Jim Backus and his wife Henny star in one of the most bizarrely creative Suspense episodes that likely confused listeners greatly as they wondered what was going on. It is likely many did not listen to its conclusion when it was originally broadcast. That’s a real shame. A great advantage that modern day classic radio enthusiasts have is the ability to listen to broadcast multiple times. If something doesn’t sound familiar, rewinding and pondering can help dig deeper into storylines and dialogue, and especially the structure of the stories. This is one of those times. Classic radio enthusiast and researcher John Barker notes that “Pages from a Diary is an effective latter-day Suspense episode, and an interesting experiment in composing an entire episode out of narration (almost all of it from Jim Backus).”
Keith Scott, international voice actor, classic radio researcher, and author of the best Suspense log available (from which the cast information for all of the episodes in the Suspense Project are drawn) noted that “The episode is a psychodrama, with a hint of Norman Bates of Psycho.”
The idea of using a diary format may have been inspired by the 1959 short story, Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. The story first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction April 1959 edition. The narrative of the story is comprised of first person diary entries of the main character. When the award-winning short story was adapted for television on the United States Steel Hour in 1961, but the story was converted to a traditional stage play. The story was built out into a novel published in 1966, and then adapted as a traditional movie screenplay. It was released as Charly in 1968. (There are links to these resources after the cast information below).
Another Suspense episode, Return to Dust, broadcast on 1959-02-01, was not a diary in the usual sense, but the experiences of the main character are related in great detail as if it was in diary form. It is more likely that Algernon may have been the mind of the author Virginia Volland than Return would be. Algernon received much more attention and would have been more widely known. They key point is this: in Algernon we read the diary of a man whose mental and writing skills are minimal, changed surgically to have an IQ approaching 200. The skill of Keyes is the craft the writing style to reflect the change in intelligence and self-awareness, especially as the surgical effects diminish and return to where he started. In Pages from a Diary, we sense a man having mental problems and difficulty discerning reality. Unless listeners were clued into the plotline, it is likely they were confused in some way.
The broadcast begins with Henny Backus’ character reading from a diary for a brief time. She plays a wife who finds her late husband’s diary. She starts reading and then the performance goes solely into Jim’s voice for the entries. The entries are a stream of consciousness account of his last days. Some of the diary is annoying because of that style of writing, but it’s intriguing at the same time. That’s because Jim’s character has multiple personalities, so don’t be surprised. There’s even some repetition in the narrative. It can be a frustrating production to stick with, but give it a chance. You’re listening to a man’s psyche devolving, which you don’t realize for a little while in the story. It can be uncomfortable for the listener, but it’s also uncomfortable for him. On one hand he is feeling great enlightenment and on the other hand he is feeling great bewilderment. You know it can’t end well.
The main question of the story is that John and Janet were estranged, and Janet was never sure why. She reads the diary hoping to find out. The entries begin in April. We hear his voice as the many entries are read, but he is clearly having psychological problems. He says a variety of things that indicate the struggles: “My body is a battleground” and having “impulses and counterimpulses” and being “...torn in two directions. I am two people.”
By the 9:30 mark, he has decided to kill Janet. It is also around this time he starts talking about how he can send his vision to one place, in this case to see a movie, but he forgot to send his hearing along. The same for other aspects of his body. He sends his arms and hands to ring door bells and then to disappear. Are these delusions of actions or is he performing these actions and the delusion is that he does not remember what he does as a whole person. He repeats himself, meandering, we’re losing patience as listeners, but he thinks he’s making great discoveries. At one point he says “we both went out to see her,” meaning that his two personalities went to see her. He says at one point his hands and arms were sent to her, and they were sent to strangle her. It doesn’t end well: he is committing suicide at a railroad trestle walking on the tracks, but it’s at the same time Janet feels, in retrospect when she continues her narrative, that she had a dream of being strangled. And strangely, she has the bruises on her neck of an attempted strangulation. And John was found at his desk, not outside. The story ends with a lack of closure… did John ever really leave his desk? Did he ever really visit Janet? Did he ever go to that movie?
This is such a creatively different presentation that classic radio fans who want to introduce others to Suspense or the hobby should be sure not to suggest this as their first or early episode of their listening. It is so atypical of the series that they might not be able to have the context needed to put it into perspective.
One could dissect this script and production for hours and hours. It was by Virginia Volland, a famous Broadway costume designer. Volland started on the stage as an actor when she was in college and continued over the years, then began working behind the scenes. She worked in costume and wardrobe over the years eventually became a highly regarded costume designer for Broadway in the early 1950s. Her career, however, was ended by blindness in the early 1960s. She started taking courses in writing, and this script was one of her early efforts. At he time she was writing this script she was likely beginning work on what would become a very popular book for those interested in theater and behind the scenes stories from her experiences. It received very positive reviews. Designing Woman: The Art and Practice of Theatrical Costume Design was published by Doubleday in 1966. As best as can be learned from available genealogical resources, she passed away in 1968.
In deciphering this episode, John Barker commented on the fan forum Cobalt Club and offered additional observations:
It has one very strange element, though: an entire fifty seconds is lifted from the first half and repeated in the second half. In the complete recording posted today it starts at 6:25 with "I am two people..." and ends at 7:17 with "...the leader my body must follow." This entire segment is repeated from 14:26 to 15:18. It's not that Jim Backus is asked to perform the dialogue again; the recording, background music included, is simply repeated during the second half of the drama. It's possible that the lengthy narration was recorded in segments and then edited together later on...did someone goof and paste the segment in twice? Was it done intentionally to pad out the running time? It is possible to drift in and out listening to this one and I heard the episode several times before confirming to myself that there was in fact a repetition. (I remember thinking to myself on previous listens "Didn't he say this already?" but didn't bother to go back to confirm it).
Since there is no access to a script at this time, there is no real answer to the dialogue repetition. The character repeats himself in so very many ways throughout, that it could be planned. It could also be that similar dialogue was used but something went wrong with the audio. There are a few times in the recording where there is a sudden volume change, and it’s always at the beginning of a sentence, so it is not random. This might be one of the most heavily edited productions of the New York period. It’s not an easy script, and there are many opportunities to add or subtract nuance. These could have been very long recording sessions.
Keith Scott adds:
The episode is a psychodrama, with a hint of Norman Bates of Psycho. It seems to me that his diary notes represent his subconscious coming to terms with his darker impulses. And it appears to be a deliberate edit from the first speech, inserted later, as if he is trying to re-justify his murderous feelings to cover up any guilt. I don’t know whether he kills both the housekeeper and Janet...it’s one of those David Lynch-style stories that is left up to each listener to interpret.
John Barker also notes:
The music played underneath Henny Backus' opening and closing narration is from Alex North’s score to the 1956 film The Bad Seed. The particular piece used is Identity and it can be heard at YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txUhWn40I9Q&list=OLAK5uy_m6hIRqy3yY6lruPYSXy-wTABREVupjM7Y&index=9
Ethel Huber was the musical director for this episode and for the 1959-1962 New York Suspense productions. It is not known how the piece came to her attention. Bad Seed was a big movie in its time, and there is a good chance she saw it, and musical directors always tried to be familiar with scores and recordings of all types.
Suspense broadcast two significant psychological stories under Antony Ellis, I Saw Myself Running and his interpretation of A Friend to Alexander. His staging of the James Thurber story was much better that the prior ones of the series). This 1962 Suspense production is good, but might have benefited from Ellis' production insights and its larger budget (which was meager compared to earlier years, but definitely larger than 1962). Ellis also had a wider range of Hollywood sound effects and music personnel in his time than Fred Hendrickson had in the last days of the series in New York. It’s compelling radio drama, often dismissed because it was done late in Suspense history.
The program was originally scheduled for broadcast for August 26, 1962 but was changed to August 19. Recording of the program was done on Wednesday, August 8, 1962. The start and finish time of the session is not known.
Lost Ship was originally scheduled for this date, based on newspaper listings.
Jim and Henny Backus were very popular celebrities on both US coasts at this time. Jim was best known for his characterization of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo but also for the TV series I Married Joan where he played the husband of Joan Davis’ lead character. They Jim and Henny co-authored best-selling books about their various amusing exploits, Rocks on the Roof and What are You Doing after the Orgy? The latter can be accessed at The Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/whatareyoudoinga0000back
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620819
THE CAST
Jim Backus (John), Henny Backus (Janet)
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Resources for Flowers for Algernon:
History of the story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon
Original short story: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction April 1959 edition https://archive.org/details/magazine-of-fantasy-science-fiction-1951-2008/1951-1959/1959/Magazine
1961 TV adaptation for United States Steel Hour as The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DfrzQ2Z8vY
IMDb entry for the 1968 film Charly: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062794
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