Had the news event that sparked the idea for this episode happened four or five years earlier, it would have been promoted as an episode “based on fact.” Antony Ellis changed the story, as was common for the series, but it was very clear what the impetus to write it was. It was a good production, with William Conrad as narrator, and Harry Bartell as a local political figure victimized by a young thug anxious to please the local crime boss, and to move up in the ranks of their operations. The story’s focus is exactly as the title says, the man who threw the acid, not on the victim. The real-life news story was focused on the victim, because the man who threw the acid, and those who ordered the hit, were not caught for months. The victim had national prominence, while in this script, the victim is a local figure.
The surviving recording is from the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS#873) and is in much better sound than what has been in circulation for many years.
The production is well done, and it does capture attention. The backstory of the broadcast, however, may be more interesting than the broadcast. The actual event was big news, and CBS’ decision to delay presenting this episode for 10 weeks from when it was first scheduled for broadcast, are a curious part of Suspense history.
A Spring 1956 real-life event inspired the production. It was a national news story, involving the FBI, the White House, and affected all workers who were union members for many years to come. On the evening of April 5, 1956, syndicated labor reporter and commentator Victor Riesel was leaving a popular restaurant, Lindy’s in Manhattan. A few hours earlier, he had appeared on a radio interview program about local union activities. A man came up to him and hurled sulfuric acid at his face. Riesel was injured badly; the assailant walked away. Riesel had been campaigning against corruption in labor unions as well as the activities of the Communist party in the US labor movement. Riesel’s commentary was always hard-hitting and straight to the point. His investigative activities made mob leaders very uncomfortable. At that time, he was assisting the US District Attorney in New York’s probe into labor racketeering. Riesel was held in very high esteem by rank and file workers as he was on their side while years of union corrupt practices were in the courts and in the news. He would sometimes act as an informant to the FBI. The attack on the high-profile Riesel, received nationwide coverage. The culprits were not apprehended until August.
Suspense announced a program for May 1, 1956, The Man Who Threw Acid, based on the incident, less than a month after it happened. Newspapers announced the episode, noting the tie-in with the Riesel story. It did not happen. The intended May 1 broadcast was replaced by The Waxwork. It is likely that CBS executives were uncomfortable with the story because Riesel’s attacker, and others who ordered it, were still at large. The lack of an arrest was in the news for weeks.
In the meantime, Riesel was recovering but would not regain his sight. The disfigurement was so bad that he decided to always wear dark glasses. His ability to “touch type” allowed him to continue to use a typewriter and continue his work. The producers of The Big Story, now a successful television program, decided to go ahead with a production about the Riesel incident despite the lack of an arrest. They made him the focus of the June 29, 1956 program. Show publicity said that “the veteran newsman will appear at the program’s end and tell of his continuing fight against the underworld.” The Big Story TV program was broadcast as scheduled. It included a filmed message from Vice President Richard Nixon. Riesel was portrayed in the drama by radio and television performer Larry Haines.
Both Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover were well-acquainted with Riesel. The FBI would often feed Riesel information and vice versa. One has to wonder if Riesel may not have been viewed with mistrust in entertainment circles as he would sometimes “out” celebrities for suspicion that they were involved in Communist activities or had sympathies toward them.
With The Big Story out of the way, it seems CBS decided it was safe to proceed with the episode. The broadcast of The Man Who Threw Acid was scheduled for July 11. Then it wasn’t. It was delayed again, replaced by Want Ad. We may never know the backroom machinations about settling on the final broadcast date of this episode.
Ellis had already “fictionalized” the story for the May broadcast, and likely did not make any major changes July one. He had changed the victim to a local political figure fighting the numbers racket. This is the description from the 1956-05-01 Syracuse NY Post-Standard:
[Suspense offers] The Man Who Threw Acid which parallels in several respects the recent attack in New York on labor writer Victor Riesel. Central figures in the drama are an assemblyman attempting to outlaw the numbers racket and a small time hoodlum who fails in an attempt to use the police to protect him from his racketeering pals.
The story continued to play out in the news, with the FBI identifying the assailant in August. The man was killed by mobsters, it was later learned, for asking for additional money after the hit. By the end of August, an underboss of the notorious Genovese crime family was arrested. By the end of October, other “family” members were arrested. It took until September 1957 for all of the legal proceedings to be completed.
Riesel continued to write his column until 1990. He was often a television panelist on news programs, and a commentator on New York’s WNEW-TV for many years.
Video of The Big Story episode is not available, but scripts of that series were re-used in a program called Deadline. When that series began in 1959, the Riesel story was the first episode https://archive.org/details/z101Victor. He was played by Larry Haines in that production, as well.
The Internet Archive has a kinescoped news program, Longines Chronoscope, from December 1951, almost five years before the attack. Riesel was a regular panelist. https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.95720
YouTube also has a few clips of Riesel’s commentaries from years later on WNEW.
Other Victor Riesel resources
The Mob Museum website https://themobmuseum.org/blog/blinded-by-acid/
Life Magazine September 10, 1956 has pictures or Riesel and the perpetrators of the crime https://archive.org/details/Life-1956-09-10-Vol-41-No-11/page/43/mode/1up
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP560718
THE CAST
William Conrad (Narrator), Harry Bartell (Assemblyman), Tony Barrett (Steve), John Dehner (Boss), Larry Dobkin (Man 1), James Nusser (Man 2), Stacy Harris (Man 3), Charlotte Lawrence (Girl), Clayton Post (Harry), Lou Krugman (Lou), Vivi Janiss (Wife), Don Diamond (Cigar), George Walsh (Suspense Narrator)
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