Rosemary Clooney makes her sole Suspense appearance in another adaptation of a well-known folk song, “Saint James Infirmary Blues.” It is a basic gangster drama, and she does well in it.
The drama is set in the opening moments of the play, as she sings: “I went down to Saint James Infirmary, I saw my sweetheart there, all stretched out on a table pale, so cold, so fair.” Her character is a lovely but jaded daughter of the prohibition era. She falls for the “trigger man” of a notorious gang leader. When her boyfriend and hired killer hijacks one of his boss’ liquor trucks and kills the driver, the boss is not pleased. He wants to him out of the organization, permanently. She still loves him, but is so deeply involved that she is willing to try anything, a half-hearted romance with the boss, and even murder, to help her true love out of his jam.
Morton Fine and David Friedkin wrote the story with an interesting juxtaposition. The original song is about a man mourning a woman, but their adaptation has a woman mourning a man. This is what gave them the opportunity to have Clooney guest star. The plot of the story is unique to this broadcast and not based on the song. The sentiments of the song were used for the mood and background.
They also changed and adapted the lyrics to summarize and move the plotline along. Fine and Friedkin had some experience with this approach in their writing for the Bold Venture series. There, they used calypso singer “King Moses” (played by Jester Hairston) to sing songs that bridged between breaks and summarized the plot.
The song has an interesting history, summarized at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_Infirmary_Blues
The song has a long history of recording.
Louis Armstrong’s version in the late 1920s was very popular. There is not a reliable link to that recording, but there is a later one by Artie Shaw https://archive.org/details/78_st-james-infirmary-blues-part-1_artie-shaw-and-his-orchestra-hot-lips-page-primrose_gbia0555306a
Cab Calloway also had a famous version, in his act for decades. This is video from The Ed Sullivan Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEyEcHX8WLo
Calloway’s performance and dancing can also be found in a 1933 Max Fleischer cartoon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXInk1PCsc8
Funny in light of the future: At about 16:10, Clooney’s character says to William Conrad’s character “You’re fat and you’re old.” Was this a foretelling of Conrad’s 1987 CBS hit television series Jake and the Fatman?
Recordings of this episode have always been flawed in some manner. Some were a little muddy because of attempts to reduce the disc noise, others were tinny as the disc noise was acceptable (to some) to reduce low frequency noise. This current recording is much better and its flaws have been reduced. The best hope for a rich-sounding recording is likely a clean Armed Forces Radio Service transcription disc. No AFRS disc has been found at the time of this writing.
The script cover and the pages of the script uses the word “saint” in full and does not abbreviate it. This full spelling has been retained for the file name. The “St.” abbreviation was used in publicity.
This was Rosemary Clooney’s only Suspense appearance. Nowadays, she is more famous for her nephew, actor George Clooney, and it is easy to forget what a big star and recording success she was in the 1950s. She appeared in many movies and had a significant television presence in the 1950s. Most of her recording hits were before the rock ’n roll era, but she kept recording through the 1970s for a loyal fan base. Her life and career has an overview at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Clooney
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP530223
THE CAST
ROSEMARY CLOONEY (Sheila), William Conrad (Brock), Anthony Barrett (Nickey), Billy Halop (Cleo), Joe Kearns (Interne / Freddy), Clayton Post (Charlie), Vivi Janiss (Girl), Shep Menken (Officer / Voice), Larry Thor (Narrator)
COMMERCIAL: Tom Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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Radio critic Magee Adams has some interesting comments in his 1953-02-23 Cincinnati Enquirer column. It is not uncommon for critics to have opinions that are opposite of the public. Is that the case here? Are the listeners happy with the approach?
Rosemary Clooney in a musical drama simply is the latest example of the wide-ranging variety available on the radio, Suspense, this season. To appreciate that fully, you have to remember when the show specialized in tensely plotted scripts far over on the moody, not to say eerie, side. Although the type has not been abandoned, it simply is one of many now used on the show. In fact, the show has no pattern at all except a generous helping of suspense. For a drama of its class, this defiance of any set type is as remarkable as it is satisfying. It’s noteworthy, too, that the radio Suspense has shaken off the straightjacket while Elliott Lewis has been its producer. With his record of imaginative showmanship this probably is no coincidence. At any rate, the radio, Suspense, is proving that first-rate entertainment can be delivered week after week by avoiding the handcuffs of type.
These are the ratings for Suspense for the Lewis years expressed as percentage of homes:
1950-1951: 10.3
1951-1952: 11.3 (+9.7%)
1952-1953: 8.1 (-28.3%)
1953-1954: 6.0 (-25.9%, -41.7% since the 1950-1951 season)
It is difficult to discern how much of the decline was the result of television adoption and how much might be from some listeners unhappy with the program. One thing is clear: it is easy to see how ratings were a factor in Auto-Lite dropping the sponsorship of the series when they did. Radio was not delivering the audience reach they were looking for. They also dropped the Suspense television sponsorship at the same time. The company had changes in marketing strategy that made broadcast advertising less applicable and less important. There was also a recession in progress that caused a decline in auto sales and in parts sales as consumers delayed their usual maintenance.
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