Monday, April 28, 2025

1957-10-20 Sorry, Wrong Number

This broadcast was the last time Moorehead presented this famous Lucille Fletcher story on Suspense. In 1960, after the series moved to New York, the drama portion of this 1957 program would be replayed with new introduction and close (“wrappers”) that matched what the series was using at that time.

These are links to the prior recordings about this episode; the first one is the most important one in terms of historical information and behind the scenes details about this fascinating script:

It was claimed in Suspense history that Agnes Moorehead always used the same script she started with in May 1943. That may have been the case for the performances prior to this one. At this time in the Robson era, Suspense had a shorter time slot than it did in the past. The script for this broadcast has numerous edits removing lines of dialogue. There was also another difference. When Sorry, Wrong Number was recognized as a classic, the drama segment was usually broadcast without commercial interruption. This time, the show format had changed to have breaks for mid-show commercials. The drama was now split into three acts.

There are three recordings of this 1957 broadcast: a network one and two Armed Forces Radio Service recordings (AFRS#653 and AFRS#955). All three recordings are fine for listening. The network recording is the best of the three. The next best is AFRS#955.

The two AFRS recordings can be differentiated by the announcements after the Robson opening monologue:

  • AFRS#653: Insights about the importance of the US Constitution;

  • AFRS#955: The importance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); the second announcement about the military medal for distinguished service is read by Los Angeles Dodgers legendary broadcaster Vin Scully at approximately 14:45.

This program was pre-recorded on Saturday, October 5, 1957. Rehearsal began at 9:00am and with recording and in-studio edits concluded at 10:00pm.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP571020

THE CAST

Agnes Moorehead (Mrs. Stevenson), Jeanette Nolan (Chief Operator / Information), Virginia Gregg (Operator), Ellen Morgan (Henchley Hospital woman), Joe de Santis (George), Byron Kane (Boss voice / Western Union), Norm Alden (Sergeant Martin), George Walsh (Narrator)

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