Frank Lovejoy stars in a time travel fantasy by Morris Lee Green and William Walker. It’s not time travel that goes back into history to attempt to change important events. It’s a short-term and selfish journey by Lovejoy’s character, a husband named “Joe,” to erase the downside effects his marriage has had because of his numerous and large gambling debts.
It is the last day of December, 1958. Joe and his wife are having a conversation about their life together and how tight their finances are. When he asks for her to give him her engagement ring, he says it is to have its loose stone fixed. She suspects that he has been gambling again, and confronts him. She thinks he’s headed to the pawn shop, like he has in the past, to get money to pay his bookie. He denies it, but off to the pawn shop he goes, hoping to get a big payment to pay off the thousand dollars he owes to the mob by midnight. That’s $11,000 in US$2025.
While he is there, he sees a very old watch in a display case and becomes fascinated with it. It has so many dials and intricacies that he just has to have it. He decides to take the money for the ring, which he considered inadequate, and buys the watch. He fiddles around with the timepiece and soon learns that the watch can “control” time. He tests it out. Listen after the 6:20 mark for a key moment in the story that will be important later, at about 15:00. It doesn’t take long for him to start thinking that he can go back in time and repair his problems, and perhaps get rich in the process. All he needs is some extra time. With the year ending on December 31, time is of the essence since he has to pay the debt at midnight. He needs an extra day, in essence a December 32, but it is not like he had imagined it might be.
Time travel stories always have plot holes and you always have to accept them and enjoy the fantasy. This story is no different, but it is an enjoyable story in a very practical setting. That key moment mentioned earlier, where he is in two places and times but can interact at the same moment, could have tested our patience had he asked to talk to himself on the phone. Perhaps the writers realized that, as tempting as it might have been, and they did not head down that path.
It’s another good performance by Joan and Frank Lovejoy, who always enjoyed performing together whenever they could. Producers had great respect for both of them and their skills, and would often seek opportunities to cast them together.
The program was recorded on Monday, December 22. 1958. Rehearsal began at 2:00pm with recording and in-studio edits beginning at 4:30pm. Production edits began at 6:00pm and ended at 8:00pm.
The surviving recording is a complete network broadcast in pleasing but not excellent sound. It might be an aircheck. This full recording seems to be rare in classic radio collections. The recording that has had the greatest circulation is a heavily edited network aircheck in mostly sub-par sound. This complete broadcast might be the original source for the commonly circulating edited file.
The spelling of the title, with words and not numbers, is exactly what is on the script of the show.
Four of a Kind was originally scheduled for this date, but was postponed until 1959-01-25.
The Lovejoy character is named “Joe Adcock.” That’s somewhat of a surprise since they generally avoided using names of people that might be recognizable in their time. Joe Adcock was a power-hitting baseball player who played first base and the outfield for the Milwaukee Braves.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP581228
THE CAST
FRANK LOVEJOY (Joe Adcock), Joan Banks [Lovejoy] (Molly), Barney Phillips (Pawnbroker / Banker), Sam Pierce (Harry / Radio announcer), Norm Alden (Thug / Voice), George Walsh (Narrator)
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