Paul McGrath stars as a man named “Rutledge” who is attorney for a frail elderly farmer. Alex knows he has only a few more days to live, and is concerned about being buried alive as well as who will inherit the farm. He requests that Rutledge arrange to have his coffin be fitted with an electric bell that can be activated should the need occur after he is buried. Alex trusts the wife of his nephew, Martha, with the farm, but not trust his nephew, Ramsey, with ultimate ownership of it. Ramsey is impetuous and greedy, and seeks to dispose of the farm as soon as legally possible. Alex arranges what he wants in the will, and asks Rutledge to keep its terms confidential for a week after he passes away. Rutledge arranges the coffin accordingly. Alex passes away, and everything is set in motion, and his body is placed in the nearby family crypt. Ramsey is furious that he has to wait to learn the terms of the will and belittles the idea of the bell, which he learns about after the funeral. Martha, however, respects Uncle Alex's wishes. She refuses to sell the farm; without Alex around, Martha becomes more assertive in her decisions. As the days pass, Ramsey has increasing anxiety and paranoia about the bell. His greed has no patience. One night, he hears the bell. It’s actually ringing, and it’s not his imagination! In a fit of rage and panic, he attacks Martha, knocks her unconscious, and rushes to the crypt to cut the wires to the bell. He locks himself inside the crypt, but Uncle Alex had not moved. Instead, he encounters a strange presence of the spirits of the deceased Jordan family members, including that of Alex. The spirits are aware of Ramsey’s malicious intent and he is trapped in the crypt. He dies there, of fright. The bell was engaged by a short circuit to the bell wires damaged by a severe storm, or at least that’s the practical explanation. Martha finally awakens in the hospital after her beating by Ramsey. Rutledge is at her side. He tells her what happened, and encourages her to start a new life, now unburdened by an abusive husband.
This script was originally planned to air September 16, 1962.
The program was recorded on Wednesday, August 29, 1962. The start and finish time of the session is not known.
The storyline may bring to mind the phrases “dead ringer” and “saved by the bell.” The phrase “dead ringer” does not refer to a bell being added to buried coffins so someone mistakenly buried could call for help. While this may have been tried, the phrase originates from horse racing, placing a horse that looks exactly like another in to perpetuate a fraud of some type. The phrase “saved by the bell,” often associated with a coffin bell, originated in boxing. A boxer in trouble would be happy when a boxing round ends with the ring of the bell to stop being pummeled by his opponent.
The script was written by Hector Chevigny written for the short-lived series Creeps by Night of 1944-04-23 with the title The Strange Burial of Alexander Jordan. He was a CBS radio staff writer starting in the late 1930s. He later became a novelist and wrote for television and film. He became blind after having detached retinas and with surgical solutions not working (such surgery has made great strides in recent decades). He continued to write. In 1946, Yale University Press published his biography, My Eyes Have a Cold Nose. It can be viewed at The Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/myeyeshavecoldno0000hect_x8n5
The 1956-10-23 CBS Radio Workshop featured Chevigny in its broadcast A Writer At Work. It explained how radio scripters worked and Chevigny offered comments as the program followed his process of preparing a script for the soap opera The Second Mrs. Burton.
There are many recordings of this episode in circulation. This particular network aircheck is fully intact with its opening commercial. Most of the other recordings have had that edited out. It is known that there is a surviving Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) recording, but it is not available at this time.
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TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
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https://archive.org/details/TSP620902
THE CAST
Paul McGrath (Rutledge), Connie Lembke (Martha Jordan), William Mason (Ramsey Jordan), Edgar Stehli (Alexander Jordan)
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