Herbert Marshall stars in a Wilkie Collins story adapted by Sam Rolfe. Collins drew his plot from a real life wrongful murder conviction in Vermont in the early 1800s. The victim was later discovered to be alive. Collins does not follow that case but uses some of the facts and themes in the story.
Marshall portrays an English lawyer who heads for a long rest to visit distant relatives at a New England farm. His doctor told him “Your disease is overwork. Your cure is rest. Your alternative is death.” The doctor explained and warned that excitement would kill him, and thought the trip sounded dull enough to effect a cure. (Today, the cruise would be the rest, but trans-ocean cruises at that time were not often particularly restful or entertaining). The moment he finally arrives at the farm, he is aware of an atmosphere of tension and violence among the family group. He’s barely there a day when he realizes he’s walked into a perfect setting for murder that includes a secret love affair and a lime kiln where bones are discovered that might be a missing farm worker. That worker is the farm overseer who seems to have annoyed everyone in the story.
That lime kiln comes into the story early, and its presence makes for a predictable plot. Old farms at that time had kilns for making quicklime to enrich soil to stimulate plant growth and health. Quicklime also developed a reputation for helping to destroy flesh, leaving just bones behind. It was a favorite element of crime stories that involved destruction of evidence of murder. Small kilns were obsoleted over time as manufacturing plants could make the product more predictably and with lower costs. Many old farms still had them.
This is the first Wilkie Collins story to be adapted for Suspense. The next will be the two-part Collins classic The Moonstone and the last would be the final Auto-Lite episode, Terribly Strange Bed. Collins was often compared to and was a contemporary of Charles Dickens. An overview of his life is at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkie_Collins
Background about this original story is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Alive
The story is available online at Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7891/7891-h/7891-h.htm
The Boorn Brothers murder case that inspired the story has an interesting legal background as the first wrongful conviction and exoneration.
It is the earliest dated listing in the National Registry of Exonerations https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetailpre1989.aspx?caseid=25
A brief summary is at Vermonter.com https://www.vermonter.com/boorn-ultimatum/
This is Sam Rolfe’s second series script. He wrote the underappreciated Too Hot to Live. Its blogpost is at https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2024/04/1950-10-26-too-hot-to-live.html Rolfe’s interesting background is at that page. He went on to have a very successful career.
There are times at the end of the story where it almost sounds like an episode of The Shadow where a crazed delusional killer is revealed. This production, while entertaining at times, is not particularly good compared to other Suspense episodes. Lewis may have been drawn to it because of the Boorn case and his fascination with “real life” stories.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP530309
THE CAST
HERBERT MARSHALL (Philip), Mary Jane Croft (Naomi), Lamont Johnson (Silas), Jeanette Nolan (Lettie), Joe Kearns (John), Larry Thor (Narrator)
COMMERCIAL: Jerry Hausner (Stan), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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