William Redfield stars in a Robert Arthur story that borrows concepts popularized in Donovan’s Brain to create a mildly engaging story if you ignore some of its expected bad sci-fi suppositions. A hard luck detective is thrilled to get into an investigation that will turn his fortunes around. It’s a predictable sci-fi gumshoe hybrid plotline. A financier has been missing for a little over six years and is presumed dead because he was extremely ill when he vanished. (Most listeners would have known that a person can be declared dead by a court after seven years missing). After six years passed, his attorney got a call from the missing man to conduct a stock trade in his portfolio to raise some cash! The man and lawyer always had a secret code, so he was certain it was him. The lawyer wants the story’s two detectives, Steve and Rollo, to find him. (This is one of those stories where in modern times it seems easy to track phone calls and their origination point, but not so back in the time of hardwired land lines). Skipping ahead of some time-filling dialogue and scenes, the missing man did die, but his brain was kept alive in a tank. He was able to communicate thoughts with the wired connections to a speaker. Steve finds him in a hidden laboratory, and he converses with the missing man’s brain. The man is tired of this existence. He offers Steve money to end it all, to let him finally die in peace. The amount was bigger that the reward to prove him alive or prove him dead. Steve will do it, but before he can get away with it, the angry lab professor who kept the brain alive shoots Steve. And in the end, Steve gets his comeuppance, and now it’s his very head that is being kept alive. Oh boy, be careful what you ask for. Sure, sure, sure… that was a missed spoiler alert.There are multiple ways the title is a play on the plotline. The title has no comma, which is a clue in itself that something may happen to a head of a character. It can be actual or figurative, such as when someone loses their temper. “Heads, You Lose” (with a comma) is a common phrase that deals with elements of risk and you chose between two options incorrectly. In this case it could even refer to the lab about its failed experiments and how they have to keep getting new ones to replace those brains.
Santos Ortega is cast as Rollo Collins, a three-hundred-pound detective. Is this an inside joke? Ortega briefly starred as the rotund Nero Wolfe character in the 1940s radio series. (Hat tip: emruf7 of the Cobalt Club classic radio enthusiast forum).
Keeping brains alive in tanks worked in sci-fi stories, but not in real life. You hear stories, usually of celebrities, about people who contract with cryogenic firms to “freeze” them upon their demise. Thawing will occur when cures are found for whatever they died from. Usually, the process is done only on brains or heads because it is considered that the brain holds the key to a person's identity and consciousness. At some time in the distant future, it can be preserved and potentially transferred into a new body or some kind of robotic device. Sounds like a job for the 2000+ series. Or, perhaps like in Woody Allen’s movie, Sleeper, we will find out that humans should have been eating hot fudge sundaes every day to ensure health.
This is a strange show for Suspense, there are creative aspects to, but it does seem so very out of place. Was it the popularity of Twilight Zone that made producer Zirato pursue a path of more sci-fi than the series usually had? Or was Zirato just working with the flow of what was coming across his desk as writers submitted scripts for consideration? Or did he pick it to thank Robert Arthur for the support for the series in its final months?
The program was recorded on Thursday, March 1, 1962. The session began at 1:00pm and concluded at 6:00pm.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP620311
THE CAST
William Redfield (Steve Kimberly), Jimsey Sommers (Secretary), Raymond Edward Johnson (Joshua Franklin), Melville Ruick (Professor Green), Kermit Murdock (Harrison Ward), Santos Ortega (Rollo Collins)
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