William Redfield stars as “George” in a D.W. Gilbert story about an unhappy and envious husband who concocts a plan using sound effects and a record player to drive his wife, May, to suicide through an overdose of sleeping pills. He justifies it as has having suffered through years of humiliation by her, but she inherited a handsome sum from an uncle and he is anxious to spend it rather than save it for, as he calls it, “our declining years.” May has some quirky interests, especially for stray cats, which gives this script a chance for a somewhat amusing conclusion (which seems strange since the story is about a murder!).
George starts laying the foundation for friends to believe that May is having many issues with sleep and self-destructive thoughts, and that there was a family history of suicide. When she sleeps he has the sounds of a woman crying and other creepy sounds piped through the house. He pretends not to hear any of them. He convinces her to see a doctor, and she returns with a prescription for sleeping pills. George prepares mushroom soup laced with a massive overdose of sleeping pills. He forces May to write a suicide note, then disposes of all evidence. George is finally starting to become uneasy about the entire plan, but it is too late. May’s lawyer calls, and George answers the phone. Imagine his surprise when he learns that she changed her will without his knowing about it. The lawyer said that May told him that George was agreeable to the changes, but he tells the attorney that he knew nothing about it. He says the will was changed to leave the $60,000 remainder of her inheritance to a charity she was starting, the “Rogers Memorial Hospital for Stray Cats.” (This is the most amusing scene of the story as George gets what he deserves). George’s plan has backfired, and he can’t wake May up, no matter how hard he tries.
The program was recorded on Thursday, December 7, 1961. The session began at 1:00pm and concluded at 6:00pm.
What was inherited from the uncle? The value at the time of the broadcast was $75,000, which in current terms of US$2025 is $800,000. They bought a house costing $15,000, about $160,000 in US$2025, which was about the average cost of a home in 1961. That left $60,000, or a little over $640,000 in US$2025.
The author of the script according to the cover sheet is D.W. Gilbert. At the end of the program, the credits include “Dave Gilbert.” That was likely a slip. Doris Wolfe Gilbert was a writer of screenplays for Republic Pictures and radio programs such as Junior Miss from the 1930s through the 1950s. She worked on a variety of 1950s television programs such as The Millionaire, Bourbon Street Beat, and Science Fiction Theater.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP611210
THE CAST
William Redfield (George), Bryna Raeburn (Thelma Stevens), Elaine Rost (Mae), Bernard Lenrow (Mr. Phillips), Abby Lewis (special wailing & laughing effects)
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