Jack Kruschen stars as mind-reader “Anton Tesla” (a/k/a “Tesla the Great”) in an interesting and somewhat complex Irwin Lewis story. Tesla’s ability to read people’s thoughts during his stage act is rather amazing but can cause trouble if he pursues it too far. His wife, Helena, discourages him from doing so, but he feels it is time to display the full extent of his ability. He offends a woman in the audience when he detects that a charm was given to her by someone other than her husband during an affair from many years ago. She protests when it happens, but then wonders to herself how Tesla knew. When Anton and Helena get back to the dressing room, she chastises him for going too far and embarrassing the woman. A police lieutenant who is a fan of their act, visits their room. He expresses his admiration of whatever signal system they are using to perform, saying it is better than other mentalist acts he had seen and studied. Tesla insists he has true abilities and what he does is not an act. Helena, tired from the evening’s performance, decides to head back to their hotel. On leaving, she strangely tells her husband to not let his gift become a curse. She arrives at the night club lobby and she is greeted by a doorman, Saunders, who greatly admires their act. He reminds her to be careful walking in the rain. She is soon in a terrible accident, hit by a car that fled the scene. Anton runs to the street and holds the fallen Helena in his arms. Though she was killed, he seems to be getting messages from her.
Days pass, and Tesla visits the police lieutenant. Tesla is very depressed and not taking care of himself, still angry about the accident and disturbed that the police have made no progress in finding the driver. Tesla believes that the car that hit her was a white convertible and that the right fender was damaged. He “knows” this about the car because of his abilities. His frustration leads him to investigate himself. Tesla presses the doorman for information, and looking into his eyes, gets the message “I must not find out about Joe.” He visits Joe, the parking lot attendant, looking for the white car. Joe claims to have no knowledge of it, but Tesla thinks the car is in the lot, hastily repaired. He confronts Joe. Though no words are spoken, Tesla seems to have gotten a message, that the car belongs to Mr. Hughes, the club owner. He heads to the club, and barges into Hughes’ office. He accuses him of being the hit-and-run murderer. Tesla brings a gun, attempts to shoot him, and a scuffle ensues. Hughes manages to turn the gun away, but it fires and Tesla injures himself. The next scene has Hughes talking to the lieutenant, whom he called after the gun accident. A doctor is at the scene, and reports that Tesla is not likely to survive the trip to the hospital. The lieutenant speaks to the dying man and says that they found a man who admitted to the hit-and-run. It was not Hughes, but he was driving a white convertible that had fender damage, just like Hughes’ car had. Tesla insists it was Hughes in his dying breath. Hughes was not guilty, but he had a few drinks before he drove away and had little recollection of the night after the show ended. Until the lieutenant revealed that someone had confessed, Hughes worried that he might have actually committed the crime! Tesla’s description of the vehicle was correct, but he jumps to a conclusion without additional facts. Coincidence rendered the truth of his prescience to be terribly wrong.
Suspense presented other stories about mentalist stage acts that went wrong, such as A Vision of Death, and The Great Horrell. The episode Lazarus Walks also has similar themes.
The program was recorded on Thursday, June 14. 1962. The session began at 1:30pm and concluded 5:00pm.
The surviving recording is an aircheck from WROW. There is some static from weather interference in the listening area. A weather report precedes the episode and notes that there are storms in the area. The recording is in very good sound, better than what has been in common circulation among classic radio enthusiasts. The recording had a clipped close during the credits. The missing 12-second portion has been patched from a lesser quality recording for completeness. For this reason, the file name includes the word “composite.”
Actor Jack Kruschen is normally considered a Hollywood actor, but at the time of this episode, he was appearing in the Broadway hit play I Can Get it for You Wholesale. He played the character “Maurice Pulvermacher.” Also in the cast were Elliott Gould, Sheree North, and Barbara Streisand, who was making her Broadway debut. It was Kruschen’s only Broadway role.
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THE CAST
Jack Kruschen (Anton Tesla), Bryna Raeburn (Helena), Gilbert Mack, Reni Santoni, Jane Ward (Woman), Jim Boles, Jack Grimes (Joe, the parking lot attendant), William Redfield
Roles not announced in the show credits: Hughes, Lt. Clark, Saunders, Varney, Doctor, Officer, Man [likely parking lot attendant])
Actor Reni Santoni was just starting his career, and would later appear in many Carl Reiner projects. He would become better known as “Poppie” in the popular Seinfeld television series.
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