This reworking of an original 5-part Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar serial may be the lowest or near the lowest quality production of the Zirato era. Except for the title, some character names and the few most basic elements of the YTJD plotline, this Suspense production bears little resemblance to the excellent and intricate YTJD production. The plot elements that make the YTJD serial so good were eliminated in this script. It is good that writer Jack Johnstone used his pseudonym “Jonathan Bundy” so only those who know that Bundy is him will blame him. But, it might have been better as “Anonymous.” The YTJD broadcasts were from 1956-09-03 to 1956-09-07.
Even if you had never heard the YTJD version prior to listening to this episode, and had no expectations the storyline, this would still be very dissatisfying all by itself. But we have heard the YTJD serial, and that makes the disappointment greater. Abridging a longer story does not mean tearing its core mystery away. Instead of Egyptology intrigue, we get a very bad third cousin of W.W. Jacobs short story The Monkey’s Paw.
A wealthy patriarch is tired of his nephew’s archaeological pursuits as frivolous. The nephew defies his uncle to go on an Egyptian expedition and find a lost pharaoh’s tomb. Three months later, a package arrives containing a bone fragment and a letter announcing the nephew’s death. The rich man tries to to discard the bone but is confronted by the museum curator he knows claims the bone carries a deadly curse. The patriarch thinks it’s silly, challenges the curse, so he has a swift and unexplainable death. Of course he does. “Curse” is in the title, isn’t it? Nothing much else matters in the plot. Think of the story as a bad Haunting Hour or Murder at Midnight. Better yet, don’t think of the story at all.
Why couldn’t this be one of the missing Suspense episodes so we could think more highly of it?
The program was recorded on Thursday, April 12, 1962. The session began at 1:00pm and concluded at 6:00pm.
The surviving network aircheck recording has slightly clipped opening and closing, and slightly narrow range.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620422
THE CAST
Ian Martin (Turnbull), Mercer MacLeod (Walden), Guy Repp (Doctor), Raymond Edward Johnson (Brackton), John Thomas (Donald)
The original planned cast was for Bernard Lenrow as “Turnbull,” Bob Dryden as “Walden,” and Joe Boland as “Doctor.”
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