Barbara Stanwyck portrays a notorious gangland beauty, a favorite of the local crime reporters. She who comes home one day to find a murdered man on the floor of her apartment, surrounded by police. It is another entertaining offering scripted by John Michael Hayes and E. Jack Neuman. It’s an audio B-movie about gangsters and their distrust of each other. It’s a good script, and performance, with cartoonish gangster cliches worth chuckling over. While not a Suspense classic, it’s a very worthwhile listen, and another example of how Suspense is not for kids because of its violent and nasty (but well-earned) ending.
The title comes from the Epistle of Paul to the Romans 6:23 that begins with “For the wages of sin is death.” Wages are paid for work, and the desire is to be paid fairly commensurate with the nature and quality of the work produced. Paul uses the phrase to explain that there are deeply negative consequences of unethical and selfish acts. (It could be oversimplified as the more current generic phrase “garbage in, garbage out” as applied to life). In terms of the story, it refers to the corrupt behavior of Stanwyck’s character and is its own spoiler alert that she will get her comeuppance in the end.
Her character, Ruby Miller, when arriving at her apartment with the police and the body on the rug is more angry about the blood stain than the man was killed where she resides. Police suspect she was part of the hit. She’s arrested, not her first time down at the police station, but is freed for lack of evidence. The incident in her apartment was part of a plan for a gangland killing. Part of her deal with the mob boss was that she was to leave town after the murder. She gets too smart by half, and believes she has the leverage to make a big score for herself. She was originally promised $1,500 to leave town, but she wants more. Instead of taking the money and running, she decides to blackmail the gangster who set up her deal. She demands a payoff to keep her quiet.
At 18:30, Stanwyck’s character has a vicious tirade against the police, the norms of society and its class structure. It’s quite entertaining and cynical, used to justify her evil tendencies. (The speech probably had them in stitches in rehearsal). It sets up the dramatic turnaround in the conclusion of the story when she realizes she actually needs the police… but doesn’t get their help in time.
The money values mentioned in the story are intended to rattle the audience and grab their attention. In US$2024 value adjusted for inflation:
Two months rent of $400 pre-paid for the apartment is $5100 in today's value. That’s about 2/3 of the value of the average US home at the time, and more than 50% higher than the average household income
The deposit to her savings account of $1000 is almost $13,000 in current value
The $400 paid for clothes and accessories is almost $5180 in value
The $1500 to leave town is almost $20,000 in today’s terms.
These values show how big and successful the mob operation was to afford to pay her for her cooperation and how important it was.
During the commercial, the “ding” sound was meant to replicate the sound of a gas pump of the era. The sound would occur as each gallon was dispensed. Car owners in the listening audience would recognize the sound and it would reinforce the marketing proposition that spending money on a well-maintained car using Auto-Lite parts would save them money in the long run.
This was Barbara Stanwyck’s only appearance on Suspense. She began in theater work in the late 1920s. Her decades-long and very successful movie and television career is summarized at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Stanwyck
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP501019
THE CAST
BARBARA STANWYCK (Ruby Miller), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Victor Sheridan), Lou Merrill (Police Captain Doric Salvatore), John Dehner (Cooper [Man on phone] / Cop), John Hoyt (Clint Fisher), Clayton Post (Voice / Police Sergeant), Charles Calvert (Doctor / Voice 2), Jerry Hausner (Frank)
COMMERCIAL: Bert Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator), Jerry Maren? (Johnny Plugcheck)
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