Elspeth Eric and Bernie Grant star in an Allan Sloane script that
begins a new (and unexpected) season of Suspense. It is an
interesting selection for the first episode, a psychological drama.
In some ways, it has similar feel to 1951-10-01 Case Study of a
Murderer which was redone as 1955-01-20 Study of a Murderer.
It’s a heavy drama, not in the typical Suspense format of
mystery, and is well done. Allan Sloane was a veteran scripter who
was involved in a wide range of projects and themes, ranging from
crime in shows like The Big Story and Indictment to
religious programming such as The Eternal Light. His
skill shows.
Grant plays a man who arrives at a hotel where he is a regular,
getting the same room each time. He is visiting his wife who is at a
nearby psychiatric hospital. An unstable woman tries to kill her
husband, blaming him for the tragic death of their son. As he
prepares for the latest visit, there is a knock at the door. She
escaped from the hospital, and demands to discuss the death of their
son which was the catalyst for her mental challenges and the strife
in their marriage. She has a gun, and the husband has to protect
himself and her from his own death and her possible suicide. Through
the script’s dialogue, the two sides of the incident and the hurt
and pain are revealed. It is not an easy story to listen to,
especially if you know people and families who have had similar
tragedies in their lives. In that sense, it is an odd choice to open
the new season, even though it is powerful and serious drama.
It is possible that this script was in producer Paul Roberts' files, waiting in queue for broadcast, when Suspense was cancelled in November 1960. Roberts and Sloane worked together on the Indictment series where Sloane adapted the experiences of assistant district attorney Eleazar Lipsky for that series. Some Indictment episodes were revised and re-used by Roberts during his Suspense tenure. It may have been selected as the first episode of this new season because it was the best script that new producer Bruno Zirato, Jr. had at that moment, fully edited and prepared for a 1960 airing that never came.
How did Suspense arrive at this particular day and its
return?
Just seven months prior, the series was cancelled and there was no
expectation of any future return. Suspense was finished, along
with numerous other series, including long-running soap operas. In
May, 1961, CBS radio executives finalized their earlier decision to
have radio drama in New York and not Hollywood. Suspense
had moved to New York at the end of August 1959, but Gunsmoke
was still being produced in Hollywood. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
moved, a
year later, with its first
New York show
in December 1960. Gunsmoke
was ended
for a variety of reasons, mainly
the success of the television series.
CBS
decided to use the
Gunsmoke time
slot to bring Suspense
back, allowing
affiliates and
the network to sell an
entire hour to advertisers.
The radio production of Gunsmoke ended on 1961-06-18.
Suspense would air the next week. The news about the change
started to appear in newspapers in the early days of June; it
received barely any mentions in the trade press.
In the 1961-06-11 Cincinnati Enquirer, esteemed
radio critic Magee Adams offered these observations:
Effective June 25, Suspense is to come back to the CBS Radio
Network, replacing Gunsmoke at 6:35pm Sunday. If there is any
compelling reason for the change, it does not appear in the CBS
announcement.
Of course, Suspense has had a distinguished past, including
such triumphs as Agnes Moorehead's Sorry, Wrong Number. More
recently, however, it slipped into the groove of contrived goose
pimpling.
Meanwhile, the worst to be said of Gunsmoke is having sired
the brood of adult westerns on TV, and that without malice
aforethought.
With Johnny Dollar ahead of it at 6:05pm Sunday, the effect of
bringing back Suspense is to line up two dramas or essentially
the same type. When those two are the entire crop of radio drama on
the networks, that choice is meager.
To summarize Adams: Gunsmoke was so successful that it
inspired many other western TV programs, most of which did not meet
its high standard. He believed, prematurely, that Suspense and
YTJD would be the same kinds of mystery programs. He lamented
that there were no other radio dramas, and that these were the last
two, which essentially meant it was these two or nothing for
listeners. On the contrary, Suspense had a greater variety of
stories in its 1961 return than it did prior to the 1960
cancellation.
The week following the broadcast, Adams expressed his concern in his
column of 1961-07-02:
Suspense returned to CBS and WKRC Radio last Sunday With the
tale of a man whose life was threatened by his mentally ill wife. In
its contrived way, the yarn worked up enough goose pimples to score a
passing grade. But the heavy price was equating mental illness with
homicidal mania.
For Suspense this was a familiar dramatic device in its
previous radio run. But something more enlightened might have been
expected to mark its return to the air.
Fostering the notion that mental illness Is synonymous with homicidal
mania is a dismal disservice to public understanding of the disease.
Suspense well might take account of that if it is to avoid the
unflattering publicity being heaped on TV crime shows by Senate
committee hearings.
The Senate committee hearings that Adams was referring to were about
juvenile delinquency and included testimony about the possible causal
effects of television crime shows that might inspire violence and
criminal acts. The Federal Communications Commission was also the
recipients of many complaints about the subject.
Adams’ concerns were valid in general, but the underlying theme of
the story is that a tragic act, even if accidental, can create
serious problems. Most importantly, the husband remained loyal to his
wife and steadfast to her recovery. Such events can permanently
destroy marriages and families, sending each person away in different
directions, never to see each other again. It is that point that he
missed. (It is easy, however, to say Adams missed something some
sixty years later).
The closing of Gunsmoke had many facets and most of them are
overlooked. The cancellation was a case study in the media transition
from radio to television, with multiple converging factors. Some will
point to cost, that saving money was paramount at CBS Radio. Sponsors
were already souring on radio drama to promote their products, which
meant that ad sales were falling. When ad revenues fall, costs must
be reconfigured and rebalanced. Another factor was that Gunsmoke
was considered too difficult for New York production to handle.
It was an extremely complex broadcast in terms of sound effects,
especially. The resources needed were too great and the learning
curve was too steep. The television version was doing quite well, and
there was concern that there might be oversaturation of the brand,
that there was “too much Gunsmoke for the marketplace” and
the radio version could be dropped and narrow the audience attention
to the newer offering. Most importantly, however, the radio actors on
the series were getting very busy on television having appearances on
many different series, and the writers were, too. The money was quite
good. While they loved radio, and working with each other, their
schedules and commitments made it more difficult to work together.
Too many forces were pulling the show’s financial and human
resources into other directions. In comparison, Suspense was
simple, and New York had lots of skilled actors available for the
series from Broadway, television soap operas, and advertising
production.
The series was now under the direction of Bruno Zirato, Jr. He was
a staff producer for CBS and was handed this assignment with no
budget, of course. The recording day was four hours long, with a
read-through, dress rehearsal, and a performance. Zirato would record
the dress rehearsal finding that it had a “spark” and often had
better and more natural results. It also served as backup in case
there were issues with the final tape and performance. Some of the
broadcasts were combinations of the dress and final performances. He
stuck with New York actors who could work under these circumstances,
some of whom remembered it as the way soap operas were done. The show
doesn’t use as wide a range of voices as the Hollywood productions
did. The community of radio voice actors was also shrinking after the
Auto-Lite era.
The program was recorded on Tuesday, June 20, 1961. Rehearsal and
recording time from 3:00pm to 7:00pm. As noted, Zirato had the cast
read through together, record the “dress rehearsal,” then proceed
to a production recording.
The
script
cover has “Half-Past” with
the hyphen, not
the
unhyphenated “Half
Past.”
Actress Freddi Chandler is in the cast. She was a well-known
character actor at the time, and is not credited correctly in many
references, where she is often identified as "Freddy." She
was originally scheduled to the phone operator, but added a doubling
part as the maid. They did this to add the part of a cat, played by
Frank Milano. Bernie Grant plays “Cliff Simmons” but the original
name was “Clark Simmons,” changed before the recording session.
Milano was a versatile radio actor, known for his ability to mimic
animals in programs and especially commercials. Unfortunately, Milano
would pass away about 18 months after this episode. He was 44, and
died of a heart attack.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP610625
THE CAST
Elspeth Eric (Fran Simmons), Bernard Grant (Cliff Simmons), Sarah
Fussell (Donny Simmons), Jack Grimes (Bellhop), Freddi Chandler (Maid
/ Operator), Lawson Zerbe (Clerk), Frank Milano (Cat)
###
