While Three Skeleton Key is “the one about the rats,” this famous story is “the one about the snake.” It was so popular on Escape that it was broadcast three different times. With Escape off the air, the script is on Suspense like other legendary scripts because there was no other place for them to go. It is a classic story, and radio drama had an audience of a different composition since television was growing so rapidly. New listeners were riveted by it, and those who heard it before enjoyed its retelling. A deadly Bushmaster snake, is called “mute fate” because it has a similar structured tail as a rattlesnake, but they do not make noise. The snake is brought on board a cruise ship. It wasn’t supposed to be allowed, but it is, and of course, it escapes. And that’s the story, but it’s not the radio version of the laughable movie Snakes on a Plane. This is serious business and marvelous storytelling. Unfortunately, this particular one is not in the best sound, and the Escape productions might be preferred in that regard and benefited from the somewhat bigger budgets that Escape had for that time.
This Martin Storm story was in the July 1934 issue of Esquire magazine and was in many short story compilations for years after. The story can be viewed at https://archive.org/details/Esquire-Magazine-1934-07/page/n11/mode/1up The only other story that has been identified as written by Storm is From the Mother of the Groom published in The Saturday Evening Post of November 19, 1938. (Many thanks to researcher Karl Schadow for that information).
This production starred Jack Kelly, a successful movie supporting actor for many years, and would be familiar to nostalgia fans for his role in the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet. Later in 1957, he would have a regular role in the first version of TV’s Maverick series, playing alongside James Garner’s “Bret Maverick” as his brother “Bart.”
This episode was recorded on Wednesday, January 2, 1957. Kelly must have been very busy on a movie set because the rehearsal began at 7:00pm and ended at 11:30pm. Recording began at 11:30pm and concluded at Midnight.
Storm’s story was adapted for Escape by Les Crutchfield. According to classic radio researcher and international voice actor Keith Scott, this Suspense production included some revisions to the Escape script by Robson.
The drama is intact in the recording, but the ending is clipped. In some of the copies of the recordings in circulation, you can hear a few notes of “The Suspense March,” which was being used by the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) as filler music. The network programs had ceased using that theme with Antony Ellis’ departure as producer. Therefore, this is an edited AFRS recording.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP570106
THE CAST
Jack Kelly (Chris Warner), Helen Kleeb (Mother Willis), Herb Butterfield (Captain Wood), Tony Barrett (Mate / Sanchez), Ben Wright (Bowman the steward), Helene Burke (Woman), Byron Kane (Man), Bill James? (Clara the Cat), George Walsh (Narrator)
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