Phil Meeder stars in a creative and engaging Jules Archer story adapted by Ronald Dawson. Two law students, brothers, are bored with the process of creating a mock trial, a fictional legal case that allows students to learn the processes of preparing and presenting information at a real trial. They, and their deep friendship was well known on campus, and they decide to stage the a fictional but convincing crime that would deepen the interest in the exercise for themselves and other students. Their topic was whether or not a truly innocent person can be accused of a crime, prosecuted, and found guilty. At the time of this story, the risk of execution of a person found guilty was higher than in modern times. Just a brief review of newspapers of that time show that it was often a matter of months before punishment was enforced. Today, it is common for prisoners to be on “death row” for many years for those remaining states that still have capital punishment laws, while others changed laws to allow life imprisonment in its stead. For that reason, this story would had a greater urgency in its topic for listeners. The two stage multiple arguments with each other in crowded scenarios where they would be certain to have many witnesses. When one brother would disappear, it would be clear that there was foul play, until they revealed their ruse. Everything was going along well with their secret plan, until one of the brothers dies, unexpectedly, and the other is arrested. Those witnesses, and the scuttlebutt about their deteriorating relationship, makes it clear that the surviving brother did it.
Spoiler alert: You know the scheme would have a hiccup because it’s Suspense, so there’s no surprise there. A key to the conclusion is a brother’s coughing. It does seem annoying, but once you remember the show was recorded, and if it was an inadvertent cough, you know it would be edited out. It’s part of the story, and that becomes obvious because of its frequency. Despite these issues, it’s still a good story.
The program was recorded on Tuesday, August 1, 1961, starting at 10:30am and concluding at 2:30pm.
The broadcast was poorly promoted by CBS publicity. They promoted Old Boyfriend which was delayed and would not be broadcast until many weeks later. No newspaper had an announcement for this script’s broadcast.
The original Archer story was very popular. It appeared in the Summer 1948 edition of Mystery Book Magazine but the radio rights had already been sold to Molle Mystery Theater for its 1948-02-20 broadcast. It is not known who adapted it for the series; no recording is available. It was used the following year for Radio City Playhouse for its 1949-05-23 broadcast, adapted by Harry W. Junkin. The Canadian series, Curtain Time, not to be confused with the US series of the same name, aired its own version on 1949-10-05 (no recording is available). It was even used on television’s Cameo Theater on September 27, 1950 and starred Freddy Bartholomew.
In Archer’s 1950 book about writing for a living, I Sell What I Write, he provides an interesting perspective for new writers as he discusses this very story:
Which brings me to an important footnote on making money out of pulp mystery writing. The pulps will hand back radio rights to you upon request. In the case of Murder Is a Matter of Opinion, the radio rights paid off almost eight times as much as I received for the original story in Mystery Book.
It may have been more lucrative than that. I Sell What I Write was likely already published before the television production of Cameo Theater was aired. That broadcast was not mentioned in the book. Archer’s comments about this story can be accessed at https://archive.org/details/isellwhatiwrite00arch/page/52/mode/2up
Phil Meeder stars in the episode. He was working on some soaps at CBS in the late 1950s, but those were cancelled in November 1960. This is an interesting profile of him many years later, published almost 20 years ago https://www.insideannapolis.com/archive/2006/issue2/pmeeder.html
“Judge Jackson” is played by Bernard Lenrow. He’s fondly remembered by classic radio enthusiasts for playing Captain Logan in the Casey, Crime Photographer series.
Ivor Francis, who plays “Mr. Cheney,” was a Broadway actor and radio veteran. He was the father of Genie Francis who came to television prominence in General Hospital in their famous storyline about “Luke and Laura” in the late 1970s. She is married to Jonathan Frakes, “Commander Riker” in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP610820
THE CAST
Phil Meeder (Frank Jackson), Bill Lipton (Bryan Jackson), Ronny Liss (Tom Penson), Maurice Tarplin (Prosecutor), Lawson Zerbe (Dean / Warden), Bob Dryden (Captain / Bixton), Bernard Lenrow (Judge Jackson), Ivor Francis (Mr. Cheney)
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