image of a rose on it meant
that it could be set in a position that could be noted, unlike a
solid color plate. Grabbing
any kind of surface
would not
be done today for
fear of some contamination that could affect the test.
But
it was an emergency situation and whatever
was handy
was what was
used. It is important to
recognize that the knowledge
of blood types and the intricacies of blood for
use in medical
situations was still being learned. At the time that Sayers wrote the
original story, knowledge was even less than the
incredible amount of knowledge
was learned to 1950, the year of this broadcast.
The doctor had a sample of blood
from each, with one side of
the plate for
Scales’ blood and the other for
the valet’s. Based on what
is learned moments later, it
was the latter’s O-type “universal
donor” blood that should
be used for the transfusion. Scales
realized that if the
plate was turned,
the doctor would assume that
it was his blood, not the valet’s, that would be determined to be
safe. Scales’ incompatible
blood would be given
to Drury… and Drury’s
life would be put in danger because of it.
Scales
is in unknown danger through the story, as he has internal bleeding
and damage to his spleen. This leads to the justice that Suspense
prefers to deliver, where an evil act is rewarded with devastating
impact against the perpetrator.
The
story bounces from the present to flashbacks, and the time jumping is
not always well-defined. The accident and the care of the wounded
Drury are always in the present. Everything else explains how it got
there.
After
22:00 the doctor says they got almost a full quart of blood! That’s
about four times what is current
guidelines to be drawn from
a 150 lb. person in a 24
hour period for use in blood research. If
Sayers was writing this story today, she would need to make many
changes to the details to include the numerous discoveries since that
time.
The
basic understandings
about
human blood and its ability to be stored and delivered was still
comparatively new at the time of this broadcast. The
three major blood types were not discovered until 1900, with type
AB added
in 1902. The
first hospital blood bank was not founded until 1937,
a year after the story was
first published. The blood
bank concept spread rapidly.
The documentation of the Rh
Factor in blood, which explained why there could be complications in
transfusions despite donors and recipients having the same blood type
was not established until 1939, three years after
Sayers wrote her story.
Plastic bags for blood did
not become available until 1950, which
replaced glass bottles.
There was much
experimentation about refrigeration and freezing of blood which would
extend the shelf life of inventories, especially for rare blood types
that might have erratic availability. Without
blood banks and ability to store and
transport blood,
transfusions were more common and would sometimes have to be arranged
under great time stress, such
as depicted in this story.
Today, the person would be
rushed to a hospital and the proper blood would be waiting for them
based on their identification and other details they might carry on
their person.
Keep
in mind how listeners would have understood the danger of loss of
blood and the well-established risks of transfusions. Today, those
issues are well-understood by medical personnel and procedures that
patients rarely have to consider their lives in danger. To an
audience who grew up in the first half of the century that did not
have the benefit of what would be learned and institutionalized in
the second half of the century, this story would have had an
undercurrent of terror (and suspense) that it would not have for
listeners today.
Malcolm
Meacham was a playwright and
actor. This was his only
Suspense submission.
In 1949, he was arrested for
forgery in the passing of bad checks in New York City. It seems very
strange, because other information indicates that Meacham was
financially secure otherwise. He may have gone to the west coast to
leave personal
problems behind and get a
fresh start. He taught
writing for radio and movies in Los Angeles and at times lived in
Utah and the Pacific Northwest. He
served on faculties and in
many regional theater events
and plays and dramatic readings, as well as teaching,
for many years. Many
of his newspaper citations
include information about his television writing in the 1950s, yet he
does not turn up in IMDb searches.
Angel
Face starring Ginger
Rogers was originally scheduled for this date.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP500330
THE CAST
JOSEPH COTTEN (Johnny Scales),
Whitfield Connor (Garrick Drury / Voice 1), Hans Conried (Walter /
Critic #4), Tudor Owen (Scotty / Critic #2), John Dehner (The Bobby /
Mike the Reporter), Joe Kearns (Doctor / George / Signature Voice),
Larry Dobkin (Sheridan / Interne), Jeanette Nolan (Florrie / Critic
#3), Vivi Janiss (Mollie)
COMMERCIAL: Joe DuVal (Hap), Harlow
Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
* * *
Classic radio researcher and performer Patte Rosebank commented at
the Old Time Radio Researchers Facebook page on 2024-03-22 as
follows:
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