Broderick Crawford stars as “Dutch” Schultz, the notorious 1930 racketeer. Schultz did not get along with other gangleaders, especially over his desire to murder Thomas E. Dewey, the famous and aggressive New York district attorney. Because Schultz had been thrown out of New York, he ran his rackets in New Jersey. Any action in New York would bring the FBI into the case because they crossed state lines. Rather than attack Dewey, the leaders decide to go after his witnesses and tell Schultz to stay in New Jersey. At a subsequent meeting of the gangleaders, where Schultz is clearly an unwanted attendee, he makes it clear that he wants to eliminate Dewey, and he might even do it himself. Schultz is considered to be out of control, and the gangleaders decide they’d be better off eliminating Schultz before their situation with the law got worse.
The overacting in the story with most everyone talking like caricatures of uneducated thugs, even they using “big words” outside of their normal vocabulary. It takes away from the underlying story. Part of it could be Broderick Crawford’s acting: it could be style or it could be lack of experience at the microphone. But even the radio veterans fall into the cartoonish characterizations. Overall, this is not one of the better productions for Suspense.
This is the only Suspense appearance for Marvin Kaplan (as “Abadaba”). The character actor is very familiar to 1960s nostalgia and animation fans as “Choo-choo” in Top Cat and in numerous appearances in TV comedies in the 1960s through the 1980s.
The Schultz life story is summarized at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Schultz
Why do the closing credits say the story was “adapted by James Poe” and not written by him? We don’t know for sure, the story was presented a few months earlier on 1953-07-14 on the Suspense TV series. That was written by Jess Lazarus, and Poe may have used that script as a guide. No kinescope of that broadcast has been found. The stars were Harry Bellaver with Rod Steiger as Schultz. The narrator of the story was Walter Cronkite.
Broderick Crawford first appeared on Suspense in 1950, in Deadline, under William Spier. That highly sought episode has not been found. It is hoped that an AFRS recording will surface some time in the future. It is easy to understand why Lewis would pick Crawford for this role since he had a reputation of being able to play gruff, tough guys on screen quite well.
Crawford received an Oscar for his role in All the King's Men just about three years before this broadcast. The early 1950s would eventually be considered the peak of his career. Crawford was considered to be difficult to direct because of his tough living and drinking, especially during the TV series Highway Patrol. (Producer Frederick Ziv said Crawford “was a handful.”) He still found projects in movies and television well after his career’s supposed “peak.” An overview of his life and career is at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broderick_Crawford
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP531026
THE CAST
BRODERICK CRAWFORD (Dutch Schultz), Jay Novello (Lucky), Herb Butterfield (Harry), Hy Averback (Ginch), Paul Frees (Newsboy / Toy), Sidney Miller (Cigarette seller / Bug), Jack Moyles (Flot), Tony Barrett (Albert), Benny Rubin (Gurrah), Marvin Kaplan (Abadaba), Larry Thor (Narrator)
COMMERCIAL: Leoen Ledoux (Johnny Plugcheck), Tom Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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