This very creative Antony Ellis script was first presented on Escape on 1953-02-22. It is a haunting psychological story of a woman afraid that a recurring nightmare seems to be coming true. As that nightmare repeats and repeats, she develops a difficulty discerning what is reality and what is a not. She is in the dreams but also observes herself in the dreams, and converses with that other self, too. That person sounds much younger, and dreads that she is trapped in the dream.
Her concerned husband takes her to physician, and her problem is diagnosed in a way similar to that of the episode Yellow Wallpaper. She’s just tired, and needs rest, she is told. Her distress is clearly not being taken seriously. The story leads one to suspect that she is grappling with schizophrenia. After waking from another tumultuous night she starts speaking with the younger woman’s voice. This conclusion is perplexes her husband who has to be wondering what might possibly be next. He realizes that there is something wrong well beyond needing “rest.”
This episode is best understood and appreciated if listened to in an uninterrupted setting without outside distraction. It is a disturbing and very well done. Another exceptional psychological drama on Suspense was Case Study of a Murderer. Both of them show that presenting audio dramas about psychological issues is extremely difficult and very demanding of the performers. This episode is an illustration of the high caliber of talent that was on the series. Charlotte Lawrence was in the 1955-01-20 production of Case Study with William Conrad, in a stunning performance for both.
The mid-show PSA announcement is to promote the Mental Health Fund. It was a national campaign by the National Association for Mental Health. Mental Health Week was the first week of May, and promotion of the fund continued for the rest of May. The national goal was to raise $5 million. That is almost $60 million in US$2024. The scheduling of this script was in support of that initiative.
Radio critic Magee Adams, however, seemed concerned about the portrayal of mental illness in the broadcast. He implies that it was a nearly reckless portrayal. In the May 30, 1955 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer he wrote:
Suspense came up with a drama on the thin edge of acceptability last Tuesday. Titled, I Saw Myself Running, it told the eerie, split-personality tale of a woman trapped in her own dream world. For healthy-minded listeners, it could have been classed as a far-fetched psychological thriller. But its effect on listeners who have emotional difficulties was not pleasant to contemplate.
This is the kind of thing that leaves goose-pimplers open to question beyond the usual matter of contributing to juvenile crime. With all the current emphasis on mental health, it deserves far more consideration by the thrills and chills dramas.
In a TV-Radio Life article (Suspense Well Chilled by Jon Bruce) from an unidentified 1956 issue, Antony Ellis explains what they did to make the nightmarish dream state so effective:
[special] effects were needed to picture a character's having a bad dream. The bass strings of a piano with the pedal pressed gave the right sound. Another eerie tone was given by making a recording running fingers around the rims of five or six glasses.
[Hat tip and thanks to Patte Rosebank who linked and affirmed the description in the article as applying to I Saw Myself Running.]
There are two surviving recordings, with the network recording as the better one with richer sound. There is also an Armed Forces Radio Service recording (AFRS#534) which is also in good sound, with minor disc noise and slightly narrower range. The surviving Escape broadcast of this script is a noisy, home aircheck with very constrained audio range. Both Suspense recordings are in much better sound quality than the surviving Escape recording.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP550524
THE CAST
Charlotte Lawrence (Susan), John Stephenson (Freddy), Sammie Hill (Sue), Edgar Barrier (Dr. Peters), Larry Thor (Narrator)
NOTE: The original Escape broadcast had Georgia Ellis in the lead. She was replaced by Charlotte Lawrence in this Suspense production. The other Escape actors repeated their roles for this Suspense broadcast.
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