Deborah Kerr makes her only appearance on the series in a very entertaining script by Antony Ellis. It’s a scam and double-cross among thieves. It is well done and Kerr plays the sophisticated society swindler quite well.
Kerr plays “Pamela,” the head of a robbery scam who plans the crime then serves as the lovely diversion for her thieving accomplices. Pamela goes into an exclusive New York City jewelry shop posing as a wealthy potential customer. The owner is charmed by her loveliness and flirtatious behavior. Falling for the trap and sensing he has an opportunity for a very expensive sale, he shows her the store’s most expensive gems. While preoccupied with her, and his guard is down, her two male confederates sweep in and rob those jewels. They hold her and the jeweler gunpoint, then vanish. Their plan was to sell the jewelry in San Francisco and split the profits. One of them, Colonel Halliday, will take the jewels, sell them and return in five days. Pamela and the other accomplice will wait for him. While Halliday is away, the other two are arrested. Halliday flees to Britain, but the other two are convicted. They keep quiet about Halliday, knowing that there is still a chance they can get their share after they serve time in prison. Pamela is released after serving three years and she is determined and get her share of the $100,000 worth of gems. That’s almost $1.2 million in today’s US$2024 value! She finds Halliday… but he’s not so interested in following the terms of their agreement!
Larry Thor gets to play yet another police officer.
The working titles were “The Colonel’s Lady” and “The Lady Pam.” Most newspapers had “The Colonel’s Lady” in their listings, indicating that the title change was made about a week, or less, before broadcast. When this script was used in Australia by Grace Gibson Productions in their mid-1950s series Tension, it had the title “The Colonel’s Lady.” They may have gotten an earlier copy of the script.
Three recordings have survived and the network recording is the best of the three. There is an Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) recording; its program number is not known. The program has disc scratch and some distortion. There is also an Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) recording from the 1980s that has background noise and narrow range.
This was Kerr’s only Suspense appearance. She had a long career in Britain and in the US, and was nominated for a best actress Oscar six times. She received a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1994. At the time of this broadcast, Kerr was a highly respected and successful performer, but her most notable years were still ahead of her. Her most widely known roles were in the 1953 film From Here to Eternity and in the 1956 film The King and I. An overview of her long career is at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Kerr
The pronunciation of her name was an issue in her early movie career. MGM’s Louis B. Mayer made it clear when he billed her as “Kerr rhymes with ‘star’!”
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP520331
THE CAST
DEBORAH KERR (Pamela), Peter Leeds (Archer), Joe Kearns (Halliday), Ben Wright (Wiley), Larry Thor (Bolen / Narrator), Ted Osborne (Waiter / Tillet)
COMMERCIAL: Tyler McVey (Sam), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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