Agnes Moorehead stars as a cunning and despicable mother who is attempting to control all aspects of her 25-year-old son’s life. He is asserting himself, to her dismay, and soon gets married. She strives to undermine him and his wife through lies, innuendo, and imposition of guilt. The wife is loyal, and despite the effort to drive her away, she stands with the son. She decides the only way to gain control of her life and her son is to plot the murder of her daughter-in-law. The play is by William N. Robson. Moorehead is excellent in this role and as annoyance with her cascades in almost the same manner her “Mrs. Stevenson” does in Sorry, Wrong Number. This is not a classic script, but if you like Moorehead’s work, you will like this production.
The program was recorded on Friday, January 2, 1959. Rehearsal began at 1:00pm, with recording and in-studio edits beginning at 4:30pm. Production edits began at 5:00pm and concluded at 7:00pm. Music was added on Saturday, January 3.
Two recordings of the episode have survived. The network recording is complete and in good sound. The Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) recording is much preferred for its fuller sound.
The working title for this story was ‘M’ is for the Million Things. The title was in CBS publicity, and the phrase would have been recognizable to listeners as a line from a 1915 song, played and performed mainly on Mothers’ Day. There is much more to the song, but this is the most famous portion:
“M” is for the million things she gave me,
“O” means
only that she’s growing old,
“T” is for the tears were
shed to save me,
“H” is for her heart of purest gold;
“E”
is for her eyes, with lovelight shining,
“R” means right,
and right she’ll always be,
Put them all together, they spell
“MOTHER,”
A word that means the world to me.
The 1915 song can be heard from an Edison disc at The Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/78_m-o-t-h-e-r-a-word-that-means-the-world-to-me_george-wilton-ballard-theodore-moor_gbia0083449b
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590104
THE CAST
AGNES MOOREHEAD (Laurie Ryder), Cathy Lewis (Roberta), James McCallion (Larry Ryder), Barney Phillips (Stern the butcher / Lt. Ross), Norm Alden (Sergeant Adam [Abbott]), George Walsh (Narrator)
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