Charles McGraw stars in a William Spier script originally used on Philip Morris Playhouse about nine years earlier. Spier took over that series for its 1948-1949 season, and used many scripts that had been used on Suspense. Some of the new scripts were in the Suspense style, and used, like this one, after Playhouse went off the air. This script was the premiere episode of the PMP Spier season, heard on 1948-11-05, and starred Burt Lancaster.
McGraw plays Steve Gates, an innocent man newly released from jail and wants some revenge on the district attorney who sent him there. A reporter who knows him stops him as he was walking in town. He offers him $1000 as part of a plan to get back at that DA. The reporter and his publisher know that the DA is corrupt, have a strategy to help Gates out. They will set up a crime scene with Gates involvement. He will place evidence against himself for a faked assault and murder of a young woman. He would be arrested. The newspaper already had a planned headline strategy to keep the story at the top of the news. Then, after a short time, she would appear, revealing the DA’s habit of going for quick convictions based solely on the flimsiest circumstantial evidence. He meets her, Silver is her name (and hence the script title), and it’s implied they have some spontaneous romantic time together. They plant the evidence, and he leaves. The newspaper has the story as planned, but there is a bad turn to the story: a burned body of a young woman has been found. Has he been a sucker for a plot to frame him again? It’s an entertaining B-movie style mystery, but will never be in a best Suspense episode list.
The program was recorded on Friday, January 24, 1958. Rehearsal began at 1:00pm and concluded at 4:00pm. Recording began at that time and with in-studio edits was completed at 6:00pm. Production studio edits were done from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. George Walsh’s segments were recorded on Thursday, January 23.
There are two surviving recordings of the episode, both from the Armed Forces Radio Service ( AFRS#666 and AFRS#966). AFRS#966 is the better recording. The two recordings can be differentiated by the announcement after the Robson opening monologue:
AFRS#667: Creation of the Department of Defense
AFRS#966: Joe & Daphne Forsythe skit about US Savings Bonds
No network recording has survived. Ad spots were for Newport cigarettes, Grove Laboratories, and Ex-Lax. An additional ad spot was allocated closer to the broadcast date.
At one point in the story a $50,000 beach house is mentioned as the location. That would be about $600,000 in US$2025 value. It is mentioned that the house is in Malibu, and prices for those homes outpaced inflation by a significant amount. Other amounts mentioned in the story are the $10 bill he was handed when he left prison, worth about $110 in US$2025, and a $22.50 suit is about $250.
McGraw’s character’s last name is “Gates.” It’s a little joke: “Gates” would be sometimes be used as a nickname for someone who had spent time in prison.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP580202
THE CAST
Charles McGraw (Steve Gates), Tracy Roberts (Silver Fox), Jerome Thor (Farley, the D. A.), Chester Stratton (Lester Malvin), John Hoyt (L. B. Rosson), Daws Butler (Milton / First Detective), Jack Kruschen (Second Detective), George Walsh (Narrator)
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