1947-06-19 Dead of Night

This is the second performance of a Mel Dinelli script about a misunderstanding that leads to a mistaken coverup of what was believed to be a murder… by hiding the body in plain sight on a beach! (Is this Suspense having a brush with the future 1980s movie Weekend at Bernie’s?)

The script was originally presented on 1944-11-16 with the slightly different title “The Dead of the Night.” That production starred Robert Cummings. Details about the background and writer Mel Dinelli can be found at that blogpost at

• https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/05/1944-11-16-dead-of-night.html

• The recordings are at https://archive.org/details/TSP441116

Elliott Reid was always scheduled to appear on Suspense on this date, but script selection changed. The story originally scheduled for this date was Smiley, but that was delayed to 1947-08-14 with guest star Donald O’Connor. Reid’s performance in this episode is considered better than the initial broadcast with Cummings.

The logistics of the New York trip for the series (noted in the prior post) necessitated the change in script and streamlining this broadcast. William Spier and musical director Lud Gluskin were on their way or had already arrived in New York. Using an earlier script had advantages. The Hollywood ensemble cast was already familiar with the script. The musical bridges were already written and documented from that prior broadcast, so the orchestra had some familiarity with the pieces.

Charles Vanda took over the production for this broadcast. There is an inside joke with Wally Maher playing a cop named “Slugger Vanda.” That character appears after the 15:30 mark. In the original broadcast the character was named “Red Davis.” Maher played the part at that time..

Both network recordings have survived. The east broadcast includes the tease for The FBI in Peace and War. The west broadcast is the better of the two, but both recordings have enjoyable sound quality.

(NOTE: Escape has an audition program recorded three months earlier with the title Dead of Night. That is a much different story. It is about a deranged ventriloquist. The Escape audition was likely never broadcast).

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP470619

THE CAST

ELLIOTT REID (Jimmy Barden), Cathy Lewis (Helen), Wally Maher (Slugger Vanda), Anne Stone (Mrs. Gordon), Colleen Collins (Tough kid), Henry Blair (First boy), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice), Berne Surrey, Carl Schaele (Ad-Libs)

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1947-06-12 Stand-In

June Havoc stars as a second level actor whose resemblance to a movie star has her as a stand-in. Her main purpose in the movie shoot is to set up lighting and be used in “long shots” so the big star does not have to be on the set all of the time. That resemblance becomes a key part of the actress’ new (and already disgruntled) husband’s plan to do away with her and run away with the stand-in and live happily ever after. They almost do it. The film and audio on the cutting room floor are examined by the police and they eventually catch the couple before “ever after” comes. It’s an interesting plot with many intricacies in the timetable of the plan. It shows how much can be done in the 24 minutes of drama of a Suspense episode. The script is by Pamela Wilcox and adapted by Robert L. Richards.

Both east and west network recordings have survived. The east broadcast includes the tease for The FBI in Peace and War. The east recording is the better of the two.

So much is happening behind the Suspense scenes. Pamela Wilcox and Bob Richards are heading toward matrimony. Kay Thompson and Bill Spier have filed for divorce and Bill and June Havoc started a romance that will lead to marriage. Kay is about to establish residence in Las Vegas to satisfy divorce requirements needed for the official split with Bill. While she is there, she is being paid a handsome sum to create what would become the model for Las Vegas entertainment shows for decades to come.

In the spirit of Suspense “it just so happens” plotlines, June headed to Connecticut after this broadcast. She would be appearing at the regionally well-known Westport Playhouse in Girl of the Golden West with Robert Stack opening on June 30.

“It just so happens” that Bill, Howard Duff, Sam Spade, and Suspense were headed east, too! They’re all going to New York. Spade is by produced Spier so the program had to follow Duff to New York for the shooting of Mark Hellinger’s famous police procedural The Naked City. He was still able to do the Spade show while he was there. (Unfortunately, none of those episodes have been found). On those quiet evenings, Bill can visit Connecticut, where he has family ties, and also visit June.

The Suspense show was mainly staffed by New York actors, and it is marvelous to hear Ken Roberts doing the Roma commercials. Spier will miss the next Hollywood Suspense and creator Charles Vanda will fill in next week while he is gone. Keith Scott notes that Lud Gluskin made the trip to New York as well. It is likely Spier was meeting with CBS executives about what to do with Suspense and its sponsorship if Roma did not renew again. More details in upcoming posts.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP47-06-12

THE CAST

JUNE HAVOC (Diana Burke), Elliott Lewis (Dennis O’Brien), Hans Conried (Director), Wally Maher (Assistant director / Gate Guard), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Crew member), Jerry Hausner (Photographer / Studio guard), Elliott Reid (Jensen / Lieutenant Malone), Henry Blair (Boy), Cathy Lewis (Madame Maggie), Frank Albertson (Michael)

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1947-06-05 Make Mad the Guilty

Hume Cronyn returns to Suspense for the last time. He was excellent in all of his appearances. He’s cast against type here as an over-the-hill Shakespearian actor with all of the over-acting and use of lines of plays he was in that is wonderfully amusing. Cronyn is so good at his craft he can summon his skill to portray an awful actor and be convincing at it! That is, until the plotline takes shape; then the cartoonish aspect of the performance dissipates and Cronyn gets down to evil business. Cronyn’s character tells his wife, and the man she desires to run away with, that he has a deal for them. He’ll fake his death, she can take the house, he can get the insurance money when the company pays off. If they agree, he will go away and they will never see him again. Later, he knows the insurance company paid… but he hasn’t gotten his money. It’s time for him to re-appear and have them abide by the deal.

The original story was by screenwriter Robert Rossen, known most for his 1949 film All the King’s Men. He wrote the screenplay of Robert Penn Warren’s novel and directed and produced the film. It won three Oscars. He also wrote, produced, and directed The Hustler. This Suspense script was adapted by Irving Moore and Robert L. Richards.

The title of the story comes from Hamlet, act 2, scene 2. There are numerous quotes from plays recited by Cronyn’s character. They become grating, and annoying, but you start to wonder what he will say next. That fascination passes quickly, then you want to be rid of him just as much as his wife does. The performance makes you wonder if Cronyn had any of the personalities he met in his acting career in particular mind when he was working on this character.

Cronyn’s character is a reminder of one decades later: “Master Thespian” by Jon Lovitz on Saturday Night Live. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmZSkWBJwBU

Some great radio voices in here we don’t usually hear on Suspense: Bea Benaderet and Gerald Mohr.

There are two network recordings with no indication of which is east or west. A low quality recording concludes with a Cresta Blanca wine commercial. The better recording does not have that commercial.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP470605

THE CAST

HUME CRONYN (Bert Matthews), Bea Benaderet (Elizabeth Matthews), Gerald Mohr (Longstreet), Jerry Hausner (Checking station guard), Elliott Reid (Florist), Wally Maher (District Attorney / Prison clerk), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Prison guard / 1st cop), Dick Ryan (Judge / 2nd cop), Peggy Rea (Telegram girl), unknown (Jury Foreman)

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1947-05-29 A Thing of Beauty

Angela Lansbury stars in a new performance of A Thing of Beauty about a recluse actress involved in a years-ago murder. The story was originally presented in December 1944. Details are at

• https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/05/1944-12-28-thing-of-beauty.html

• https://archive.org/details/TSP441228

Many classic radio fans have preference for this performance rather than the 1944 one that starred June Duprez. It could be that the current era affection for Lansbury from her years on Murder, She Wrote creates a bigger gap between that show’s warm and kind character and the one she plays in this performance. That makes this Suspense role more disturbing than it would otherwise be.

The curious aspect of this script is that it is by Elizabeth Hiestand. Under the name of Elisabeth A. Heisch, she was writer of The Cinnamon Bear with her husband Glanville Taft Heisch. That was an innocent and endearing Christmas project for children and family. This episode is certainly not!

The east and west broadcasts have survived but it is not known which or the two recordings is to which coast. There is no tease for eastern listeners for The FBI in Peace and War. Each recording has a different time to network ID. On is direct to ID (“dirID”) and the other is two seconds to ID (“2s”). There are two other differences, times approximate:

• 2s 1:52 “And I want you to meet her without prejudice.” (a thunder effect is over the words “without prejudice”

• dirID 1:55 “And I want you to meet her without prejudice.” (the thunder effect is after the word “prejudice”

Elliott Lewis slightly muffs Lansbury’s salutation after the mid-show commercial:

• 2s 15:07 “Mitch Angela Lansbury”

• dirID 15:17 “Miss Angela Lansbury”

Joe Kearns did not have his usual announcing assignment since he had a larger-than-usual role in the drama. Lewis was assigned a portion of Kearns’ usual announcing duties.

The 2s recording has better sound and is preferred for listening.

(NOTE: there are recordings of this episode that do not have consistent time to ID. It is not known if there have been collectors who “tightened” the time to the network ID when they processed their tape recordings from disc or other tape copies. The difference in the Lewis enunciation of “Miss” are different. Also, in editing the disc joins, it was also clear that the two sets of discs were different in their break between parts and two. It is possible that an east disc part was matched with a west part for some reason related to disc condition. Unless the discs become available for examination or a fresh recording to be made, we cannot know the differences between the two with certainty).

This is the sole appearance of Lansbury on Suspense. She had a very long theatrical, movie, and television career that won her many awards. One of the odder movie roles she had was in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) which won her great acclaim. And, of course, she is known most in these recent decades for her lead role in the long-running and still-popular TV series Murder, She Wrote. Her very notable career is detailed at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Lansbury

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP470529

THE CAST

ANGELA LANSBURY (Madeleine Tremaine), Cathy Lewis (Nell Garrett), Hans Conried (Alec Duncan), Elliott Reid (Reverend Sedley), Raymond Lawrence (Scotland Yard Inspector), Herbert Rawlinson (Reverend Benton), Nanette Vallon (Suzette), Elliott Lewis (Stage Doorman / Middle signature voice), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / John Gaylord)

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1947-05-22 Knight Comes Riding

Virginia Bruce returns to Suspense in another Pamela Wilcox script. Her character’s husband is a real bully. It seems his abrasive nature affected his performance as a police officer, years ago, in the killing of a young man. A companion of that young man, posing as an out-of-work war veteran, has tracked down the husband, and seeks vengeance. He’s quite the charmer. His plans are complicated by his growing affection for Bruce’s character… and the mysterious death of her nephew. Are his overtures real? Did the husband murder the nephew… or was it suicide? Are her personal fears of her bullying husband enough to have her look the other way as the handyman plots his revenge?

There are times that the story is more soap opera than thriller. Stick with it. It is definitely not a “top ten” Suspense, but worth the listen. Howard Duff is very good as the romantic handyman role and also in the menacing transformation. Wally Maher plays the hateful husband so well you’ll hate him, too.

The episode had two working titles, both used in publicity. They were “My Knight Comes Riding” and “Her Knight Comes Riding.” For the expectation that a “knight” will save Bruce’s character, there really is not one. That may be the reason for the elimination of the possessive pronoun in the title. No reason to raise expectations for a happy ending that has a happy future.

Both east and west network recordings have survived. The east broadcast includes the tease for the audience to stay tuned for The FBI in Peace and War. The west broadcast is the much better of the two.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP470522

THE CAST

VIRGINIA BRUCE (Mildred Anderson), Howard Duff (Duncan Shaw), Wally Maher (Ed Anderson), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice)

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1947-05-15 Death at Live Oak

Robert Mitchum’s character has hit a bad financial time and he wants a new start. His business partner has mismanaged the business quite badly and bankruptcy looms. He boards an elevator in the building and a woman is startled and in her first glance at him mistakes him as her husband! It turns out he’s a dead ringer for him. This is Suspense, so you know she has to be in an unhappy marriage and wants a way out of it. Like the old Jack Benny line when he was asked if he ever thought of divorcing Mary and responded “murder, yes… divorce, no” to great chuckling, Suspense uses that sentiment once again as a plotline. What nefarious deed would do away with him? Since Mitchum’s character looks exactly like him, there’s a new possibility. Since he and the wife have fallen in love (that was quick), he could start a new life by swapping places with her husband. They could have the husband’s body be in an accident and be mistaken for his now bankrupt self! Sounds like a great idea! What could possibly go wrong? A lot, because this is Suspense.

“It just so happens” that Mitchum’s character is a private pilot. He poses as a real estate agent and dupes the husband into taking a flight at night to travel see some property that could be used as a private retreat. He takes a freshly-dyed black parachute with him, and they take off. He kills the husband while in flight. He swaps seats with the freshly-demised husband so it will appear that he was the pilot. He exits the plane, parachuting to safety, unseen in the dark of night. Then we find out what could possibly go wrong in a surprise ending after he assumes the husband’s identity.

This could have easily been a superb Whistler script, but we wouldn’t have had the great Suspense music. That music helps carries and heightens the story, as it often does and diminishes its weaknesses. It is good listening.

The story would not work with today’s forensics, but the authors were pretty sharp pros in the radio game, and they’d come up with something else if they were writing today. The script was by Robert E. Lee and E. Jack Neuman. Lee was a writer for many early radio series such as Columbia Workshop and was later producer of Favorite Story, Railroad Hour and others. He was best known for the 1955 stage play Inherit the Wind which became a 1960 movie. E. Jack Neuman became a radio writing legend, one of the best writers in the medium for numerous series, especially in some of the superior 1950s series.

Both east and west network recordings have survived. The east broadcast includes the tease to stay tuned for The FBI in Peace and War. The east recording is the better of the two.

This episode was originally planned to air a week earlier. It was delayed for a “victory lap” repeat performance of Dead Ernest to mark the series achievement of the Peabody Award.

The title of the episode is a juxtaposition of “death” and “live” that builds curiosity and irony in the story. “Oak” is one of nature’s sturdiest trees, and is in contrast to the morally weak and conniving main characters of the story.

This the first of two appearances on Suspense by Robert Mitchum. He had a very long film career that was notable for film noir classics like Out of the Past. His work broadened greatly through the 1960s and 1970s. Mitchum did not do much radio, with many of the few appearances on movie-related series. His career is summarized at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mitchum

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP470515

THE CAST

ROBERT MITCHUM (David Sutherland), Mary Jane Croft (Diana Melville, nee Blake), Jerry Hausner (Elevator Operator), Bill Johnstone (Hotel clerk), Wally Maher (Detective / Man in elevator), Hans Conried (Philippe the waiter), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Flight controller), Peggy Rea (Operator), unknown (Rex Melville)

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1947-05-08 Dead Ernest

This is the “victory lap” repeat of this legendary Seeleg Lester - Merwin Gerard script after it was a prime factor in Suspense receiving a Peabody Award. It’s a marvelous story that puts you has you chuckling and squirming and riveted at different points of the performance.

Details about the history of the production and how the “Articles of Death” script was rescued from William Spier’s reject pile and became Dead Ernest are at the original blogpost and recordings pages:

• https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/08/1946-08-08-dead-ernest.html

• https://archive.org/details/TSP460808

The Award helped nudge Roma into renewing for two 13-week contracts after they had originally announced that 1947-05-22 would be their last sponsored broadcast.

This repeat performance of Dead Ernest was added after the Award was announced. Death at Live Oak with Robert Mitchum was originally scheduled for this date. It was delayed one week.

There is some research in the Darryl Shelton Suspense book that we have not been able to verify at this time. It seems that he had a research source that indicated that David Niven was originally scheduled to star in this broadcast.

Both east and west network broadcasts have survived. The east has a tease for The FBI in Peace and War. The west recording is the better one. There is another curious difference.

At the conclusion of the broadcast, CBS West Coast President Don Thornburgh appears before the microphone to announce the program’s Peabody Award. Well, on the east broadcast it’s him. He sounds somewhat Jimmy Stewart-like, is tentative and has long pauses between sentences. For the west broadcast, Suspense ensemble member John McIntire substitutes as Thornburgh. He delivers a much more polished presentation, as one would expect. McIntire was not in the cast of the production but may have been in the studios for a performance of another CBS program that evening. If not, then he was called in between the broadcasts. His wife, Jeanette Nolan, was, however, in this broadcast as “the landlady.” (Hat tips to John Barker, Don Ramlow, and Keith Scott for verifying McIntire’s voice). A separate audio file of both the east and west Peabody announcements is included with the episode files for easy comparison.

On 1947-05-08 Akron Beacon Journal radio critic Bee Offineer reminded readers that the Dead Ernest broadcast was not recommended for children. Offineer had been concerned for about violence on radio, especially after a 1946 Cleveland incident where arrested juvenile delinquents reported that listening to radio programs convinced them that vengeful actions were acceptable. She compiled an analysis of the mystery programs of the day and began to be concerned about what was being broadcast and its frequency, and reported such. She was a superb radio critic in her time and unfortunately passed away at age 34 in 1950, of cancer. Her concerns about Dead Ernest were well-founded, as there was a reason why listeners squirmed a bit at the concept of being mistaken as dead. The sense of impending horror of such a mistake makes the story so effective. But that tension was relieved at the story’s end, and adult listeners knew it was just a radio play right from the beginning. But younger listeners might not have had that mature perspective.

Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Magee Adams noted the same issue after the Peabody Award was announced a couple of weeks earlier. Syndicated columnist John Crosby of the New York Herald-Tribune won a personal Peabody Award for his 1946 commentary. He lauded the selection of Suspense for the award. He had a caution at the end of it that was “The weak-hearted and, I think, most children ought to be kept away from it.”

Despite its importance in Suspense history, Dead Ernest was broadcast only three times.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP470508

THE CAST

Wally Maher (Lieutenant Steve Healey who narrates / Bystander), Lester Jay (Payne), Howard Duff (Officer Abbott), Junius Matthews (Witness / Ernest Bowers), Bill Johnstone (Signature Voice / Bystander / Dr. Weldon the coroner), Elliott Reid (Tobin / Anthony the 2nd embalmer), Conrad Binyon (Bob Minelli), Joel Davis (Tommy Stoner), Jay Novello (Minelli / Clerk), Sidney Miller (Honest Jerry Murdock), Elliott Lewis (Henry Prince), Cathy Lewis (Frances Prince / Mrs. Bowers), Jeanette Nolan (Mrs. Brawley, the landlady), Peggy Rea (Honey, the coroner’s nurse), Jerry Hausner (Al Beniton the 1st embalmer)

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