This Antony Ellis script was originally used on Escape on 1953-02-01. It features the same cast, William Conrad and Stacy Harris, in a remarkable two-person play. The story is told from the perspective of Conrad’s character (Hanna) with a combination of narration and interaction with Harris’ character (Cabell). The listener starts to share their claustrophobia and cabin fever, too.
It is late October in Canada’s Yukon Territory. The two men are newly stationed in the wilderness to conduct scientific work related to the terrain and measurement of the shape of the Earth in a Canadian geodetic survey. The assignment will last seven months, made more challenging when their communications equipment failed. They can hear no radio broadcasts to pass the time. Cabell slowly loses his mind as the weather worsens and they need to spend more and more time sheltered in place, unable to go outside. They can still communicate with headquarters, but only by telegraph; their request for a replacement radio to be sent to them was refused. They open a crate with Christmas presents early; they are thrilled when it is a phonograph, but all but two of the records are broken. Even listening to the record of bugle calls helps pass the time. Cabell’s behavior becomes more belligerent as each day passes. The two men talk less and less, only when needed to complete their tasks. When Hanna expresses his extreme dislike of the other record, a classical piece, the men have a scuffle, and Harris’ character pulls a gun and threatens him. He forces Hanna outside. There is a perilous incident of walking on ice in the dark as Cabell tries to find Hanna. Is it to bring him back or to kill him? Cabell falls into the water, panicking, and is never found again.
Where does the title come from? The phrase usually means some kind of realistic three-dimensional artistic model made in wax. In this case, wax may refer to the records, since wax masters were created in early recording technology and became part of the process of pressing of records. The records were broken, except for two extremely different recordings, much like the two extremely different characters of the play.
This Suspense recording is in better overall sound than that of the surviving Escape broadcast. That recording is a composite of a disc recording for the first half followed by two airchecks of decreasing quality to complete the broadcast.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP550816
THE CAST
William Conrad (Jack Hanna), Stacy Harris (Larry Cabell), Larry Thor (Narrator)
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