This broadcast stars George Matthews and Rosemary Rice in a John Roeburt script was first used in the Inner Sanctum broadcast of 1951-05-28. It was titled The Unforgiving Corpse. Some character names were changed, but that was not a matter of protecting the innocent. The Inner Sanctum production was its usual spooky with over-the-top organ music that made that series so memorable and such fun. This script fit that series quite well. As a Suspense episode, however, it is mostly awful and de-spook-ified, and tests listener patience. It does have a surprise ending, but by the time it happens, listeners may not care.
It’s been ten years after a train station manager Tom Morley was involved in a fatal train wreck. Even though he was acquitted by a jury, he is still paralyzed by guilt. He is haunted by visions of the deceased engineer, Gully Reeves, and his fiancĂ©e, Jenny. He has spectral encounters with them, and including prophecies of another crash. This drives Tom to the brink of madness. History repeats itself at the end of the anniversary of the wreck. Tom gets a ghostly message to look at the condition of the rails, and as a train approaches, he signals an oncoming train to stop. He believes he has prevented an accident. He later learns that the spectral encounters were really orchestrated by criminals to have the train stop to abduct and kill as prisoner being transported on the train. They knew how fragile his psyche was and how easily manipulated he would be. There… Tom is all better now. Listeners may not be.
The Inner Sanctum episode has survived. That episode’s town of “San Amato” became “San Ventura” for this Suspense episode. “Ben Sears” became “Tom Morley.” “Kirby Willis” became “Gully Reeves.”
This program was recorded on Thursday, June 7, 1962. The times of the session start and end are not available.
Two network aircheck recordings of this episode have survived. The edited network recording has some minor issues, but is the better of the two, and has had its opening commercial (Alpine) edited out. It has a slightly clipped open and a slightly clipped close. The other network aircheck has the same original home recording as the first, but is in lower quality sound with narrow range. It has a slightly clipped open and close, but the commercial is intact. It is hoped that the full recording might be found in the future.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP620617
THE CAST
George Matthews (Tom Morley), Rosemary Rice (Jenny / Sally), Les Damon (Gully Reeves), Donald Buka (Will), Dick Keith (McKale)
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