Why is Suspense
interested in doing sci-fi, especially about Mars, and starring
Jack Benny… as a Martian? This broadcast can be easily dismissed as
a silly story and opportunistic publicity event. But it’s not. It’s
an amusing and satirical current events commentary that lampoons the
sudden public interest in flying saucers, unfolding Cold War
tensions, attributes of bad science fiction, and human foibles. It’s
not the best of the Benny appearances, but it’s great radio that is
richer and deeper than it first seems. Once you understand the
background of the times, you realize that Benny is perfectly cast
once more.
Of all unlikely roles, Jack plays a man from Mars, which is
amusing by itself. He is “Xeno,” an inferior member of a superior
race, a lowly factory worker who applies treads to escalator steps.
Xeno is assigned to greet the Mars arrival of the first rocket ship
from Earth, and he is to do so alone. This befuddles the visitors,
because it seems that the Martians have no interest in meeting with
them, not even the slightest curiosity about them.
The
name “Xeno” is a bit of a joke, from the Greek, meaning
“foreigner” or “alien.” Isn’t
it funny that the story has a
Martian with a name that means “alien.” The
meaning
is applied to his character precisely because he is a misfit in the
eyes of
his fellow Martians,
as
he is like an
alien to their
mainstream
society.
After
all, he
barely knows what “Plan X” is, though every other Martian does!
Plan X news
and entertainment context
Radio’s
big fascination with Martians came to a head with 1938 War
of the Worlds, but
there was always some interest, most
all of it panic-free.
In 1933, there was a kids serial Dr.
Decimal Seven
that had a very strong Mars plotline
https://archive.org/details/dr-decimal-seven-33mmdd-syndicated-pgm-1-fred-shields-is-star
Mars,
the planet closest to Earth, seemed fascinating.
In the early
1950s, science fiction was getting a higher profile on radio with
series such as Dimension X with some of radio’s most
compelling stories and productions. Sci-fi was also a common theme of
kids serials, though plots tended to be quite thin. The simplistic
and forumulaic Tom Corbett, Space Cadet was on radio at the
beginning of 1952. There was an adult sci-fi breakthrough in 1951’s
movie with Day the Earth Stood Still. It showed that science
fiction as serious drama that could appeal to a wide audience. The
Thing from Another World was more straightforward science fiction
(with marvelous dialogue). Both films involved visitors to Earth.
These kinds of sci-fi endeavors stirred the imagination of the public
that there were other civilizations on planets in our solar system
and beyond.
While adult
science fiction was being cultivated as worthwhile entertainment,
“flying saucers” were in the news. There was an increasing wave
of reports of unidentified flying objects, UFOs, in Spring and
especially Summer 1952. There were so many reports that the US Air
Force began the famous “Project Blue Book” to investigate and
document the sightings. The most shocking reports were that flying
saucers appeared over Washington, DC in July. That news became a
national sensation. There was another factor in the stories, however.
There was concern that the unidentified objects were related to the
Cold War. Could such aircraft be part of surveillance or a future
attack by one of America’s enemy countries? The saucers might not
be from outer space, but might be a new form of weapon. The CIA
became worried that unfounded speculations could spiral out of
control and create panic and havoc. Those panics could be used by an
unfriendly power to destabilize the country. These events and ideas
were the groundwork for Plan X. They could either be taken
seriously, or made fun of. They chose the latter.
The Plan X
story takes place 100 years beyond its broadcast date, 2053, and is
based on facts known at that time about Mars and the solar system. We
knew so little back then, and the lack of unshakable information is
clear in Plan X. Many of its funny scenes and dialogue
rely on the planetary ignorance at that time because the actual
information had not been discovered yet. The script was
written pre-Sputnik, pre-space race, pre-moon landing, pre-Hubble
space telescope, pre-robotic rover missions to moons and planets, and
so much more. It was believed, through the telescopes of the time,
that Mars likely had canals, and that the planet’s color changed
because it was covered with seasonal vegetation. Actually, the
telescopic views of the planet were blurred by the combination of
Earth’s and Mars’ atmospheres. Viewing technologies were
primitive compared to the technological advances made since then. Now
we know that Mars is essentially a big ball, red from its dusty iron
deposits, with lots of rocks and mountain ranges, and ice at its
poles (and perhaps some underground), with an atmosphere that is
averse to human life. The 1952 Mars was a big question mark, and
fertile imaginations could deliver superb science fiction around its
possibilities.
Plan X is
based on
the combination of romantic
notions about Mars and the
heightened public interest
in UFOs.
Some took Mars speculation
seriously. Some did not, with
scriptwriter Richard Powell and Suspense producer
Elliott Lewis among them. That’s
how Jack Benny could be cast as a Martian in
sci-fi satire.
Repeating
common science fiction patterns
In
the story, Earthlings are
visiting Mars and encountering an established civilization. The
entire story lampoons and
refers to
some of the worst science
fiction clichés:
Non-Earth
civilizations are much more advanced technologically and ethically.
Those
civilizations understand
English, through observation or by mental telepathy. That’s not
really addressed here; they must know English because they are so
advanced.
Civilizations
are more mature and realized the foolishness of wars long
ago,
and discovered the secrets of peace. They
are generous and unselfish.
There
is often a hopeless Cold War
aspect to it, that man-made destruction is imminent and
seemingly unavoidable.
Martian
atmosphere can
accommodate Earth-based life forms in terms of air and other
essentials life forms. People
are mostly the same all over, including other planets.
Technology
of the aliens
is more advanced, and peacefully
deployed, and
they have a tradition
of understanding of atomic
and nuclear power. If
anything, it’s downplayed: “atomic
escalators” is a
very benign concept.
The story
The broadcast
begins with the Martians using a computer that will select which of
their population will meet a rocket from earth. They don’t select
an ambassador, a scientist, a government leader, they select Benny’s
character, Xeno. He works on an assembly line applying treads to
atomic escalators. What is the implication? Manual labor in the
highly advanced society, but is not held in high regard in terms of
intelligence required. Somehow they know not to hold the
soon-to-arrive Earthlings in high regard, either. This is a
condescending meeting of peers being set up by Martian authorities
who are not taking the visit from its closest planetary neighbor
seriously.
What are Xeno’s
qualifications? (This is one of the funniest lines of the script).
Xeno was selected because he had “set habit patterns, attention to
detail, no strong emotional or biological drives, and complete
suppression of imagination.” In other words, he is the least
interesting person on the planet!
He is instructed
to implement Plan X, something about which every Martian has
knowledge… except, it seems, Xeno. He tries to fake his way through
it.
The next day the
Earthlings land and they are thrilled to meet a real Martian. The
meeting is awkward, funny in itself. The head of the expedition tries
to introduce himself… and it sounds like awful dialogue from a bad
1930s “cowboy and Indian” movie. That’s the point. How silly it
is to think that an alien creature would understand… English. And
then they do! The cowboy and Indian theme or perhaps colonizer and
indigenous) continues with an attempt to trade beads and cloth! Xeno
behaves almost like he was shopping and asked if they had something
else to show him.
Soon
thereafter there is another
funny line when Benny speaks. The Earth
ship commander says “He
speaks Esperanto!” The
joke would have been somewhat
funny in 1952. That
language was created
in the late 1800s, and was intended to become
an international “second language” that would facilitate
communications, diplomacy,
understanding,
and practical interactions around the world. There was a period when
the Esperanto movement
was viewed with great suspicion, with
some believing that
Esperanto speakers were members
of subversive organizations. Stalin, originally a supporter, changed
his mind and executed, exiled, or sent Esperanto speakers to the
Gulags. In Plan
X,
the Martians not only speak English, supposedly,
but they
speak the international (hoped) second language!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
Yet
not a word of
Esperanto is in the
script; the
Commander just blurts out “He
speaks Esperanto!” for no apparent reason, making
it even funnier.
The
Commander asks where the other Martians are, and Xeno says “all
other adult Martians are - shall we say, unavailable.” Based on
1950s
corporate structures, this is like going to a big office building,
walking
into the lobby, expecting
to meet someone in authority without
prior arrangement,
meeting
a parking attendant, and
then being officially assigned
by
the CEO
to be
led around the premises, and have a detailed tour by that
very
attendant
for the entire
day.
Another
funny aspect of the story is that Xeno finds a female crewmember to
be attractive, and becomes interested in her. This is one step toward
a
future Captain
Kirk from Star
Trek,
who
12 years later would be known
for having an eye for attractive aliens. Do Earthlings and Martians
look alike? They obviously
must, and
their biologies are compatible, too, implied by the story.
Another funny
line at about 12:15 is delivered, commenting on the 1952 flying
saucer sightings. The group is with Xeno at a museum. The Commander
thinks he sees a flying saucer on display, and asks what it is.
XENO: Hmm? I - I’ll have to read the nameplate. ... Oh, yes. Yes, a
flying saucer. From Nineteen Fifty-Two, your calendar. One hundred
years old.
FIELDING: Nineteen Fifty-Two! The Year of the Flying Saucers! Then
they DID come from Mars!
XENO: Oh, yes.
COMMANDER: But none of them ever landed on Earth. Why?
XENO: Mm, it just didn’t seem worthwhile. Nothing personal, of
course.
(A version of
that comment about landing on Earth not seeming worthwhile, would be
in the 1978 BBC radio comedy and the subsequent book series The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Earth was classified as
“harmless.” The author of the series was Douglas Adams.)
Xeno and the
Commander continue to another display and see a paralyzer ray. It was
noted that the weapon had not been used for three hundred years
(since the Earth Year 1753; it is assumed that Earth years and not
Mars years is the measure). The cliché of a superior race no longer
needing weapons is expressed once more.
At 18:30, Xeno
meets Connie for another funny exchange. Xeno narrates and says “It
was a beautiful evening. We walked out over the plain, Connie and I,
and then we sat down quite close. Connie lit a cigarette and I opened
up a package of Gur-Kog.” Yes, Martians allow smoking, and they
have their own recreational product. Xeno seems to know about smoking
and is nonplussed about it. (Hmmmm… Did Connie and others on the
Earth craft sit around and smoke to pass the time while en route to
Mars?) To the 1952 listening audience it, smoking on Mars sounded
amusingly plausible.
The next day,
it’s time for the Earthlings to leave, but Xeno will be
implementing “Plan X.” But before that takes place, there is this
exchange where Xeno is invited to go with them.
COMMANDER: I've decided to invite you to come with us - to Earth.
XENO: To - Earth?!
COMMANDER: How ’bout it, Xeno? We're taking off in, er, sixteen
minutes - at nine o’clock. How ’bout it?
XENO: Well, it’s not that I don’t appreciate your thinking of me,
but Mother would worry and, uh--
Yes, Mother
would worry. Benny’s Martian character lives with his mother, just
like his character in A Good and Faithful Servant. Martian
families seem to have paternal guilt, too.
A funny scene concludes the story. Martian children have built a
“maturity ray” that stops the Earthlings departure and changes
their entire demeanor. (Yes, Martian kids have the secret to mature
Earthling adult behavior). Xeno explains the ray as “It takes
people who are, shall we say, less advanced and increases their IQ by
several thousand years.” And how does that occur? The Earth-based
crew is suddenly Martian, and will therefore never leave the planet.
Martian children attacked Earth adults with an infusion of knowledge
and common sense. Earthlings and Martians must be very much alike
after the effects of the ray, physically and biologically, for them
to be declared to be Martians, and to cooperate with the idea. Only
an “attitude adjustment” was required, it seems.
(Oh, how
different than the Twilight Zone’s To Serve Man when
it is realized the aliens sharing of knowledge was to deceive Earth
people to leave the planet. Their book “To Serve Man” was
identified too late as a cook book!)
The publicity
and other items of interest
CBS
publicity knew they could take great advantage of a Benny appearance
on Suspense.
The office released this very amusing information to the press:
Jack
Benny, beginning rehearsal for his man-from-Mars role on Monday
night’s Suspense,
told producer-director Elliott Lewis: “I don't understand the
script. I haven't been to Mars in four or five years and I guess
things have changed.”
“Never mind,” said Lewis consolingly, “I’ll bet you get more
fan letters from Mars than any place else.”
“Of course,” mused Benny, “I guess I could ask [George] Jessel.
I’m sure he must have played Loew’s Mars some time or other.”
During the first reading, Benny broke up completely — along with
the rest of the cast — over his first encounter with the script’s
Martian-type double talk.
“Mother,”
he says at breakfast, “I
think I’ll
have a second cup of
ostric.”
After
a quick double-take, Benny screamed: “Ostric?” And the panic was
on. When the laughter subsided, Benny inquired: “Who wrote this
script — Groucho Marx?”
The
comic-fantasy was written for Suspense
by Dick Powell (no relation to the actor), who also wrote the script
for Benny's first appearance on Suspense
last year.
Things got even sillier during discussion of sound effects. “That
doesn't sound like a space ship landing on Mars,” yelled one of the
sound men.
“You got a better idea?” shot back the offended one.
“All
I
wish,” sighed Lewis. “is
that I had a recording of this conversation.” There was a brief
debate, also over the sound of a Martian “ray gun.” “It's no
good,” declared Lewis, “It's got no sparks in it.”
“Oh,” said the sound man, surprised, “You wants sparks in it,
too?”
“Of course,” said Lewis. “Every atomic ray gun I ever used—”
“You
were right,” said the sound man. “We shoulda’ recorded this
rehearsal.”
The story was by
Richard M. Powell, who wrote A Good and Faithful Servant.
At
the beginning of the story, Martians are waiting for “a card”
from a computer that will give them the best-qualified person to meet
the Earth visitors. Analog computing using cards had a long history,
with a landmark project of
tabulating the 1890 US Census.
It is strange,
knowing how computing technology evolved, that the advanced Martians
of 100 years later were
still using cards! Sci-fi in
the 1950s also
had many examples of talking
to “computers” (sometimes
called “electronic brains”
and getting responses. Using
a card in this scene
emphasized that every Martian
had a card and a computer examined each and every one, and picked
Xeno and no one else. Martians
knew where every single member of their society was including details
about their personalities and their habits. The
search seems more complete when
it was done on cards, and
sounded
more plausible to the audience.
There seemed to be no concern
about privacy and government records, it seems.
The
rehearsal of the production began at 10:30am on Thursday, January 15,
1953. The recording of the drama portion began at 3:00pm.
(Many thanks to
Generic Radio Workshop for their online transcript of the Plan X
script).
Three
recordings have survived
The network
recording is the best of the three.
There is an Armed Forces Radio (AFRS) recording contemporary to the
original broadcast that is second best in sound quality. The Armed
Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) is
from the late 1970s or early 1980s.
The
AFRS recording was edited by their production engineers in an odd
way. It gives the impression that the title of the episode is “The
Strange Disappearance of XY272B.” That is the name of the Earth
rocket. That title assumes the ending of the story, most likely. Once
the Earthlings have become Martians, there is no reason for them to
report back to Earth about their whereabouts. The Earth’s mission
control likely considered the mission to be lost.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP530202
THE CAST
JACK BENNY (Xeno), William Conrad (Spokesman), Joe Kearns
(Announcer / Fielding), Stuffy Singer (Ormi), Truda Marson
(Receptionist), Norma Varden (Mother), John McIntire (Commander),
Howard McNear (1st Martian / Parker), Mary Jane Croft (Connie), Jack
Kruschen (2nd Martian), Larry Thor (Narrator)
COMMERCIAL: Tom Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia
Simms (Operator)
*
* *
Stuffy Singer is
in the cast as “Ormi,” one of the Martian kids. At the time of
this broadcast, he was 11 years old. He was on the Benny show as a
member of the Beverly Hills Beavers… as was Jack.
###
