John Lund stars as a battle-weary Marine, behind enemy lines, on Okinawa in 1945. He dreams of peaceful years on a remote, quiet island when the war is over. He actually meets a fascinating young woman who is looking for safety from the fighting. He falls in love with her (or is it just the thought of her?), and wants to spend the rest of his years with her on that peaceful island of his dreams. That is, until a disturbing secret is revealed.
This Millard Kaufman script was presented on Suspense this one time. It was produced twice before on Escape, 1951-07-11 and 1953-03-08. This was Kaufman’s second script for the series. The first was The McKay College Basketball Scandal.
The script contains some ethnic references about a war enemy that are of its period. While this was authentic language in that wartime circumstance, it might be considered offensive in modern listening who might not have that context.
Kaufman was familiar with diseases of the Pacific. While he served in WW2 (including the Battle of Okinawa), he contracted malaria and dengue fever at that time. The presence of a priest (played by Hans Conried) who works with lepers in his script is likely no accident. About a year or so before the broadcast, the island of Molokai of the Hawaiian islands was in the news because of an impending Spanish production film biography about Father Damien de Veuster. He was a Belgian priest assigned to the leper colony of Molokai in the late 1800s. He served the people exiled there, educated and cared for them, constructed buildings and roads with others and with those quarantined who were able-bodied. He suffered with tuberculosis prior to his arrival and contracted leprosy during eleven years there. He died of those diseases in 1889; he was 49. That film, Molokai L'Isola Maledetta (currently available at YouTube in Spanish https://youtu.be/Mxd1-KjrK30), was released in 1959. A Belgian production, Molokai: The Story of Father Damien, was released in 1999 (It can be viewed at The Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/molokai-the-story-of-father-damien-1999_202302). The Catholic Church canonized him as St. Damien of Molokai in 2009.
This program was recorded on Friday, January 3, 1958. Rehearsal began at 2:00pm and concluded at 5:00pm. Recording began at 5:00pm and included some in-studio editing. Post-production edits were done from 7:00pm to 9:00pm.
The only recordings that have been available to Suspense enthusiasts have been heavily edited Armed Forces Radio Network airchecks in poor sound. A new, complete Armed Forces Radio Service recording (AFRS#664) is now available and is in superb sound.
No network recording is available. Advertising spots on the network broadcast were for Kent, Grove Laboratories, Ex-Lax, and an ad spot that would be assigned sometime before broadcast.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP580112
THE CAST
John Lund (Lacy), Joe de Santis (Tabori), Lillian Buyeff (Taki), Hans Conried (Padre), George Walsh (Narrator)
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