Jimmy Blaine stars in a Lois Landauer script about a former Korean War pilot named “Dave” who is bored by his job in a control tower at a remote emergency landing field. There’s just not enough activity to keep him interested in his work compared to his military flying. As the saying goes, “be careful what you ask for, you might just get it.” He certainly got more than he bargained for when a commercial flight has lost contact with traffic control in foggy conditions and was running out of fuel. Dave finally had contact and was working to guide the pilot to a safe landing. Complicating matters was that the control tower was “visited” by a strange man who said he had car problems. Dave tries to help him out by explaining where he can get gas and a tow. The man is odd, becomes irritated, so irritated that Dave looked up a number in the phone book, that he rips the phone book in half with his big, strong hands. (Remember that, because when you find out later that he’s a strangler who escaped from a mental hospital, that’s supposed to send your heart racing). The odd man leaves. While Dave is helping the plane to land, the news that the man was a strangler starts to come into play. He has to warn his wife, but there are phone problems (this is the land line era, not the cellular era), and the phone lines to Dave’s home are out. The phone operator seems overwhelmed. With the phone lines being out, Dave realizes that he let slip to the strangler where he lived in relation to the gas pump and the landing field. Tense, very tense. The plane lands, and Dave rushes home. The strangler is there, but his quick thinking wife, realized the danger, and kept him at bay. She figured out that the man was drawn to her scarf. He was not interested to use it as a means to strangle her. When he held the scarf, a calmness came over him, as if he was longing for the peace of living in a normal home with people he loves, rather than the institution. Dave becomes introspective and realizes that a dull life at the air field might be pretty good. Really. Yes, that’s the story.
Lois Landauer wrote for radio and television in the 1950s and 1960s.
This program was recorded on Thursday, July 26, 1962. The session began at 1:30pm and concluded at 5:00pm.
There are two surviving network aircheck recordings. There is a complete aircheck with its opening commercial that is in very low quality sound. The edited network aircheck is preferred. It is in better sound, but the commercial has been removed. There are other defects in the recording but it is very listenable.
This is the second of two appearances on Suspense for Jimmy Blaine. His military career mirrored that of the character he played in this episode. In WW2, he piloted a B-17 and flew twenty-five missions, mainly to attack Nazi submarine bases along the coasts of France. He was later transferred to Paris and was made commander of the Armed Forces Network station there. He passed away in 1967 at age 42, of a heart attack.
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Just a couple of days after this broadcast, the 1962-08-08 edition of Variety announced the CBS was cancelling Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP620805
THE CAST
Bill Lipton (Dink), Jimmy Blaine (Dave), Roger DeKoven (Strangler), Ted Pavell (Hank), Guy Repp (Sheriff), Jimsey Somers (Christine, telephone operator), Bob Readick (Pilot of Mercury Airlines flight 535)
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