1952-01-28 Carnival

Joseph Cotten stars in a script by Morton Fine and David Friedkin as a frustrated and resentful carnival entertainer. He is being blackmailed by the carnival owner over a murder he committed years ago. The owner holds that crime over his head and forces him to be in a humiliating act as “Rene the Robot.” He pretends to function as a mechanical doll, devoid of personality. He is required to speak in flat and expressionless tones, respond automatically to commands, and move his arms and legs jerkily in simple but awkward dance routines. When each carnival day is over, it is clear that he is a tortured by his circumstance and bitterly hates the carnival owner. But wait… there’s more! Aside from the demeaning act, it is clear that the owner is in love with Rene’s beautiful wife, an aerialist in the show. Rene convinces his wife that he can never be free of his degrading job until the carnival owner is dead and he persuades her to join him in a plan.

There is no “actual events” or similar expression used in the opening of the broadcast.

Charles Boyer was scheduled to star in this broadcast; newspaper reports indicated that illness required Cotten’s filling in for him. Cotten was a go-to replacement for Suspense in the Spier years, and continues that availability for Lewis. He was a quick and astute study in these situations. He was one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood and part of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater starting in New York.

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https://archive.org/details/TSP520128

THE CAST

JOSEPH COTTEN (Rene Orlando), Mary Jane Croft (Gabrielle), Joseph Kearns (O’Mara), Dick Ryan (Giant), Charles Calvert (Man), Sylvia Simms (Girl), Larry Thor (Narrator)

COMMERCIAL: Jim Hayward (Oscar Auto), Sylvia Simms (Operator), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer)

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1952-01-21 The Perfectionist

Richard Basehart, “rising young film star,” makes his only Suspense appearance in a tense Arthur Ross story. Basehart plays a narcissistic and obsessive compulsive man who commits murder, stuffs the body in a trunk, and that trunk is misdirected from the train station.

This obviously drives him madder than it would others. His perfectionism is one thing… but the possible discovery that he is a murderer is clearly something more. He tricks the railroad station clerk into giving him the address where it was delivered by claiming a trunk other than his own. He opens the trunk and sees many personal items and letters that give him enough background to allow him to concoct a ruse to get the trunk back. The owner of the trunk is a former civil engineer whose career was ended by an accident. He is now confined to a wheelchair. Basehart’s character decides to pose as a social worker who is checking out how the man is doing. He learns that the trunk has not been opened. But how does he make the switch of the two trunks?

This drama has a psychological turnabout when the former engineer, played by William Conrad, senses that something is not right. After many short conversations, it is very clear that “the perfectionist” is no match for the man in the wheelchair he targeted as his victim.

This is the first time that Charlotte Lawrence and William Conrad were paired on the series. Three years later they would deliver an exceptional performance together in another Arthur Ross script, 1955-01-20 Study of a Murderer. That script was first presented just a few months earlier with Conrad and Jeanne Crain as The Case Study of a Murderer on 1951-10-01.

This story fits the prior established Suspense formula and there is no mention of “actual events” or similar expression. That strategy is coming to an end and will be replaced starting with 1952-02-11 Odd Man Out.

The original publicity had Conrad’s character as “a crippled polio victim,” and changed to his being victim of an accident.

Researcher and voice artist Keith Scott notes that Clifton Webb was considered for the lead role. Keith’s Suspense cast information, developed over the more than four decades, appears in every blogpost.

Basehart’s movie career began in 1947, and he became very well known for the 1948 film noir classic He Walked by Night. His television work is better remembered by baby boomers when he had the lead role in Irwin Allen’s series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea as Admiral Harriman Nelson, developer of the the Seaview nuclear submarine. A native of Ohio, he worked extensively in films in Europe as well as in Hollywood. An overview of his career is at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Basehart

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP520121

THE CAST

RICHARD BASEHART (Brandon), William Conrad (Granik), Charlotte Lawrence (Betty), Joe Kearns (Clerk), Larry Thor (Narrator)

COMMERCIAL: Tom Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)

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1952-01-14 The Fall River Tragedy

Agnes Moorehead stars in one of several radio adaptations of the 1892 Borden family murders of Fall River, Massachusetts. This telling is by Gil Doud and has Moorehead playing Lizzie Borden as she recounts the events of the trial that exonerated her. Public perception was a different matter. A schoolyard poem, used in the production, taunted her and the courtroom verdict:

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks,
And when she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

The wording is slightly different in this production. The actual facts of the murders are somewhat inaccurate, but they wouldn’t rhyme as well as these.

It is a good performance by all, but not your typical challenging Moorehead broadcast that included much fear and terror. It’s not an exciting or breakthrough script but it is called a “true story of murder.” Moorehead is identified as “The First Lady of Suspense,” a moniker that was not used until Elliott Lewis became producer.

The Lizzie Borden story seemed to be a favorite of Suspense. It is important to remember the history and Suspense timeline to understand why the Borden events might still be interesting to the listening audience. It wasn't that far removed from the life experiences of many in the audience, especially in the Northeast. The trial was in 1892, and Borden died in 1927. If you were born in 1880, you were 12 years old for the verdict of the trial and just 62 when the first Suspense adaptation was done in the Summer 1942 season (a missing episode). If you were born in 1917, you were 10 when Borden died and the story returned to the news, and just 38 when the last of the Suspense adaptations was broadcast in 1955.

The first time the real life story was on Suspense was in an adapted/disguised version. The others were clear, and different productions. Lewis also used it on his series Crime Classics.

• 1942-07-01 The Life of Nellie James was broadcast just 15 years after Borden died. The script was by Harold Medford. It was recently recreated by Project Audion https://youtu.be/xlRw2raEaWU It is not known why the names of the characters were changed in the Medford story. Perhaps there was a legal reason or producer Charles Vanda or others wanted to have more dramatic license in the production and avoid having it judged as a historical drama. There is a good chance Medford wrote it with the intention of using the original names. There is an instance of “Lizzie” in a draft of the original script that slipped through the revision process.

• This 1952 script was by Gil Doud. The actual names of persons involved in the story were used. It was ten years after the first Suspense production, and it fit the “actual events” theme. The story was so well known that changing names may have seemed strange under the heavily promoted “semi-documentary” strategy, and they went full throttle with “a true story of murder.”

• Elliott Lewis used the story for Crime Classics 1953-09-14 as The Bloody, Bloody Banks Of Fall River with a script by Mort Fine and David Friedkin.

• The broadcast of 1955-10-04 Goodbye, Miss Lizzie Borden with a script by Lillian de la Torre was the final time it was offered on the series. It was adapted by Antony Ellis from de la Torre’s 1948 stage play.

The Wikipedia page about the events is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Borden and this website has a massive amount of information https://lizzieandrewborden.com/

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP520114

THE CAST

AGNES MOOREHEAD (Lizzie), Joseph Kearns (Moody), Peggy Webber (Bridget), Herb Butterfield (Bowen), Rolfe Sedan (Clerk), Will Wright (Harrington), Stuffy Singer (Child), Larry Thor (Narrator)

COMMERCIAL: Tom Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)

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