William Redfield and Elaine Rost star in a William N. Robson story where a man meets a woman on a train and is quickly embroiled in espionage. The attractive young woman is on a mysterious mission and attaches herself in conversation and acquaintanceship to an innocent young man traveler who is also taking the combination ferry and train service to Paris. As the two travel, they have pleasant light conversation, and he senses something is not right. Details about her life are shallow and don’t ring true it comes to details. As they move along in the boarding process, she tells ticket agents and others that he is her husband, which was obviously surprising to him but he plays along. As the ferry voyages across the English Channel, they make their way to its bow. Two gangsters soon converge on them. They seem to know who she is and demand that they be handed the small package she is supposed to be carrying. She claims not to have it. The gangsters drug the young man to get him out of the way. When he revives, he returns to his train compartment, arriving just in time to bring the confusion of her mission and identity to a satisfying and happy conclusion. It’s a love story, after all. It just had to be. No spoiler alert necessary.
The Night Ferry was an international boat train from London Victoria to Paris Gare du Nord that crossed the English Channel on a train ferry. It was a sleeper car service where passengers would leave the train station, the train would head to a port where the cars would be moved onto a ferry. After crossing the English Channel, the train cars would be transferred back to tracks and continue their journey to Paris. The service began in 1936 but was paused in 1939 when World War II began. Service resumed in peacetime in 1947, until competition from low cost and efficient air service made the night ferry service impractical. The service ended in 1980. Completion of the Channel Tunnel made it clear that a night ferry train service was obsolete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Ferry
The program was recorded on Thursday, August 11 1960. Rehearsal began at 2:30pm and ended at 7:00pm. Recording was done from 7:00pm to 7:30pm. Ira Ashley substituted for Paul Roberts as director.
The only recording available of this episode is in very low quality, but it can be listened to. Most copies have been in even lower quality sound. Many collectors will find this to be an improvement and will appreciate the story more since the clarity of events and dialogue is much better. It is a network aircheck that has been heavily edited. It is hoped that an Armed Forces Radio Service transcription might be located and transferred sometime in the future.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP600814
THE CAST
William Redfield (Tom), Elaine Rost (Susan), Robert Dryden (Anton), Guy Repp (Porter / Train Attendant), Bret Morrison (Uncle / Customs), Frank Milano (Raul)
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