Kevin McCarthy stars in this second production of the Jack Finney story that was adapted by David Ellis and Robert L. Richards. It’s an excellent script as you know something is just not right but you can’t really be certain what it is. McCarthy’s character misleads the police, but he convincingly lies to the listeners, and the betrayal leads to a surprising conclusion. Mob thugs are trying to buy the defendant's freedom by creating a hung jury, something the corrupt defense attorney has done before. After the juror and his wife see a movie and drop into a nearby ice cream parlor on the way home and his wife finds an envelope on the floor. It contains $10,000 with unsigned note indicating that the money was intended as a bribe to one of the murder trial jurors.
Unfortunately, the only surviving recording of this episode has no open or close, commercials (if network) or announcements (if Armed Forces Radio Service), or cast information. The sound is very low quality. To hear the story, the 1950-12-07 production with Ray Milland and William Conrad in an excellent supporting performance. Information and recordings are at
https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2024/05/1950-12-07-after-movies.html
https://archive.org/details/TSP501207 and is where recordings can be downloaded and streamed.
Because of the truncated recording, and that no script of this broadcast is available, cast and recording date information are not available. Newspaper resources are minimal. While the production of Suspense moved to New York, the publicity effort behind the show seemed to have a difficult start-up.
This is the first of two appearances on the series by Kevin McCarthy. He had a long and varied career across stage, film, and television. Nostalgia fans would know him best for his starring role in the 1956 sci-fi film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. https://archive.org/details/invasionofthebodysnatchers1956_201911 McCarthy was a founding member of The Actors Studio, and his breakthrough film role was in the adaptation of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1951) https://archive.org/details/death-of-a-salesman_202501 At the time of this broadcast, McCarthy was likely in preparation for a supporting role in Advise and Consent on Broadway, which would open about 60 days later. That cast included some with radio acting pedigrees, notably Ed Begley and Staats Cotsworth. The play had over 200 performances. Wikipedia has background about his life and career. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_McCarthy_(actor)
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590906
THE CAST
KEVIN McCARTHY (Albert Benning), Margaret Draper (Ann Benning), Bob Donley (Dan), Murray Forbes (Mr. Adelson), Dan Ocko (Johnny), Sam Grey (Sam/elevator operator)
(Many thanks to classic radio researcher Karl Schadow for identifying the cast.)
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