Claire Trevor returns to Suspense in a Cornell Woolrich story adapted by Gil Doud and Bob Tallman. She plays a pretty chorus line showgirl, Jerry Wheeler, who risks her life to try clear her younger brother of a murder charge. She has a hard life being the big sister, and she’s working so she and her brother can have a better life. She sensed danger when her brother started running around with a tough dancer, Ruby Rose Red, the moll of a notorious gangster. Her brother is being drawn into the gang because of it. She goes to the dancer’s apartment to try to persuade her to drop the relationship, but she is thrown out. The next day, the police call with the information that the dancer has been murdered, and that her brother has been arrested as the killer. He is tried and convicted. She knows it’s not true, and suspects that the gangster was the real murderer. How does she prove it? She goes undercover and gets a job singing at the mobster’s night club. She has to prove her brother’s innocence, because his execution for the crime gets closer every day. This is real B-movie stuff, so predictable, and so much fun. The story gets wrapped up with some happy surprises.
The gangster’s girl is in an apartment that’s $3,000 a month. That’s just short of $40,000 a month in US$2024. That must be some place!
There’s a great line in the narration that describes the face of one of the cops. He had a “face like one of those cobblestones they tore out of Eighth Avenue when they tore up the trolley tracks.” That work was done in Manhattan as trolleys were replaced by busses, and the subway system had become the preference for much of the borough’s movement of people throughout the city. Once the trolley tracks were removed, the cobblestones were removed, and the streets were then paved with asphalt.
A signet ring, a finger ring with a single letter initial on its face, is part of the story for the “impression” it makes on the face of someone when they’re punched with it. This one has a “W.” This detective story gimmick always leads to a wrong “impression” in the identification of a culprit and it’s usually because the police are looking at the letter in one direction. If only they looked at it the other way, it’s an “M” and not a “W.” It just so happens the first and last names of the gangster begins with “M.” Oh, so obvious, but it plays out in a different way this time, because it can be turned in yet a different way.
There’s a line at about 19:15, she says “she got the ‘message from Garcia’.” That phrase has fallen out of use in recent decades. It came to mean that someone is to take the initiative when carrying out a difficult assignment, or in other words, to seize an opportunity. It originated from an 1899 essay A Message to Garcia about the challenges a soldier faced as he was asked to deliver a message from President William McKinley to “Gen. Calixto García,” the leader of the Cuban insurgents in the Spanish-American War.
This script was originally planned for Ginger Rogers on 1950-03-30. The Rogers production was planned again for 1950-04-06. She would not appear on Suspense until January 1951. The script was used earlier on Philip Morris Playhouse 1948-11-12 with Lucille Ball.
This episode was based on Cornell Woolrich's short story Face Work, was first published in the October 1937 issue of Black Mask magazine. Columbia Pictures bought the rights shortly after it was published and turned it into the 1938 B-movie Convicted starring Rita Hayworth. It did not do well in the box office and there does not seem to be any way of streaming it online.
Many of Woolrich’s stories were also adapted on Molle Mystery Theater. They were always different adaptations with different writers than Suspense. A story with this title was done on that series on 1945-10-05 and 1946-12-20, but it is not this Woolrich story. It is by “Walter Wilson.” That story was originally Murder on Her Mind and appeared in the August 1944 issue Thrilling Detective. The actual name of the author was Benton Braden and “Wilson” was a pseudonym.
Classic radio enthusiast and performer Patte Rosebank noted at the Old Time Radio Researchers group Facebook page that the title of the episode has a deeper and metaphorical connection to the story’s plotline. She said “Listeners would recognize ‘Angel Face’ as a brand of make-up made by Ponds (makers of Ponds Cold Cream). Angel Face powder was high-coverage, and was advertised as being able to change your complexion to suit the color of your clothes, so you could look good in any color. Just as the woman in the story changes herself to investigate the case.”
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP500518
THE CAST
CLAIRE TREVOR (Jerry Wheeler, aka Fay Angel), Jeanne Bates (Suzette White), Doris Singleton (Rubyrose), Dave Light (Dog), Ted Reid (Chick Wheeler / Doorman), Hal March (Lt. Nick Burns), John Dehner (Sergeant Coley), Jerry Hausner (Rocco), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Mac / Police Captain), Larry Dobkin (Milt Miletis)
COMMERCIAL: Ken Christy (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
Dave Light plays the dog; he is one of the sound effects artists for this season of Suspense.
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