NOTE: This is the eighth of eight Suspense episodes that
Jack Johnstone submitted to the series under the name “Jack Bundy”
or “Jonathan Bundy.” All eight were derived from scripts
Johnstone wrote for his 1940-1941 Mutual series, Who Knows?
Details about that series can be found at the summary of the episode
1961-08-06 Bells.
The final episode of Suspense might be the most scorned and
despised broadcast of the series. It does not help that it is the
final broadcast of Suspense and the last the radio drama era,
so believed at that time. The story, written by Jack Johnstone, does
not deserve its negative reputation. Its reputation is unfortunately
tainted by its circumstance. It has an interesting history, however.
It fits the pattern of many Suspense episodes where the
backstory may be more intriguing than the broadcast. The script was
originally used on Johnstone’s series Who Knows? and was
broadcast on July 11, 1941. He made some small but
interesting changes to the script for the Suspense broadcast.
The story
Devilstone introduces listeners to Timothy Martin, played by
Christopher Cary, a wealthy man of Dublin. He has just inherited a
castle in Northern Ireland, called “Devilstone.” He does not want
to move there, but would prefer to turn it into a rental property.
His attorney says it will not be possible because it is haunted.
Martin does not believe in such things. He has been pitching rental
of the castle to an American couple, the Stokers, who were eager to
do sign on. The Stokers go, but return early, very upset. The wife
had a terrifying experience there from its haunting. Martin does not
believe it, but his curiosity is piqued. He decides to go and see for
himself, taking his butler and his dog with him. They visit and have
some experiences in the nature of a poltergeist, and hear a ghostly
warning that they should leave. That warning leads to another: the
dog is dead without any sign of foul play or injury. Martin and the
butler experience the sight of a ghost. At one point they see
footprints appear, with no visible or physical being making them.
They return to Dublin to see the attorney for more details.
He provides Martin with a fuller story. It is revealed that
Devilstone was built by Martin’s ancestor, Jason O’Flynn, for his
wife. She died on the very day she tried to enter it. O’Flynn,
consumed by grief, swore no one else would ever live in the house
until his own body “turned to dust.” He disappeared, not to be
seen again.
The day after the visit with the lawyer, Martin and the butler return
to the castle. They find a hidden trapdoor beneath a wrinkled rug in
the very room where they experienced the apparitions. Below, in a
crypt-like space, is the perfectly preserved body of Jason O’Flynn!
His wrists were cut, indicating a suicide. As fresh air reaches the
crypt, after decades of being sealed, O’Flynn’s body rapidly
decays and turns to dust. This breaks the curse. It implies that his
spectral presence they encountered previously was tied to his
perfectly preserved remains. The haunting of the castle ends as the
body turns to dust. The Latin words “requiescat in pace”
are uttered to conclude the story (and also the radio drama era).
The story
behind the story
This episode is a re-use and rebuild of a script written by Johnstone
for Who Knows? The similarities of Devilstone and the
Who Knows? production can be easily detected. At about 3:00
of the Devilstone broadcast, the text matches the 1941-07-11
script. Listen to the Suspense version and hear how similar it
is to the 1941 broadcast script:
JOHNSTONE: Deep under St. Michan’s Church, in Dublin, is a crypt
that possesses most amazing properties. In it are scores of bodies,
all in a state of perfect preservation, albeit hundreds of years old.
They say that
it's all due to some form of Black Magic. How about that, Dr.
Carrington?
CARRINGTON: Mr. Johnstone, modern chemistry has finally exploded that
belief, has shown that certain gases, generated by the unusual
composition of damp earth, have produced this strange phenomenon.
Devilstone is mainly a ghost story. It is interesting that
producer William Spier, back in the 1940s, issued Suspense script
guidelines that stated:
Suspense is not a ghost story broadcast. The most successful
shows have been those which were realistic and in which the listener
could easily identify himself with the predicament of the main
character.
Oh well, Devilstone is a ghost story. Whoops! The guidelines
Spier set were obviously no longer applicable. He violated them
himself when he presented HP Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror.
Did Johnstone select Devilstone for submission and secure
the agreement of producer Fred Hendrickson for a particular reason?
Is there a new, special symbolism or connection relevant to Suspense
and its broadcast demise?
Johnstone wrote the first Devilstone script in 1941. When
Suspense came under the producerships of Bruno Zirato, Jr. and
Fred Hendrickson, the re-working of past scripts helped cope with the
paucity of new radio scripts of the time. If there was a gap in the
schedule coming up, a prior script could be adapted more quickly than
writing a new one. In the late 1950s, the best writers gravitated to
the greater financial benefits of television. Johnstone resigned
himself to that shortage by deciding to write most of the post-5-part
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar scripts himself and also allowing
other writers to adapt their previous scripts for the series.
Repurposing and reformatting Johnstone’s own past scripts helped
keep both shows on the air from budget and production deadline
perspectives. Devilstone may have been written in 1941 to be
just a spooky story, but the imagery Johnstone crafted could be
re-shaped to the unique circumstances of September 30, 1962. The
likelihood of a listener remembering the Who Knows? series and
linking it to this Devilstone episode was very small.
Linking the
symbolism with broadcast business realities
The castle in Northern Ireland and is haunted by an ancestral ghost.
Is that castle Suspense? Is it inherited because Johnstone is
one of the show’s main scripters (and also Yours Truly, Johnny
Dollar) in the final months months and weeks? (An
inheritance is something you get whether you want it or not). Is the
“Suspense castle” inherited because he is the author of
the scripts that ended both series on that day? Is Suspense
haunted by an ancestral ghost of “radio past” and the actors
and listeners of the golden age of radio? Or is Suspense a
“ghost of itself,” its own heyday long past? Are people listening
in 1962 because of what Suspense used to be and not what it
became?
The ancestor committed suicide. His body was stored in a manner that
it would be preserved and incorrupt. Once exposed to the air,
however, the corpse turned to dust. Is that ancestor symbolic of
radio the way it was, committing suicide by surrendering all it was
over to television? Once radio gave into that medium, it symbolically
turned to dust. CBS Radio president, Arthur Hull Hayes, commented in
a 1962-10-08 St. Louis Post-Dispatch interview that “if
people want drama, television can do it much better.” He continued
about the cancellations “we’re only doing what should have been
done years ago.”
That “done years ago” comment applies to the story. The corpse
was preserved from air, but once exposed, it turned to dust. Does the
Hayes comment mean that Suspense and YTJD were
“protected” from the actions of the marketplace and maintained by
CBS for no good reason? In the story, the curse existed only because
the corpse did not get natural airflow around it. If had, there would
be no curse. Is that Hayes’ managerial point? Is he saying that
clinging to and protecting obsolete radio formats undermined the
financial health of the CBS radio division? Was the underperformance
of financial health their own self-imposed curse?
The last three
words
With the closing words of the Devilstone drama, “requiescat
in pace,”
radio “gave up the ghost.” Its spirit was gone and
could not return, according to Johnstone. Those final words are the
Latin phrase meaning “rest in peace,” usually abbreviated “RIP.”
It indicates that a person is dead, free from earthly turmoil and
enjoying a happier afterlife, and never to return.
That phrase is a significant departure from the conclusion of the Who
Knows? script. The 1941 production’s final words were
“pax vobiscum.” Why the change?
The context and meaning of the two phrases are very different. Pax
vobiscum, “peace be with you,” are the words uttered
by the resurrected Jesus Christ in the Gospels of Luke and John in
this particular and similar forms. The epistles of Paul, Peter, and
John, open with a similarly worded expression. It also appears in the
early lines of the Book of Revelation. Note that:
The latter
phrase was
part of early Christian funeral rituals. It
is more widely known for
its appearance on tombstones. Its
first documented use on
such markers,
at least discovered
so far, is
sometime in the Fifth
Century. It
came into wide common
use later and is still
used today.
Johnstone was
convinced that the
broadcast of Devilstone
was the certain
end of network
radio drama programming,
and was never
to return. Those
three last words, requiescat in pace,
were his acknowledgment and expression of that
sentiment and that certainty.
During a presentation about the Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
series at the September 2025 Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention,
author John Abbott related what Jack Johnstone's daughter reported
about that day. When Devilstone concluded, Jack turned off his
radio, turned to her and said it was “the end of an era.” Days
later, he retired from CBS.
Curiosities
The closing announcements of Devilstone do not declare it as
the last episode of Suspense. The only hint of
finality is the absence of the
tease for the next week’s broadcast.
It is believed that some affiliates were disgruntled at the prospect
of Suspense and YTJD cancellations and that CBS
allowed repeats of the New York productions on the network feeds for
a few months. If that was the case, for listeners to those stations,
Suspense would still be on the air and did not have a final
episode, at least for them, on September 30, 1962. Verification of
those continuing broadcasts is elusive, but it does appear in many
newspaper radio timetables for months and in some cases, years.
Suspense was briefly syndicated in the 1970s by Charles
Michaelson. His business was a syndication of many other series, but
best known for The Shadow.
The cancellation of Suspense and Yours Truly, Johnny
Dollar received practically no news coverage. The November 1960
cancellation of CBS soap operas received far more news attention.
Suspense was cancelled at that time, but YTJD was not.
Suspense returned
at the end of June 1961, replacing Gunsmoke.
Actor Ted Osborne was in the very first Suspense broadcast in
1942 and this final show, over twenty years later. For reasons
unknown, he is billed as “Reynold Osborn” during his later
Suspense appearances, and even in summer stock theater. He
was the only performer to be in each of the “bookend”
broadcasts.
The character “Stoker” is likely a reference to Bram Stoker,
author of the landmark novel, Dracula. This little inside
joke implies that if someone named “Stoker” won’t stay at
Devilstone because it’s haunted, it must be true! Stoker was not
American as the man in the story is, but was of Irish descent,
loosely linking the real-life author to the location of Devilstone.
This was likely an inside joke of convenience for Johnstone. The
famous 1931 Dracula movie that starred Bela Lugosi could
still be found in theaters in 1941 (often for late Saturday night
horror movie showings). The late 1920s play also remained popular in
regional theater productions. The 1941 listeners of Who Knows?
were more likely to get the reference than the 1962 listeners
were.
Radio
collectors referred to September
30, 1962 as
“the day
radio died.” This was
same way that the February
3, 1959 plane crash in
which Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the “Big Bopper” perished
was called “the day the music died.” (That phrase was
re-immortalized
in Don McLean’s 1970s
song American
Pie). Drama
would be back in fits and starts with Theatre
5 by the ABC Radio
Network, and other series such as Hollywood
Radio Theater (sometimes
referred to as Zero
Hour), the productions
of Jim French in the Seattle area, but especially CBS
Radio Mystery Theater.
Jack Johnstone could not
have foreseen that any
success any of these
later dramas would
even be possible.
How paradoxical it was
that CBS would bring drama back. CBS
Radio Mystery Theater presented
1399 original
episodes and was
broadcast for parts of nine years. It would inspire a new generation
of classic radio fans.
Surviving
recordings
The surviving recording is a WROW aircheck. An Armed Forces Radio and
Television Service recording (AFRTS#917) is known to exist, but is
not available at this time.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP620930
THE CAST
Christopher Cary (Timothy Martin), Neil Fitzgerald (Everts), Gilbert
Mack (Carney), Walter Greaza (Stoker), Frank Milano (Kim the dog),
Ted Osborne [aka Reynold Osborn] (Man’s Voice)
Ian Martin also appeared in the 1941 Who Knows? broadcast of
this script.
###
