Marie Windsor stars in a curiously-constructed script by Celeste Bollas and William N. Robson. She plays the wife, Mary, part of a love and jealousy triangle. Vic Perrin plays Mark Brady, a writer who believes Mary is being unfaithful. He decides to kill her and her lover by first writing about it in a screenplay. Jason, played by Ben Wright, is the man in the middle of the strange situation.
What makes the story so interesting in its construction is that the first act is told by Mark Brady. The second act is told from the perspective of Mary. The third act is from the perspective of Jason. As the acts pass, we learn more and more about the people, the relationships, and the murder plot. This is one of those productions that are worth making sure listening will not be interrupted or distracted to make sure all of the details are understood as they are revealed.
Act One, as told by Mark, ends with a gunshot, but we don’t know what happened. Act Two, as told by Mary, ends with us learning something about the gun. Act Three, told by Jason, has us understand more about the murder plot, and how the story ends as the script by Mark Brady is finally completed.
The program was recorded on Wednesday, March 11, 1959. Rehearsal began at 2:00pm with recording beginning at 4:30pm and included in-studio edits. The session ended at 6:00pm after which production edits continued to 8:00pm. Music was added at a later time.
It is not clear who Celeste Bollas, co-author of this script was. It is certain that she was not a scripter by profession because she does not appear in any of the data bases where one would find such a practitioner. Nor does she appear in any of the trade publications. Where she does appear, however, is in local theater in the Los Angeles area, notably in productions of the Laguna Beach Playhouse. Her co-authorship with Robson may be from the submission of a story idea and outline that Robson shaped into script format. If all of this is true, she would be another of the series’ “one-hit-wonder” authors whose only radio work was this very production.
At the Old Time Radio Researchers Facebook Group, classic radio enthusiast and professional actor Craig Wichman noted that the style of the presentation by each of the characters is similar to the original text version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. There, each of the main characters tells of their experiences in their own style of speaking and from numerous sources such as recordings, newspaper clippings, and others.
This was Marie Windsor’s only Suspense appearance. She was best known for her roles in B-movies and film noir, but she had a very long, varied and successful career, and even wrote some gags for Jack Benny early in her career. Wikipedia has background about her and her career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Windsor
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590322
THE CAST
MARIE WINDSOR (Mary), Vic Perrin (Mark), Ben Wright (Jason), Sam Pierce (Police Sergeant), George Walsh (Narrator)
Berry Kroeger was originally cast as “Jason,” but was replaced by Ben Wright.
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These are publicity pictures of the rehearsal and one with Robson and Windsor taken to promote this episode.
It is not clear why Christopher Robson was in the picture, but he was obviously at CBS that day. His father used his name as the pseudonym “Christopher Anthony” when he was having CBS Blacklist issues. Anthony was his younger brother.
The woman on the left is likely Celeste Bollas, co author of the script. It could be the script secretary Grace Curcio. Pictures of either of them have not been found for verification.
Windsor was tall, 5 foot 9 inches, and often had trouble matching up on screen with leading men of shorter stature. That may be one of the reasons for her sitting in the picture. Robson was 5 foot 11 inches, according to his draft registration, and in contrast, Robson may have looked “short” in relative terms. Most of the pictures published of Robson are from the 1940s as a younger man. He is 53 in this picture. Windsor was 40 at the time of the photo.
[Many thanks to John Schneider of the website www.theradiohistorian.org who found the publicity photos in his research materials.]
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