Joseph Cotten stars in the second broadcast of the William N. Robson adaptation of a short story by William Eastlake. The original story, “Where the Warriors Crossed,” appeared in the August 3, 1956 issue of Collier’s, just three months before this broadcast. It is a fascinating story as characters navigate their different cultures and history, and their shared experiences of wartime and modern times. Cotten plays Bowman, owner of a store on a Navajo reservation. He was a captain in WW2, and native to this area of New Mexico. One of the men in his charge during the war, had a traumatic wartime experience and never recovered. He was placed in a veterans psychiatric hospital after the war. Frustrated by his treatment, he escaped, killing a guard, and returned to the reservation, and sought out Captain Bowman. He is a fascinating character who knows everyone’s motives and all of their notions, and their desires for expedience rather than justice. He subtly and cunningly navigates the various conflicting objectives and weaknesses of all of the people involved, and brings the story to its sad but appropriate conclusion.
The first broadcast was on 1956-10-30 and starred Reed Hadley. Details about the original story and this broadcast can be found at
https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2025/03/1956-10-30-red-cloud-mesa.html
https://archive.org/details/TSP561030 is where recordings can be downloaded and streamed.
The program was recorded on Thursday, June 26, 1959. Because of Cotten’s other commitments, rehearsal began at 6:00pm and recording began at 9:30pm. Production edits began at 10:00pm and concluded at 12:00pm. Music was added in the days ha followed.
The surviving recording is a heavily edited network aircheck. Unfortunately, neither the 1956 broadcast or this one are in high quality sound. It is hoped that a clean Armed Forces Radio Service transcription disc for either broadcast can be found to appreciate this compelling story and its performances to its fullest.
The network broadcast had four ad slots. Two of them were committed before broadcast, AT&T and Hastings Manufacturing (auto parts). The other two slots were allocated in the days before broadcast.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590802
THE CAST
JOSEPH COTTEN (Captain Bowman the Trader), Jay Novello (Four Thumbs, aka One of Us), Vic Perrin (Rabbit Stockings), Larry Dobkin (Arturo), Howard McNear (Yellow Salt), George Walsh (Narrator)
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