Frank Lovejoy stars in the first, and the best, of the “Suspense musicals.” Unfortunately, it went so very well that it encouraged Lewis and others to do present “musicals” three more times (and perhaps more depending on how you count). The subject matter of the ones that followed were not as good or interesting as this episode. Elliott Lewis took creative risks, and this one went well. It matched the prior “actual event” strategy with a good, fictionalized story, and had a familiar romantic appeal that many railroad tales seemed to naturally have. This particular story became well known because of a famous country music ballad.
While it may be true that a mail train crashed in Virginia on September 27, 1903, and that some of the character names in the show are the same as in the event, there was considerable license taken in this adaptation. The famous ballad was the first to embellish the story, so it’s easy to see how the facts could get trampled by rumor in the Suspense version. Sales of the ballad on 78rpm record were in the millions in the 1920s. The singer was Vernon Dahlert and can be heard at https://archive.org/details/wreck-of-the-old-97_202102
Details about the historical event and the song can be found at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wreck_of_the_Old_97 The North Carolina Transportation Museum has an excellent video about the event and a performance of the ballad https://youtu.be/6ggBWk-Q_NY
The script was a collaboration of Mindret Lord and William N. Robson. Lord had been a scriptwriter for The Adventures of Christopher London, which starred Glenn Ford. Robson produced and directed that 1950 series for NBC.
The script took many liberties with the tragic facts and stirred in a criminal subplot, just to make it more interesting. It’s one of those situations where the underlying story is just tragic. Adding criminal stowaways turns tragedy into a Suspense episode. The goal is to retain, engage, and hold an audience. This episode does a very good job of it.
Mindret Lord had written for Suspense earlier (1945-01-04 I Had an Alibi). By the time of this broadcast, he had moved to Hollywood and was finding success in movies. “Christopher Anthony” was a pseudonym William N. Robson was using as he was trying to navigate the CBS blacklist. (He failed and would not have a script on Suspense again until 1955). The name was the combination of the first names of his sons.
The casting of Frank Lovejoy may have been at the suggestion of Robson. In a 1947 broadcast in the Escape series, Lovejoy played the lead role in a similar script about a train wreck, The Run of the Yellow Mail. That remains a missing episode of the series, but has been expertly recreated in 2023 by Project Audion. It can be viewed at https://youtu.be/GnaWtUV29nw It is worth listening and seeing it.
In a Suspense profile in the 1952-05-05 Los Angeles Times, Elliott Lewis commented that this episode was among his favorites. He was particularly pleased with the effects, stating
We used what was probably the longest sustained sound effect in radio history, the noise of Old '97 pulling in and coming to a full stop at the railway station. It lasted a full minute of air time and was one of the most exciting things I've ever heard.
Harry Stanton was the balladeer for the episode (no relation to actor Harry Dean Stanton). It is difficult to find information about him in radio publications and references. International voice actor and classic radio enthusiast and researcher Keith Scott, however, has done significant research about Stanton and other voices that were not often credited in movies and radio. Keith details Harry’s career as follows:
Stanton was one of Hollywood's leading session singers, and was an anonymous singer in numerous movies and on radio as a prominent bass-baritone. His voice was conspicuous in The Wizard of Oz as the coroner Munchkin, although his voice was mechanically sped to sound like a little person. He was a gimmick deep voice in many musicals. Stanton was the bass dwarf in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs singing “Heigh Ho.” He was in many radio shows, and their commercials. He was the bass singer in the Bob Burns Lifebuoy Show spots, and was the Petri Wine bass singer in some Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Casebook of Gregory Hood episodes. Late in his career he was doing small character roles, and portrayed a judge in three Perry Mason television shows.
It is Keith’s research that supplies the cast information for each of the Suspense episodes.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP520317
THE CAST
FRANK LOVEJOY (Joe Brody), Herb Butterfield (Ben / Pete), Clayton Post (Clint), Eddie Firestone (Abel), Junius Matthews (Mr. Clovis), Jack Kruschen (Sam / Mike), Roy Glenn (Big Tom Jeeters), Joe Kearns (Mr. Elkins), Harry Stanton (the soloist), Larry Thor (Narrator)
COMMERCIAL: Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Dal McKennon (Mr. McSorley), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
###
In 2023 Dr. Joe Webb and Keith hosted a marathon of Suspense episodes with introductions that took advantage of Keith’s impression talents. The one created for this episode may be played at https://archive.org/details/httpsarchive.orgdetails80thannivsuspensemarathonfinalday/100+Wreck+of+the+Old+97+INTRO.flac
