This Antony Ellis script was first used on Escape on 1953-08-30, and is the kind of disturbing story that a sustaining series could present, but a sponsored series might not. Advertisers, like Auto-Lite, might have rejected it for its topic and intensity.
The production is not a typical fast-moving Suspense drama, but is more like a pot on a stove set for a slow boil. It is nerve-rattling to hear two teenagers drinking (underage) together, with much seemingly mindless chatter, that somehow evolves into a decision to play “Russian roulette.” The story is well-done with dialogue between Sam Edwards and Gil Stratton, Jr. alone, supplemented by calm matter-of-fact narration by John Dehner that makes it even more worrisome.
Edwards and Dehner were in these same roles in the Escape production. Eddie Firestone had Stratton’s role. The Escape production is mentioned here because it was a missing episode early in the classic radio hobby and only a low quality home wire recording became available. This Suspense recording is in excellent sound.
“Russian roulette” has some history in literature of the Nineteeth Century. It came to popular literary attention in a Collier’s short story with that very name, the first time it was used, and published in January 1937. The work by Georges Surdez about bored French Foreign Legion soldiers looking to demonstrate their mettle put the phrase into conversation. It survives in the language while the short story that created it is mostly forgotten.
The surviving recording is a network broadcast. An Armed Forces Radio Service recording is known to exist, but it is not available at this time. It is AFRS#524.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP550315
THE CAST
Sam Edwards (Red), Gil Stratton, Jr. (Pin), John Dehner (Narrator), Larry Thor (Suspense Narrator)
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