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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