Raymond Burr stars in the second broadcast of a script that has an amazing history. It involves multiple titles, the Blacklist, and the restoration of an unaired production by collectors. The first airing of this script was with Richard Widmark on 1951-12-03 with the title Murderous Revision. The title “Murder on Mike” was not what was announced at the conclusion of the prior week’s episode. That was “The Twist is Murder,” which was one of the multiple titles that the script had.
The plotline is that a scripter of a radio murder mystery program is angry about the constant criticism from his producer. He decides to gets revenge by giving his taunter a realistic example of what murder is like. The story is by S. Lee Pogostin and was adapted for the series by David Ellis. Burr is superb in the role of the writer.
The story of Murderous Revision and how it got to the air, and Auto-Lite’s rejected performance of Howard Duff as star, the constantly changing title and other fascinating items are at these resources:
https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2024/06/1951-12-03-murderous-revision.html
https://archive.org/details/TSP511203 is where recordings, including the rejected Duff appearance, and the episode recording assembled by 1970s collectors from CBS production tapes, are available for download and streaming. The history of the episode is also available as a PDF for off-line reading or download.
This production was recorded on Saturday, July 13, 1957. Rehearsal began at 2:00pm and finished at 5:00pm. The recording session began at that time, and editing was completed by 7:00pm.
Two months after this broadcast, the premiere episode of Perry Mason would air on CBS television. It would make Burr a big star, and would become one of televisions most memorable and successful series. Burr was likely unavailable during the week because of the film schedule for the Mason series, hence the Saturday recording session.
There are two surviving recordings, and the Armed Forces Radio Service one (AFRS#944) is the better of the two. The network recording is close to the quality of the AFRS one, and is easily listenable.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP570728
THE CAST
Raymond Burr (Chris), Alan Reed (Ken), Byron Kane (George / Hank), Norma Jean Nilsson (Doris), Ann Diamond (Lois / Harriet), George Walsh (Narrator)
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