This episode has circulated among classic radio enthusiasts for decades as a poor aircheck recording from an Armed Forces Radio station, likely in Asia. The recording had significant background noise and station drift and made it difficult to understand. Its poor sound likely contributed to the idea that the episode was a lesser Suspense entry.
This new copy is an excellent sounding recording from an Armed Forces Radio Service transcription (AFRS#525) and can finally be enjoyed and appreciated. The disc was part of a purchase made by a group of collectors in 2023. No network recording is known to have survived.
The storyline opening is somewhat similar to Back for Christmas and the upcoming Variations on a Theme about an unhappy husband murdering or planning to murder his annoying wife, then burying the body in the cellar of their home. Each of those episodes are different in the way they proceed from their starting premise.
Much of the dialogue is tongue-in-cheek, making the gruesome subject somewhat lighter than it would actually be. One of the funnier lines is that the killer husband, Oscar, has an exchange with the woman he is now free to run away with, Aggie. At about 15:30 she says “Imagine me going with a married man and a murderer. You are going to marry me, aren’t you, Oscar?” He says “Marry you? What a question! I got me morals, same as the next bloke. Of course I’m going to marry you!”
Radio researcher, enthusiast, and modern day performer Patte Rosebank notes that Antony Ellis based this story on a real incident in England around the turn of the Twentieth Century. Ellis was born and raised in Britain and would have been familiar with the case because it remained in conversation and media decades after it happened. Patte notes:
[This episode] deals with a notorious murder, but with the names and enough details changed to avoid a lawsuit from the people connected with the actual event.
To me, The Cellar was obviously inspired by the real-life story of Dr. Crippen, who murdered and dismembered his wife, and fled across the Atlantic Ocean to Canada with his mistress.
The wife’s torso was found buried in the basement, and her other body parts were never found. As the ship arrived in Canada, it was met by authorities, and Crippen and his mistress (disguised as a boy) became the first fugitives to be captured with the aid of telegraphy.
Crippen was executed in 1910, and some listeners in 1955 would still know of the case, which is still notorious, even today. And the forensic evidence used to convict him is quite suspect.
The Suspense episode changed the characters' names, the murderer's nationality (Crippen was an American, living in England), and the ship's destination. It also added the meddling mother-in-law.
The Crippen case was still a touchy subject in 1955, not least because Crippen's mistress had been acquitted of being an accessory, and was still alive.
In 1961, there was a musical in England, called Belle -- or The Ballad of Dr. Crippen. It was a flop, because Crippen's real-life mistress was still alive, and was outraged that her life was being exploited in such a coarse and disrespectful manner. She was interviewed about it by the media, and the public was outraged that this poor old lady (who'd been acquitted, after all) was being so shamefully treated. The musical was doomed. A cast recording exists, and it's quite good. It starred Rose Hill, who would later become best known for playing the bedridden mother-in-law of René, on Allo, Allo!
Wikipedia has a summary of the Crippen case, and also details the numerous treatments of the story in print, on stage, radio, and screen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawley_Harvey_Crippen There is speculation that the details of the actual case are not as originally believed at the time. Modern day forensics bring some of the original findings into doubt.
Classic radio enthusiast John Barker notes that the story is not what it seemed to be [note how the story turns at about 21:00]:
Everything that happens up until the last minute of the show is a fantasy of the husband's, in which he murders his wife, gets away with it, and runs off with a docile and lovely young woman to spend the rest of his life with. At the very end it's revealed that everything we'd been listening to was in his imagination...there is no lovely young girl waiting for him, and the shrew who he had to contend with (in his fantasy) is his late wife's suspicious mother. At the end of the episode we hear him about to go through with the murder for real, and it's implied that he's really going to do it this time, but that he's also going to get caught (he says in his narration that he doesn't care if he hangs for it). I found it to be a mildly amusing episode, but it does suffer in comparison to Back for Christmas, which it definitely evokes.
An upcoming Suspense episode, Variations on a Theme with Parley Baer, is a wonderfully entertaining story despite the premise of the planned murder of a spouse. Any further details would only spoil the ending.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP550322
THE CAST
Eric Snowdon (Oscar), Jeanette Nolan (Millie), John Dehner (Mr. Gormley), Betty Harford (Aggie), Paula Winslowe (Mrs. Quil), Ramsay Hill (Mr. Forepaugh), Larry Thor (Narrator)
###
