Greer Garson returns to the series in a repeat performance of a Morton Fine and David Friedkin. That premiere 1951-12-24 performance remains a missing Suspense broadcast. The performance is more appropriate for the holiday season than the previously announced performance of On a Country Road. But before the famous script of a couple lost on back roads, there was a different Christmas story announced with Frank Lovejoy. But the actual broadcast was Twas the Night Before Christmas.
Garson plays a governess and is caring for a young girl whose parents are away. They are flying home from Paris… but their flight crashes… and they eventually await news of their status at the airport. While the governess fears the worst, but withholds news about the crash from the daughter until they receive definitive news. A newspaper reporter has gotten wind of the possible tragedy, and keeps annoying the governess, and she does her best to keep him at bay. She believes the child is suspicious about the situation. At about the 10:30 mark, it’s clear that she has figured out that there might terrible news ahead and she might not see her parents again. That’s the cliffhanger going into the mid-show commercial. The child runs sneaks out of the apartment and the governess searches for her, and the police are called. Hours later, there’s a knock at the door and a police officer asks her to come with him. They located her in a church where a choir is singing carols. They head back home. She reads the famous Clement Moore poem to help the child fall asleep; the governess has a tough time getting through the poem as a choir provides the melody of O Holy Night. Suddenly, the doorbell rings and the parents are at the door for an emotional reunion. The plane had not crashed; it made an emergency landing in Newfoundland but communications were down. The governess picks up reading of the poem, now to the entire family, in an obviously more joyous mood.
The program was pre-recorded, in full, on Friday, December 18. Rehearsal started at 11:00am and ended at 2:00pm. The orchestra (and presumable the singers) arrived at 2:00pm and rehearsed from 2:00pm to 5:00pm. The cast joined them at 3:30pm. The recording commenced at 5:30pm and was completed at 6:00pm.
There are very small disc skips around the 15:00 mark and a tiny one thereafter that do not affect the drama; many circulating copies of this episode have more pronounced skips and repeats in this section of the recordings.
The 1951 program is not available, but there are copies of the 1953 recording mislabeled as 1951. The key to the identification is the mention of the movie Knights of the Round Table which was released the next day in Hollywood (to qualify for Oscar consideration) with full US release in mid-January 1954.
This program has circulated in sub-par sound for decades with background noise and minor skips. Some copies have had narrow range, and many were overmodulated. Some of the commercially released copies had these flaws, too. This is a much better and more enjoyable recording, but still has minor remnants of prior flaws. It is possible that this recording was an aircheck based on some of the issues involved and that the closing choral music after the network ID is clipped.
The Unproduced Christmas Episode with Frank Lovejoy
The supposed scheduling of On a Country Road was in conflict with a promise in the show publicity that before Christmas there would be “a drama without any major mayhem,” according to some newspapers. Everyone got home okay in Twas the Night Before Christmas, mayhem avoided.
But there were announcements and descriptions of a different Morton Fine and David Friedkin story. The title was “Christmas Grace.” Announcements appeared in newspapers and in Radio Life magazine. This is the description as it appeared in the 1953-12-20 Shreveport LA Times:
Suspense without murder—that's the special Christmas week offering in the "theater of thrills" tomorrow night, with Frank Lovejoy starring as an errant father who comes home to claim his son after a six-year absence. Titled Christmas Grace, the unusual drama will be broadcast at 7 o'clock over CBS Radio and KWKH. Lovejoy, as "Joey," chooses the day before Christmas to return to the boy he had deserted after the tragic death of his wife in a boating accident. Numb with grief, and blaming himself for the accident. he had become an apparently hopeless alcoholic and had disappeared for six years, leaving his son to live with a sister and her husband. His sister's husband at first refuses even to let him in the door, and his son's words are a blunt, “Where have you been?” Joey's desperate efforts to regain his son's respect and love provide a dramatic and heart-warming Christmas story. Elliott Lewis produces and directs, and Lud Gluskin conducts an original score by Lucien Moraweek.
As best as can be determined, the Fine and Friedkin “Christmas Grace” script was likely unproduced on Suspense, and likely never produced on any radio program. Any leads for further information would be greatly appreciated.
This was not the first time that Suspense had a problem with a Christmas offering. In December 1948, producer Anton M. Leader repeated Back for Christmas with the innocuous name “Holiday Story.” That is definitely not a happy Christmas story that would live up to the joyous atmosphere. A story “Rich Man, Poor Man” was announced to the press weeks before. It would star Ronald Colman, which was later re-cast with Herbert Marshall. The script, by Myles Connelley, was never broadcast. Details about it are at the Holiday Story blogpost.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP531221
THE CAST
GREER GARSON (Miss Buff), Ann Whitfield (Kathy Harper), Irene Tedrow (Mrs. Cleveland), Mary Lansing (Mrs. Harper), Harry Bartell (Mr. Harper), Herb Butterfield (Uncle John / Patrolman Reid), Sidney Miller (Reporter), Howard McNear (Choir Leader’s Voice / Mr. Anderson), Joseph Kearns (Mr. Ruxton the druggist), Charles Calvert (Santa Claus), Johnny McGovern (Johnny), John Ramsay Hill (Paul), The Roger Wagner Chorale (Chorus singers), Larry Thor (Narrator)
COMMERCIAL: Harlow Wilcox (Announcer)
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The Roger Wagner Chorale was well-known in the Los Angeles area, and in 1949 signed a contract with Capitol Records. Background is at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Wagner_Chorale
The organization is still active in Los Angeles with educational programs and concerts https://wagnerensemble.org/
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