Phil Sterling stars in a John Roeburt story about a man, Harry Jonas, who strangely confesses to a murder that took place ten years before he was born! Roeburt was a reliable writer whose work was often on Inner Sanctum. This particular script has a strong Inner Sanctum feel, but it cannot be verified that it was used on that series. Details that match this episode’s plotline cannot be found in classic radio logs or other resources, or in newspaper searches. Perhaps more information, or a recording, may be found in the future. Inner Sanctum was on for many years, with many programs surviving, but also many gaps in the series. Only about one-third of the series recordings have been found out of more than 500 broadcasts.
Roeburt also wrote for the Basil Rathbone vehicle, Tales of Fatima, an ABC mystery program that was produced and directed, and sometimes written, by Harry and Gail Ingram. The program with this title was broadcast on 1949-07-23 and was likely the first time that this script was used. (The Ingrams were a power couple of sorts in radio circles, until Harry’s untimely passing at age 40 in 1952). Newspaper clippings are not consistent for describing this particular plotline, however, with some clippings stating “Rathbone tells of a girl with a “Memory of Murder” and others with “Rathbone meets a young man with a “Memory of Murder.” The difference is likely some editorial or typographic error. The ToF series is poorly documented, with very few recordings surviving (only three out of thirty-nine, it seems). A log of its broadcasts, with tantalizing titles, is available but lacks cast details or plot descriptions.
The story does not really fit Suspense, but at this time in 1962, such a script really had no place else to go. If this episode is amusing in an Inner Sanctum kind of way, it is because of Roeburt’s strange magician and ghoulish guillotine act that drives much of the story.
The broadcast begins with Harry Jonas on a park bench and his first person narration moves from a cemetery to seeing a vaudeville magician act, “A Study in Illusion and the Black Arts.” Harry has vivid visions of a murder in a cemetery, a mysterious “Grave Digger” figure, and a unique coin. He takes a job at a local theater and gets involved in the lives of a vaudeville magician and his assistants. The act uses knives and a guillotine, and put his pretty assistant, and wife, Marietta, in danger, at least in the eyes of the audience. Harry soon believes that the magician is a master criminal. He learns from the wardrobe assistant at the theater that Marietta was in danger. A prior assistant to the magician, Nino, was killed by the magician because of his romantic interest in Marietta. It is Harry who is now infatuated with Marietta, so this does not bode well for him. The wardrobe assistant tells Harry that she learned it is the night when the magician will kill Marietta in the guillotine. Harry witnesses the ghastly act of gushing blood and a falling head. Harry murders the magician… but he soon learns it was Marietta who orchestrated this very elaborate scheme… and that Nino is alive in Mexico waiting for her. This might be the end of the story for most scripts, but not this one. Harry goes to the police and confesses to the murder, relating the details of all his experiences. It is there he learns that what he admits to would be impossible, because those events happened forty years ago, before Harry was born!
The program was recorded on Thursday, March 22, 1962. The session began at 1:00pm and concluded at 6:00pm.
James Monks is in this cast, his sole Suspense appearance. He was in theater, radio, and early television, most always as a supporting player. His radio work was mainly in soap operas, but he did star in the radio version of Mr. Moto. His brother was screenwriter John Monks, noted for Brother Rat and 13 Rue Madeleine, and other films.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP620325
THE CAST
Philip Sterling (Harry Jonas), Ethel Everett (Anna), James Monks (Constantine), Connie Lembcke (Marietta), Lawson Zerbe (Charley Prince), Ralph Bell (Lt. Bellson)
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