William N. Robson’s script delightfully reunites two actors known for their film appearance of twelve years earlier. William Conrad and Charles McGraw were hitmen in the 1946 film adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway short story, The Killers. This mostly tongue-in-cheek Suspense episode has these familiar radio actors as television performers traveling across the country as they head to Hollywood after failing to find work in New York. They stop at a middle-of-nowhere diner for breakfast and meet a young woman who recognizes them. In the background you can hear their characters in a television rerun (referred to by Conrad’s character [Joe] as “an old kinny,” referring to a kinescope). It’s an episode of The Plainclothesman, a show in which they appeared. She realizes they are the actors on the screen.
The two men need to find work because they were fired from that TV series. They are hampered in their quest because they are typecast, always playing bad guys and thugs, which makes it difficult to find other roles. McGraw’s character, Charlie, explains it as “we’re pretty serious actors... we just look like hoods.” The woman joins them for the ride west. At a police blockade to capture bank robbers, she acts as if Joe and Charlie kidnapped her. While they get the men out of the car, she steals the car and drives away. Things get uncomfortable when they realize she also stole their wallets. Police question them as to their names. The car is registered to “Yosef Horowitz” and Joe has to explain that “Joe Harris” is his stage name but he is the car owner. They think he’s using an alias to conceal his criminal identity.
The only proof of their involvement is that they look like criminals, people seem to know them but they just can’t place them. Howard McNear plays the small town sheriff, which is really amusing considering the Gunsmoke pedigree he shared with Conrad. Joe and Charlie are put through the paces of trying to prove they are actors. Charlie makes the mistake of acting out dialogue where he hates cops, exactly the wrong thing to use to demonstrate his prowess (it is similar to McGraw’s gruff characterization for the police lieutenant in the audition recording for the radio series Man from Homicide). Joe recalls dialogue from Hamlet, and sounds so wooden, you’d never think he could really be an actor. Things get worse: the woman was killed in a car accident of her own carelessness. This will, however, play a positive factor in the story.
The next amusing scene is that they are called into a police lineup at about 20:35. Conrad has a funny line on response to Charlie asking Joe asking how they will get out of their problems. At about 20:45 Joe (Conrad) explains “I don't write the scripts I just act in them.” The fact that it is McNear who plays the sheriff is funny, but that he is running the police line-up is even funnier to those who recall the CBS radio police procedural, The Lineup. McNear was practically a weekly regular in the lineup that opened each episode. He played a different hapless criminal each time. This lineup does not go well… they are enthusiastically identified as robbers, and sent back to the holding cell. Their TV images as criminals are so ingrained in people’s minds that it seems they have no chance to be released.
It all comes to an amusing and entertaining end, with the sheriff being put in his place by an unexpected visit. There must have been a lot of laughter at the first desk read of the rehearsal for this entire production. It must have been difficult to keep it all serious when it came time to start recording.
The program was recorded on Wednesday, October 29, 1958. Rehearsal began at 2:00pm, with recording commencing at 4:30pm, and concluding at 6:00pm. That time included in-studio edits, with further production edits completed by 8:00pm.
The pairing of McGraw and Conrad appears so appropriate, and it is likely that Robson wrote the story specifically with them in mind. There is, however, something in the script for the prior week’s program that is a bit curious… it could be a mistake… or it could be a typographic error. At the end of the hard copy of the script for The Dealings of Mr. Markham, it offers a different casting:
Listen... listen again next week when we return with Frank Lovejoy and Charles McGraw in Two for the Road, another tale well calculated to keep you in… SUSPENSE!
The actual broadcast of The Dealings of Mr. Markham does state that it will be Conrad and McGraw paired for this broadcast. It is likely a typographic error. Frank Lovejoy’s next Suspense appearance is in the following week for Affair at Aden.
Two recordings of this episode have survived, and they are in excellent sound. The network recording is preferred because it represents the original broadcast with original commercials. It is slightly better in overall quality than the Armed Forces Radio Service recording. Both offer pleasant listening.
Conrad and McGraw’s notable appearance in The Killers, a favorite of film noir fans, can be viewed at The Internet Archive. They make their appearance at 1:30, and they start having dialogue at 2:30 https://archive.org/details/thekillers1946usafeaturingburtlancasteravagardneredmondobrienfilmnoirfullmovie_202001
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https://archive.org/details/TSP581108
THE CAST
WILLIAM CONRAD (Joe), CHARLES McGRAW (Charlie), June Foray (Annie / Woman), Evan Thompson (Counterman), Jack Kruschen (First Cop / first Voice), Barney Phillips (Second Cop), Sam Pierce (TV Voice / Banker), Paula Winslowe (Wife), Howard McNear (Sheriff), George Walsh (Narrator)
Norm Alden was originally cast for Jack Kruschen’s roles.
Classic radio enthusiast, researcher, and modern-day performer Patte Rosebank noted this at the Old Time Radio Researchers Facebook page: William Conrad and June Foray (who plays the Woman and Annie) would have already been working together for a while, on The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, which began production in February, 1958, and would premiere in November, 1959.
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