Dick Powell returns to Suspense in a boxing drama about fraud, envy, and a romantic triangle. He portrays a small-time boxer, Johnny Wilson, whose manager lacks the money and the connections to get him the publicity buildup he needs for a shot at the title. The manager, however, is a conniver, and has a plan. Using Wilson’s assistance, he signs a popular young war hero who did some boxing in the army. He’s well-known in the area, and the signing gets news coverage and a front page headline. To build him up, Wilson boxes against him in an exhibition and pretends that the pairing is even. The manager believes with the money he can build the war hero up and get Wilson a title bout for a big payday. Pausing his own career, Wilson works hard to train the youngster every boxing trick and nuance he knows. At first, he doesn't mind, Wilson soon learns that his manager has played him for a sucker. The manager wants to push the career of the young fighter, not Johnny. He plans a horrible revenge on his manager and the boxer. At about 21:30 in the network recording, Powell’s character decides to sabotage his rival with some eye anesthesia that he mixes with the Vaseline that boxing “corner men” use to lubricate the eyebrows to prevent eyes from getting cut. The boxer gets wise to the issue during the fight… and Wilson’s plan doesn’t turn out the way he intended.
The ocular anesthesia named in the story is likely fictitious.
Fred Freiberger, fairly or unfairly forever known as the third season producer of the ill-fated third season of the original Star Trek, wrote this compelling script. The multi-talented Powell is very good in the part.
The production is curious for Suspense because every cast member, except for Powell, doubles. Kearns doubles and is the signature voice, tripling, as he often does.
This date and script was changed a few times, showing how Suspense production schedules had to be flexible and ready for the unexpected. Slow Burn was originally scheduled for 1950-01-12 with Robert Taylor, but Four Hours to Kill was used instead. Motive for Murder with Richard Widmark was originally scheduled for this date. Kirk Douglas was originally announced to be the star of this script, but he was selected for The Butcher’s Wife, which turned out to be a good role for him. Powell’s schedule was always packed with various commitments. There’s always the unexpected: Powell had a car accident three weeks before the broadcast but avoided significant injury.
It is likely Douglas was the initial cast selection for the lead role in Slow Burn because of his starring role in 1949’s Champion movie, where he played a boxer. That film’s boxing sequences won an Oscar for film editing. Douglas earned a best actor nomination for his performance.
This episode transcribed the day before broadcast, likely to accommodate Powell’s schedule. The rehearsal and final recording session went from 7:00pm to Midnight.
Spier and Powell always wanted to work together. They had an excellent relationship in the Summer 1945 series, Bandwagon Mysteries, which introduced Powell’s character “Richard Rogue.” (None of those episodes have ever surfaced. Spier was consider for the producer position for Rogue’s Gallery but had to turn it down because he was developing The Adventures of Sam Spade. When the hour long format Suspense was being planned, Spier built in a week for the radio presentation of Pitfall to coincide with the release of Powell’s movie of that story. Their careers never meshed after their 1945 work, and were not able to find a collaborative opportunity again.
There are two recordings of this episode. In a rare situation for Suspense in this period, the Armed Forces Radio Service version (#312) is the recording with the better and richer sound. The network recording has a narrow range, but is listenable. Slow Burn had never been available in high quality sound, and some sound improvement attempts to remove disc noise and other problems could not improve it much. It was not until the AFRS recording appeared many years later that Slow Burn could be better enjoyed in a fuller sound recording. Many AFRS discs are worn because they would be shipped around the world and played many times in varying conditions. The AFRS recording has only very mild defects, indicating it had a comparatively low number of plays.
After the discs of the Suspense 1949 episodes were transferred to tape, the collector who was working on them decided to concentrate that transfer work on other series, such as Escape. He was remarkably skilled and had excellent equipment. The transfers were then made by a different collector who had a different transfer technique and equipment. The transfers are fine, but many lack the brilliance and clarity of the earlier broadcasts.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP500223
THE CAST
DICK POWELL (Johnny Wilson), Wally Maher (Lefty Wilkins / Operator), Larry Dobkin (Courtney Barr / Referee), Elliott Reid (Chuck Masters / Todd Sloane), Ann Morrison (Mother / Herald operator), Georgia Ellis (Dania Wilson / Waitress), Joe Kearns (Doc Peterson / Cop / Signature Voice), Berne Surrey & Gus Bayz (Ad-Libs)
COMMERCIAL: Jerry Hausner (Gas station guy), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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