The
broadcast of Three O’Clock with
Van Heflin may be one of the
finest performances and productions of radio’s golden age. It is a
marvelous convergence of a great Cornell Woolrich story, a superb
actor, excellent effects, a terrific supporting cast, superior use of
music to heighten the mood and many
changes
of scenes, innovative
direction that demarcates the present and a flashback so well, and
much more.
The
Woolrich story is adapted by Walter Brown Newman, a noted writer
whose career would include three Oscar nominations for best
screenplay spread over
three different decades.
If
a reader of this analysis would prefer to listen to the program
first, now is the time to do it. Go to this link for the
network broadcast recording https://archive.org/details/TSP490310/Suspense+1949-03-10+Three+O'Clock+NETWORK.flac
If
you have heard the program before, it is hoped that these
observations and background will create a richer experience when
listening again.
The
story begins with husband Paul, played by Heflin, recounting the
circumstances that lead to his decision to enact a plan to destroy
his home to murder his cheating wife while escaping detection with an
unshakable alibi. After setting up the timed explosion, his exit from
the home is thwarted by burglars. They tie him to a chair in the
basement and gag him, placing him right next to the device he set for
his selfish revenge.
It
is later revealed that the premise for that marital retaliation is
flawed; she has not been cheating on him. She has been keeping her
activities secret as she assisted her troubled brother. She was
concerned that Paul might not like her getting involved with her
convict sibling. Paul’s lack of trust for her leads to his
misinterpreting her actions. Once he learns the truth, the fear,
panic, and regret he has drives the Heflin performance. Paul’s
remorse grows deeper in his helplessness. The emotional whirlwind
brings him to sudden death as the clock alarm rings at the end of the
story. Paul only has himself to blame for his dilemma. He suffers
alone, pleading for help and forgiveness that no one can hear, and
pondering the misfortune his actions will create. He will never know
how lucky he was that his plan failed, and that he will become the
sole victim of his plan.
That
is the general background of the story… there are many more details
and subtleties about Heflin’s performance.
The
drama begins with Paul justifying his actions against his cheating
wife. He is methodical in his process. He describes what he is doing,
how his bomb is being created and connected, and how it’s timed to
trigger in 75 minutes. That will give him plenty of time to get back
to his watch and clock repair shop. His career is the repair and
admiration of timekeeping devices. How fitting is it that he will
soon be trapped in a situation where a clock’s every secondhand
movement and click dominates his focus, making him acutely aware that
his very life ticks away with each one? His repair shop is loaded
with clocks, but this one becomes the singular timepiece that matters
to his precious life.
His
plan goes wrong all at once, a common plot device of Woolrich.
Burglars break into the house just as he’s ready to depart. They
are very surprised to find him there. They force him down to the
basement, tie him to a chair, and gag him. He sits in full view of
the bomb he created, hearing the loudly-ticking alarm clock, and
knowing it will trigger a murderous explosion at three o’clock. It
is at that point that the story’s foundation has been set, and
there is an Auto-Lite commercial.
Suspense did not follow an in-show schedule for its first
commercial. In its early years, a “mid-show” commercial was at
the mid-point of the program. That changed over time as the series
developed. This is one of the values of a sponsored program: the show
content could be presented in its own time and manner that enhanced
the story’s development. In the 1950s, when shows did not have
sponsors and there was a more rigid schedule with affiliate stations,
breaks in stories had to be at specific times that local advertisers
and the stations agreed to by contract. The flexibility of story
development had to change, and radio scripters had to plan
accordingly. At this time in Suspense history,
however, the sponsor knew that great storytelling held their
audience. They would set the stage for the story in whatever time it
took, get their message out of the way, and then let the drama play
out on its own within the overall broadcast time allotment. Three
O’Clock is not a long story,
in that regard, but it is compact and concentrated. It’s hard to
believe so much can happen in a short time, and such a wide range of
emotions can be expressed and include changes in time periods and
scenes.
In this case, only seven minutes of broadcast time has passed,
with half of that used for the show opening and the two commercials.
Just about three and a half minutes has been used to set up the drama
that will unfold after the mid-show commercial. What do we know so
far? We know a man believes his wife is cheating, he is so distraught
and angry that he will resort to blowing up his own house with her
alone in it. He is confronted by burglars who subdue him quickly, and
he fights and squirms valiantly to get away from them but also to
warn them about what he is done, and they are in danger, too.
Heflin’s performance goes way beyond yelling or grunting. There’s
a sincerity and subtlety in everything and every moment he’s
immersed in the role. You can sense the fear that would be part of
the event if it was real. Please! Let the commercial end! The
audience is hooked and wants more!
Note how the loud ticking clock is a key element of the story.
Woolrich
did not have the benefit of audio when he wrote the story. He did
it in text such as this:
It
went tick-tick, tick-tock; tick-tick, tick-tock,
so
rhythmically, so remorselessly, so fast.
Paul’s life is clocks. He’s around the sound of ticking clocks
all day. It’s background noise that he may actually enjoy as he
works. But that changes today. There is only one clock that matters
now. Each tick is suddenly precious. It’s not background noise any
more. The sound develops the tension and urgency of the situation.
The CBS publicity for the show says that the listener “sweats it
out with Heflin,” and we certainly do.
As a listener, you don’t realize the significance of the sound
effect in the production until the story plays out. The ticking of
the clock is a subtle marker that a dramatic scene occurs in the
present. The story has many flashbacks, and the effect is not used in
those scenes. When that flashback is over, and the scene shifts to
the present, the ticking is obvious upon its return. The story keeps
going back and forth with flashbacks that fill in the story, and
listeners realize the ticking is the signal that we’re back to the
present and each tick is Paul’s life slipping away.
In
his first minutes of restraint, Paul goes through the justification
of his actions. His wife has been cheating, and he knows it for a
fact. She’s out of the house at times outside of her established
routine. When he asks her about it, she covers up her whereabouts in
an evasive manner. He pokes holes in her stories, making him certain
that she is unfaithful and undeserving of his affections. Later in
the story we learn that she’s actually helping a family member
overcome legal troubles. Paul, tied up in the basement, overhears the
truth. It’s much too late; he can’t undo what he’s already
done.
His
lecturing to himself about justifying his actions and setting up the
explosive lasts 1:30 (one minute, thirty seconds). He’s cool and
calm and confident as he prepares to leave. The sequence of the home
invasion, getting tied up and gagged lasts 2:25. The burglars comment
about the intensity of his resistance. Note how convincing Heflin
is. This is not your basic radio fight or scuffle. As they
restrain him he works hard to fight back, but he can’t. He’s
panicking and can barely contain his breath. He tries to yell at the
burglars and can’t. You can hear him squirm from his voicing of his
attempt to speak! Only he knows why it’s so important to get out;
the burglars just want to “grab and go” and he’s preventing
them from doing so until he is fully restrained. It’s two opposing
forces, but Paul is just outnumbered and unable to resist. Everyone
in the basement is intent on completing their own selfish evil act.
The burglars leave, complaining as they exit that there was really
nothing worth taking. Paul is stranded. That all happened in three
and a half minutes. We learned so very much.
The
main drama
begins after the seven minute mark. It’s
hard to believe that such rich storytelling with
so many swaps between the
past and the
present, the
expression of raw emotion
will take
less than 20 minutes.
Heflin's performance is
incredible. He realizes what
he’s done and starts pleading with his wife, who is not there, to
come home and get him out of the situation. What if she did? What
would she say? How would he explain it? He expresses his sorrow for
his plan, even though she deserved it. He has some
sorrow, but no remorse. That
will come later.
The
first flashback is about 8:30. The ticking effect ends. Heflin
has to switch from his portrayal of growing panic and frustration to
the ordinariness of just another day coming home from work. There is
happiness in seeing his wife and they are playful with each other. He
is calm as he sits down in the living room to read the paper as she
talks about her day. Then he realizes someone was in the house
earlier in the day, when he sees a cigar butt, still warm, in the ash
try. He asks if there were any visitors, and she says no. He knows
she is lying.
The
ticking begins again at about 9:40 and the drama
switches back to the interior dialogue. His voice is less panicky but
as he talks to himself that the clock seems to be going faster, you
can sense the frustration starting to build. At about 10:15 he
hears the doorbell ring. It’s the gas service meter reader whom he
wants so desperately to come in and rescue him. There’s hope that
there’s an excuse for the gas reader to go into the house. But the
two workers will not enter the house unless someone is home.
Frustration is in his voicing, even though it’s an internal
dialogue. He realizes his time for escape with their help is gone.
Heflin’s breathing pattern makes that clear.
At
12:10 it’s another flashback, and the ticking stops. He
thinks he’s caught his wife in a lie about where she’s been. Her
excuse was seeing an evening movie. He picks apart her alibi by
asking questions about it. You can hear his disbelief becoming more
intense as she talks. The conversation starts as casual and becomes
more pointed.
The
drama returns to the present at
13:10
with the return of the
ticking. He
calmly explains how that conversation,
combined with the cigar butt, sealed his wife’s fate. Then he looks
at the clock and the panic starts setting in again. He is getting
lost in his jealous thoughts so much that he forgets about the time!
The listener is still clued
into it because the clock has
been ticking all
along.
He
hears his wife upstairs in the kitchen as she returns from food
shopping. He wants so
desperately for her attention, to have her come downstairs. Notice
how Heflin’s voicing has moved from calm to panicked to
conciliatory is a very short time.
The
phone rings,
and she answers. She tells the caller that she thinks the house was
robbed. He overhears the conversation and
that she tried to reach Paul at the shop, and that he will be mad if
the small amount of money that was in the house is gone.
He
keeps stating how much time is left; it’s
passing so quickly. He has to reassure himself that she deserves the
trap he’s set. At 16:00
the ticking stops for a
flashback about his returning
from work on another day.
She seems very happy to see
him, but his demeanor is still cautious and unsmiling. She
starts tickling him and they start laughing together. How
can this couple not be getting along? It’s
a happy, playful
moment where their cares are set aside until she
discovers he has a package. He
tells her it’s fertilizer so they can start a garden. It’s
his turn to lie. That
laughter ended so quickly.
16:55
The ticking begins again. He explains how he’s been bringing home
everything needed to make the bomb. His thoughts move to talking to
her, hoping she will come downstairs and find him. The ticking
continues.
At
17:40 her brother comes over and they sit down to talk. He
realizes it’s only 28 minutes left on the clock. He wonders: is
this person her love interest? The man seems to know about Paul and
mentions him by name. He realizes that she’s been helping her
brother, and not having an affair. The brother has been in trouble,
and is an escaped convict. He wants to set things right, and get back
into society again. He’s concerned that if she goes to the police
station to turn himself in, she will get into trouble. He suggests
that they call Paul and ask him to come. She says no, that she will
do it. Paul finds a way to make noise in the cellar. It’s
dismissed. They leave the house to go to the police station. It’s
clear there is a decency about Paul’s wife that he did not
appreciate. Rather than trusting her, offering a benefit of the
doubt, or having a relationship where family matters could be
discussed, his mind and jealous instincts fled to the worst
possibility.
Heflin
is out of breath; he starts calling her to come back, all in his
mind, in great panic. He is so distraught starts calling for his
mother to help him. How fitting that is, as a child enters the story.
At
20:15, the clock still ticking, a neighborhood boy starts
bouncing a ball against the house. His mother tries to get him to
stop. He peers in the basement window. He asks his mother to look at
the “funny man.” She implores him to stop. He leaves, saying to
his mother “bye, bye, funny man, tied up,” and goes away. Knowing
they are gone, Paul starts crying. All seems lost. He has ten minutes
left. He starts thinking of his mother and apologizing for some past
childhood offense. He claims he was a good boy, and such claims make
one wonder if his thinking pattern of mistrust is something he’s
suffered with since childhood that has affected other relationships.
At
22:10 the phone starts ringing, likely the wife trying to
reach Paul. She was probably checking if he came home from work while
she was at the police station. He tears up and says bye to her.
He
starts talking to the clock, as the minutes pass, he keeps repeating
how much time is left. The ticking stops as he hopes time will stand
still, but it keeps going. He starts crying, catches himself. He says
“Paulie says ‘bye bye five’” as a child as the five minute
mark passes. The ticking starts and the furthest flashback, back to
childhood, begins.
At
23:45 he’s talking to his mother, in a soft voice that
implies childhood trust and innocence. She asks him if he knows what
time it is. He says “one minute to three.” The ticking begins
again at 24:10, and he’s convinced he was dreaming. He may
have briefly passed out from exhaustion. Many of these flashbacks
could have been in a sleeplike state as his mind drifted off.
Each
tick of the clock is more important now. He counts down the clock as
he pleads for his life, for his mother, for his wife, crying
throughout. He counts it down, crying with each number. Listeners may
have been ready for someone to burst in and save him. But as each
second passes, it becomes obvious that won’t happen.
At
25:10 the alarm rings, suddenly, loudly, startling to anyone
who was listening, and then retreats. The music comes up to change
the scene. A police officer is questioning the wife about the scene
in the basement. We hear the coroner pronouncing Paul as dead of
heart failure. The officer asks if she knows anything about the box
and the wires and the clock. She explains how she had used the powder
that Paul was bringing home to plant flowers, because he loved
flowers so much! After all, he said he wanted a garden, a lie he
told her, when he was gathering what was needed for his horrible
plan. This also means that she trusted exactly what he said to her,
and he did not trust her in the least. The innocent person was saved
in this story, the wayward brother may be on a road to reform through
her efforts, and the person whose jealousy and selfishness led to
this horrible incident met justice of his own making. The story is a
strange twist of good over evil.
The
concluding music comes up and completes the drama.
Available
recordings: the network recording is preferred
There
are two recordings of this broadcast. The better recording is of
the network broadcast. The other recording is an Armed Forces
Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) highly edited version that is in
low quality. The Heflin performance can be fully enjoyed and
understood only in the best possible sound, which makes the network
recording the best choice.
Heflin’s
challenge and an actor’s perspective
Craig
Wichman, classic radio historian and enthusiast, and professional
actor, says that he
“...always found Heflin to
be a very solid actor, in both film
and radio…
‘One-hander’ solo roles are a unique challenge. And that
challenge is doubled, when it's a very emotional piece -- where the
risk of overacting is a pitfall for some. Van, here, is about as good
as Cagney in Johnny Got His Gun
- which is to say, about as good as such things get.”
That
Cagney performance is exceptional and is from Arch Oboler’s
Plays of 1940-03-09. It is an
adaptation of Dalton
Trumbo’s book of the same name. It is about a multiple amputee who
cannot speak after his war injuries, and has a similar acting
challenge that Heflin had in this script. It can be heard at
https://otrr.org/OTRRLibrary/jukebox/Arch%20Obolers%20Plays%2040-03-09%20(51)%20Johnny%20Got%20His%20Gun.mp3
Background about the
original novel is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun
Craig
is also steadfast
in his enthusiasm about Heflin’s lead role in the short-lived
Philip Marlowe series
on ABC. That series was truer to Raymond Chandler’s gritty
detective than the later CBS version with Gerald Mohr that offered a
lighter and sarcastic characterization. Unfortunately, few of the
Heflin episodes
have survived, but there are enough to know that the vision of the
ABC series was quite different and Heflin was superb in it.
Other
notes about this broadcast
Why
does the mid-show commercial mention tax returns? The deadline for US
Federal tax filings was still March 15. It was changed to April 15 in
1954.
Near
the end of this broadcast,
at 27:45, Heflin calls
director Tony Leader from
the production studio to the microphone. He is
presented with a special scroll for
their selection as best mystery drama by
Ann Daggett of Radio Mirror.
Heflin sounds happy and
enthused. He’s probably pleased that there is no second performance
on the same night as there was in the Roma era. He must have been
exhausted.
A
television presentation of the Woolrich story
Alfred
Hitchcock had a TV series
that was separate from the
better-known Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It
was a series on NBC that ran from 1957 to 1958. Suspicion
had 42 productions, and like the legendary Playhouse 90,
had half of its productions as
filmed and the other half as live. Hitchcock produced
this story
himself as
Four O’Clock. It
starred
EG Marshall and the ending
was
truer to the original story. Paul
is driven to the point of insanity, and does not die, but is carried
off in a straitjacket. The hour-long production can be viewed at
https://youtu.be/fv7b10Vd8hc
or at https://archive.org/details/Suspicion_1_01_Four_O_clock
Details about the casting and original broadcast can be found at
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0714191/
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP490310
THE CAST
VAN HEFLIN (Paul), Georgia Ellis
(Francie / Bobby), Ted de Corsia (Duke / Cop), Walter Craig (Lou /
Gas Man), Walter Burke (Earl / Gas Man 2), George Baxter (Dave /
Doc), Ann Morrison (Bobby’s Mother), Paul Frees (Signature Voice)
COMMERCIAL: Bill Johnstone (Hap),
Sylvia Simms (Operator), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer)
###
