After a few weeks off the air, Suspense returns in a new 25 minute format (which was actually more like 24:30). The first episode is a James Poe adaptation of a James Helvick story that originally appeared in the July 1950 issue of the British magazine Lilliput as “Total Recall.” It did not appear in the US until the early 1960s when it was published in the August 1962 edition of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.
It’s a mistaken identity plot about a couple who live in the remote English countryside. They hunker down indoors when they hear that a mad killer is at large in their area. Joe Kearns plays a clergyman whom they think is the killer, and they knock him out and tie him up. Some of Kearns’ dialogue as the Curate during the visit is quite amusing. You know he’s not the killer because it happens too early in the story. Though a bit predictable, it is an entertaining listen.
“James Helvick” was a pseudonym of journalist and writer Claud Cockburn. He was known for his screenplay of the 1951 Humphrey Bogart film Beat the Devil. He used the “Helvick” name because of his prior association with the British Communist Party in the 1940s. As a skeptical journalist, he used the phrase “believe nothing until it has been officially denied.” He is credited with that saying, but he did not claim its creation. He was related to authors Alec Waugh and Evelyn Waugh, and his granddaughter is Olivia Wilde whom many remember from her role in the medical TV series House.
There were many cast changes before broadcast. Ben Wright was supposed to be the lead role, but became unavailable. Larry Dobkin became the lead. He was originally set to play the Curate, but was replaced by Joe Kearns (a perfect role for him). Edgar Barrier replaced Richard Peel as the Constable. Peel became the killer. These are the kinds of cast changes that could be made more easily with a consistent, skilled, and versatile ensemble group without having to work around the change in schedule of a publicly announced Hollywood movie figure who suddenly could not appear.
The 25 minute format would last only 6 weeks. After that, Suspense would be cut again, to 23 minutes and 50 seconds plus 40 seconds (or more) of “The Suspense March” that would be used as background music for local stations to have announcements for their station’s upcoming programming or other announcements for their area. That short format would last about a year before it would return to a more typical program length. Such was the plight of an unsponsored, sustaining, broadcast series.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
An Internet Archive page is not available at this time.
Download from MediaFire
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/il9zoog6j2442/Suspense_-_A_Little_Matter_of_Memory
The program can be streamed at YouTube https://youtu.be/_zmb3TwqE3o
THE CAST
Larry Dobkin (Edward Mansell), Paula Winslowe (Joan Mansell), Edgar Barrier (Constable), Joseph Kearns (George Beale, the Curate), Richard Peel (Barrington Howard the killer), Larry Thor (Narrator)
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