The first new production after the Auto-Lite era is written by E. Jack Neuman. The opening of the broadcast cites Neuman winning an Edgar award in 1954 from the Mystery Writers of America. The award was for 1953-10-12 The Shot.
This is an excellent story about an overworked and distracted editor, Frank Gault. He labors at a publishing house as he deals with major marital and romance problems. His marriage is on the rocks and his wife has suggested a financial divorce settlement plan that he believes is an unfair division of assets. The woman he desires demands that he get a divorce soon if he really loves her like he says. He’s assigned a new story to review. It’s by a new writer and the plot describes how to commit a perfect and undetectable murder. He kills his wife in the manner described in the story, but rejects the story for publication as part of his cover-up of the crime. If it was published, and people realized he was the one who read and approved the story for publication, they would suspect that the story inspired his heinous actions. The wife’s death was reported in the newspapers, and had specific details about the her accidental demise. The writer sees the reports and realizes that his rejected submission was used to guide the commission of a crime. Rather than come forward with that information, he decides to blackmail the editor… and for a bigger payday… and a promise to publish his future submissions. The blackmail scheme almost works perfectly… and Frank’s life starts a spiral out of control.
At about 18:45, it is funny how the writer in the story notes that he reads about newspapers for story ideas. This was common among radio script writers, always looking for the spark of an idea for any kind of series they were writing for. It wasn’t always crime-driven. It could be a personal tragedy, and humorous story, almost anything. Some would keep a notebook of rough ideas based on their newspaper reading and consult it for a new assignment or to get through “writer’s block.”
The change in publicity activity in support of Suspense is blatantly obvious. In just two weeks, newspaper coverage of the series went from timetable listings and a 100-300 word companion item on the TV-Radio page to just a timetable listing alone. Some papers gave 10 words or so in their editor’s guide for listening.
Two recordings have survived, and the network recording is the best, though it is flawed because it lacks a full range of audio. It is very listenable otherwise. The surviving Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) recording is very low quality. Perhaps a new AFRS disc might be found in the future that would allow the fullest enjoyment of this episode.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP530622
Alternative MediaFire download site if Internet Archive is unavailable
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/fxjr6wonjyasq/Suspense_-_Sequel_to_Murder
YouTube streaming
https://youtu.be/YQhbfoukZhU
THE CAST
Whitfield Connor (Frank Gault), Charlotte Lawrence (Bessie Lucas), Betty Lou Gerson (Lillian Gault), Joseph Kearns (Walsh / Lamb the Cop), Jack Kruschen (Blaine Kittridge), Larry Thor (Narrator)
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