The college basketball point-shaving scandal of 1950-1951 is the “actual event” that includes the sole appearance of Tony Curtis on the series. The show opening says the story was “taken from the headlines.” This is an old scriptwriting trick… a headline of nebulous context becomes the basis of the story, the actual story details are ignored, and script details can come from anywhere. The Big Story used this gimmick many times.
In the case of this production, the Fred Hudson character, played by Curtis, is a simplified composite of the athletes involved. He takes money from gamblers to throw the game, his conscience gets to him, returns most of the money to them, then gets back at them by reporting the scheme to the authorities. Hudson was expelled from the college, but elevates his dignity in the eyes of his loved ones because he did the right thing in the end despite the short-term bad consequence. The radio story worked out better that way. In real life, the player who exposed the scandal reported it and never accepted any money.
Gamblers offered Fred Hudson $2000 to throw a game. That is approximately $25,000 in current US$2024 value. His family as portrayed in the story, having difficulty making ends meet, needed Fred to contribute to the household finances. The temptation to participate in the scam was understandable.
The story is by Millard Kaufman who also wrote The Island, which was used on Escape and Suspense. Kaufman’s career took an upward turn with an Oscar nomination for his 1954 screenplay for Take the High Ground! and another for Bad Day at Black Rock. That screenplay also received a nomination for “best written American drama” by the Writers Guild of America. He had a very successful career. (And most importantly, he was one of the creators of the cartoon character “Mr. Magoo.”). The name of the college in the story might be based on Kaufman’s initials: “M.K.”
Joe Kearns plays “Dr. Kellogg” in the story. This is a nod to Manhattan College basketball center Junius Kellogg who was the player who reported the scandal to Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan. When Kellogg was approached by gamblers, he told his coach, then sent him to Hogan. The second time gamblers approached Kellogg to participate in their scheme, he was wearing a wire that gave Hogan and the police what they needed to initiate their investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice. Kellogg soon left Manhattan College to serve in the Army in Korea. When he returned, he made up for lost academic time by doubling up on courses and graduated in 1953. He went on to play for the Harlem Globetrotters. While traveling with teammates in 1954, he was in a car accident, the only player injured. He was paralyzed from the accident and would later become an advocate for paralyzed veterans and wheelchair athletics.
According to a story in the 1952-05-05 Los Angeles Times, to get realistic effects for this episode, sound artists Gus Bayz and Ross Murray went to a gym where basketball was being played. They tape recorded the sounds of the game, and used them in the broadcast.
At this time in history, only a little more than 10% of the US population had a college degree (today it is about 25%). There was a sense that college was only for the brightest or the richest. Radio and television programs glamorized college life, often to unrealistic proportions, such as in the radio series The Halls of Ivy. There was great romance about college sports and a sentiment of innocence about such amateur sports. Big broadcasting money had not yet entered college sports in the manner that it has in modern times. That is what made the central involvement of City College of New York in the scandal so interesting to today’s college basketball fans. It is long forgotten that CCNY had a highly regarded team and program at that time. The scandal was in the national news and affected seven different colleges. Thirty-two players were arrested, and one college received a one-year postseason competition ban. Some of the collegiate basketball programs, such as CCNY’s, never recovered.
The scandal is summarized at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCNY_point-shaving_scandal
Working titles of the story were “The Losing Game of Frederick Hudson” and “Burton College Basketball Scandal.”
This is one of the worst recordings of the 1951 broadcasts. It has detectable wow and flutter almost throughout, and is the worst during the closing credits. The defect is jarring when it is first heard. Some collectors found it so disturbing they just clipped the end of the recording just before the worst of it begins. This is especially the case with commercial cassette and CD releases of the episode, fearing it would confuse and annoy buyers of the recordings greatly. Some modern-day collectors have attempted to use digital software methods to repair the problem, but they give up because it is too difficult to fix no matter how skilled they are.
The pioneer collectors who originally transferred the discs to tape had every intention of going back and re-recording them, but they never had the opportunity to. It is not known where those discs are. It is hoped that one day an Armed Forces Radio Service recording might be found.
This is the sole appearance of Tony Curtis on the series. Curtis had a wide-ranging career in movies in dramas and comedies, and in television. Two of his memorable roles were in the comedy Some Like It Hot (with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe) and The Boston Strangler about the dangerous serial killer. His career spanned decades and is summarized at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Curtis
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP510924
THE CAST
TONY CURTIS (Fred Hudson), Martha Wentworth (Mrs. Hudson), Lou Merrill (Mr. Hudson), Joe Kearns (Dr. Kellogg / 1st Voice), Barbara Eiler (Jean), Jack Moyles (Ace), Bill Forman (Sportscaster), Jack Kruschen (Stanley), Gil Stratton, Jr. (French), Leo Cleary (Coach / Barr), Larry Thor (Narrator)
COMMERCIAL: Tom Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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