1959-09-13 Death and the Escort

Don McLaughlin stars as a crime witness who insists, against his wife’s objections, on volunteering to identify a racketeer under indictment for murder. The plotline is predictable if you listened to enough radio detectives and watched TV detectives and police procedurals. They send a special officer to escort him to the hearing, and someone knocks that officer out and impersonates him. The proof of credentials for officers today would make the situation in the story highly improbable with photo IDs, data bases, and digital fingerprint or other biometric recognition. Some of the scenes as the real officer tries to convince others of his identity are drawn out, but it finally resolves itself in a moderately amusing scene. The ending, which takes place at an airport, redeems some of the flaws of the storytelling. The wife was right about being worried.

The script is by Harold Huber, and this is his final acting performance before his unfortunate demise a few weeks later.

No script can be found to identify the actors and their roles, or with program recording information.

The recording is likely a network aircheck that was heavily edited and has no open or close. It has low sound quality. Some previous copies had the opening of a different episode a patched to the beginning of the recording. That has been removed.

Don McLaughlin was one of radio’s New York regulars, and was best known for his portrayal of “David Harding” in the espionage series Counterspy. He was on the television soap opera As the World Turns for 30 years, one of many New York actors who found success in that genre after radio drama left the airwaves.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590313

THE CAST

Don MacLaughlin (Ed), Elspeth Eric (Jan), Bob Dryden (Capt. Hale), Joseph Julian (Lt. Payne), Harold Huber (Lt. Neal), Larry Haines (Officer #1 - Tom), Leon Janney (Sgt. Burns), Maurice Tarplin (Officer #2), Ian Martin (drunk)

(Many thanks to classic radio researcher Karl Schadow for identifying the cast.)

###

1959-09-06 After the Movies

Kevin McCarthy stars in this second production of the Jack Finney story that was adapted by David Ellis and Robert L. Richards. It’s an excellent script as you know something is just not right but you can’t really be certain what it is. McCarthy’s character misleads the police, but he convincingly lies to the listeners, and the betrayal leads to a surprising conclusion. Mob thugs are trying to buy the defendant's freedom by creating a hung jury, something the corrupt defense attorney has done before. After the juror and his wife see a movie and drop into a nearby ice cream parlor on the way home and his wife finds an envelope on the floor. It contains $10,000 with unsigned note indicating that the money was intended as a bribe to one of the murder trial jurors.

Unfortunately, the only surviving recording of this episode has no open or close, commercials (if network) or announcements (if Armed Forces Radio Service), or cast information. The sound is very low quality. To hear the story, the 1950-12-07 production with Ray Milland and William Conrad in an excellent supporting performance. Information and recordings are at

• https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2024/05/1950-12-07-after-movies.html

• https://archive.org/details/TSP501207 and is where recordings can be downloaded and streamed.

Because of the truncated recording, and that no script of this broadcast is available, cast and recording date information are not available. Newspaper resources are minimal. While the production of Suspense moved to New York, the publicity effort behind the show seemed to have a difficult start-up.

This is the first of two appearances on the series by Kevin McCarthy. He had a long and varied career across stage, film, and television. Nostalgia fans would know him best for his starring role in the 1956 sci-fi film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. https://archive.org/details/invasionofthebodysnatchers1956_201911 McCarthy was a founding member of The Actors Studio, and his breakthrough film role was in the adaptation of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (1951) https://archive.org/details/death-of-a-salesman_202501 At the time of this broadcast, McCarthy was likely in preparation for a supporting role in Advise and Consent on Broadway, which would open about 60 days later. That cast included some with radio acting pedigrees, notably Ed Begley and Staats Cotsworth. The play had over 200 performances. Wikipedia has background about his life and career. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_McCarthy_(actor)

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590906

THE CAST

 KEVIN McCARTHY (Albert Benning), Margaret Draper (Ann Benning), Bob Donley (Dan), Murray Forbes (Mr. Adelson), Dan Ocko (Johnny), Sam Grey (Sam/elevator operator)

(Many thanks to classic radio researcher Karl Schadow for identifying the cast.)

###

1959-08-30 A Matter of Execution

The gripping story dramatizes a boy's frustrating efforts to deliver a message to save a prisoner who is condemned to die within a few hours for a crime he did not commit. The boy waits near a man injured in a car accident while an adult goes for help. In the man’s last conscious moments, he makes a “deathbed confession” to a crime and says that the man being executed by hanging in hours is actually innocent. He tells the boy where he hid the gun used in the murder of the pawnbroker. No one will listen to the boy as they go about their procedures around the accident and tell him to go home and not get in the way. The story’s tension mounts as his parents and others to whom he appeals ignore his excited plea to be heard as they go about their day. As his exasperation reaches a breaking point at the police station, he creates a situation that forces them to listen to his startling news.

Harold Huber wrote the story and acted in it. His wife, Ethel, was the music director for New York Suspense. Harold was also an actor on stage and movies. He often played gangsters and was quoted as saying “I’ve died under more machine gun bullets and police revolvers than any four criminals in the country.” He passed away about five weeks after this broadcast at age 49 after surgery complications.

This is the first of the New York productions of Suspense since the show’s move to Hollywood in 1943, the three New York broadcasts in Summer 1947, and the 1953 production of Around the World at the New York Auto Show. Production is under Paul Roberts, who had produced and directed CBS Radio Workshop in its New York productions, and Indictment. The New York Suspense was a hybrid of sorts, still using recordings of George Walsh as announcer from the Robson series, supplemented by new announcing of Stuart Metz. His voice could be heard on CBS news, soap operas, and other dramas, including Indictment. New York productions did not seem to have a lesser capability in sound effects, and may have had to rely on pre-recorded effects more than Hollywood did. Musical bridges were also different. Some of the scripts used in the early New York productions were originally accepted by Robson as Roberts assumed all of those responsibilities. The New York actors were active in radio and television soap operas, commercials, and Broadway and Off-Broadway stage productions. Television drama production was shifting away from New York studios to Hollywood.

Two recordings have survived. The Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) recording is in better sound and is complete. The network recording is heavily edited with narrow range and lower quality sound.

No script is available at this time. The recording date of this program is not known.

Peter Lazer was 13 at the time of this first of two Suspense performances. He had previously appeared in CBS Radio Workshop. He was also in the series Eternal Light from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s. Lazer was a very successful child actor in the 1950s, appearing on Broadway and television. His last television and movie appearances were in 1967 and his last stage performance was in 1970 in a short-lived Broadway play. He appeared in regional theater in later years.

He was nine years old when he appeared in The Honeymooners “Classic 39” as the little boy “Harvey” in The Babysitter. Ralph thinks that Alice is cheating on him but she’s really babysitting. He is convinced she’s seeing a man named “Harvey” and goes to confront him while Alice is with him. He barges in while still in his Royal Order of the Raccoons outfit and demands that Harvey come out of his room and face him like a man. It is a very funny episode, and Harvey groggily emerges from his room, a small boy in his pajamas. Alice picks him up, he opens his eyes wide and says “Gee, I never knew that Davy Crockett was so fat!” The clip is at https://youtu.be/d5-9UOzslUw?si=N7WgVhI-3YDpPXbQ&t=1378 (the link goes to the famous scene).

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590830

THE CAST

Peter Lazer (Bobby), Nat Polen (Warden), Santos Ortega (Burton), Bill Adams (Mr. Clay), Bernard Grant (Driver), Sam Raskyn (Officer Moody), Ginger Jones (Mama), Martin Blaine (Roy-Bobby's father), Harold Huber (Lt. Beyer)

###

1959-08-23 Headshrinker

Agnes Moorehead makes her final appearance on Suspense in this second broadcast of what is essentially a very intense two-character play. The story is about a smug and corrupt psychotherapist who had an affair with his patient. Such acts disrupt the therapeutic process, take it off course, and creates many other issues. In this case, Moorehead’s character is so upset that she brings a gun to the session and wants to end their personal and their medical relationship. It is not an easy story to listen to.

This is the last of the Hollywood Suspense broadcasts. The show moved to New York with the next broadcast under the supervision of CBS producer Paul Roberts. He and Robson were east and west collaborators on CBS Radio Workshop. There is no mention of the move during the broadcast.

The original 1958-10-25 production starred Nina Foch and Helmut Dantine. Details about that broadcast and background about the script and its title, and audio of Robson’s own words discussing radio drama in general and this script in particular, can be found at

• https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2025/06/1958-10-25-headshrinker.html

• https://archive.org/details/TSP581025 is where recordings can be downloaded and streamed.

This program was recorded on Friday, June 19, 1959, two months prior to the broadcast. It was recorded just before the news that Suspense was moving to New York appeared in the trade press. An easy speculation is that Moorehead got a “heads up” about this happening and was invited by Robson to do the show one last time. Sorry, Wrong Number was repeated in 1960 after the show moved to New York. That was a replay of the 1957 Hollywood production, and was the only time a prior broadcast was replayed on the series by the network. Robson may have been holding the recording of this episode to be the very last Hollywood broadcast once he was given a date certain. A Moorehead appearance always received more publicity for Suspense than for others.

Rehearsal began at 2:00pm and continued to 5:30, when recording commenced until 6:00pm. Production edits were made from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. Music was added in a later session.

The surviving recording is a heavily edited network aircheck with narrow range and other audio issues. The recording may be the best version it it, however, that Suspense fans have ever heard. Commercials have been removed. Two of the four slots were taken by AT&T and Hastings Manufacturing (auto parts). The other two slots were allocated before broadcast. It is hoped that a clean Armed Forces Radio Service transcription disc might be found in the future to enjoy Moorehead’s final appearance on the series in its fullest.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590823

THE CAST

AGNES MOOREHEAD (Ruth), Lawrence Dobkin (Doctor), Patty Gallagher (Nurse), George Walsh (Narrator)

###

1959-08-16 Like Man, Somebody Dig Me

Dennis Day is the unlikely star in the second broadcast of this George Bamber script about a beatnik poet framed for murder. He’s called “Tennis Shoe,” and is a hitch-hiker. Day is certainly unlikely casting and does well in the part but his portrayal makes the character sound less youthful than one would expect. The story is one of the Suspense series most polarizing in terms of fan reaction, and the casting of Day is considered by some who do not like the script as rather “unserious” rather than creative. Robson obviously liked the script enough to repeat it and thought Day would do well, and spur some extra publicity for the broadcast.

The first broadcast of this script was on 1958-05-25 and starred Elliott Reid. Details about the episode and the interesting careers of George Bamber can be found at

• https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2025/05/1958-05-25-like-man-somebody-dig-me.html

• https://archive.org/details/TSP580525 is where recordings can be downloaded and streamed.

The program was pre-recorded, but no script is available to reference those details.

There are two surviving Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) recordings, with both in excellent sound. The recordings can be differentiated by the announcements after the Robson monologue:

• AFRTS#1039: Joe and Daphne Forsythe skit about US Savings Bonds

• AFRS#unknown: History of Delaware

The recording with the “history of Delaware,” the AFRS recording with the currently unknown number, is the slightly better of the two.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590816

THE CAST

DENNIS DAY (“Tennis Shoe”), Lillian Buyeff (Mary / Old Woman), Bill Quinn (Walter / George), Jack Moyles (Radio voice / Sheriff), Paul Frees (“The Cat” / Bronson / Mortician), Charles Seel (Old Timer), George Walsh (Narrator)

###

1959-08-09 Everything Will Be Different

This psychological drama stars Cathy Lewis and was written by William N. Robson may be the result of a convergence of their shared experiences, one via the microphone (Lewis), and the other via the typewriter (Robson). Lewis officially divorced Elliott the prior year. The major factor, reported in the press, was his constant working. Robson was married three times. The second marriage, to actress June Wilkens, ended around this time of broadcast. She suffered from issues related to alcoholism. When she died at age 53 in 1972, and the causes of her death were listed as “chronic liver disease and alcoholism.” Robson’s two sons, Christopher and Anthony, were while born during his marriage to Wilkins.

Classic radio enthusiast, researcher, and modern day performer Patte Rosebank, raised these matters at the Cobalt Club collector forum website’s Suspense thread a few years ago. She considers that this play “is truly chilling, especially now that we now know so much more about living with someone who has an addiction.” She adds about Lewis that “Her character's lines about the sadness of her first marriage have the added poignancy of Cathy's personal experience.”

Lewis plays the role of a lonely woman who tells her boyfriend about her unhappy previous former marriage. The story has flashbacks to that first marriage, some of which are disturbing because you hear the marriage crumbling. She goes out alone as their interests diverge and she discovers her husband had start cheating on her. An altercation in the kitchen results in his drunken anger where he falls on a knife. Police declared it an accidental death, but she bears the guilt that her argument was what created the incident. The story now out, her boyfriend proposes marriage. Her willingness to make the mistake of another loveless union where she feels that she is the cause of someone else’s misbehavior. Everyone listening knows that there is no way “everything will be different.”

The program was pre-recorded, but no script is available to reference those details.

The surviving Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) recording is heavily edited, has narrow range, and is in low quality sound. The current copy may be the best sounding copy available. It is hoped that a clean AFRS transcription disc may be found that can supply a better recording to fully appreciate the story and Cathy Lewis’ performance.

Cathy Lewis was 43 at the time of this performance. She did not remarry. She passed away nine years later, of cancer. William N. Robson, also 43 at this time, would marry again. That marriage would last until his passing from Alzheimer’s Disease in 1995, at 88 years old.

After the 8:00 mark, Lewis’ character says she has made “Swiss steak” for dinner. The name does not get its name from Switzerland, but from the technique of tenderizing by pounding or rolling beef called “swissing.” It is similar to pot roast, and was a common meal that used lesser cost cuts of beef. It was considered a “comfort food” and had many variations of preparation depending on what was in the kitchen at a particular time.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590809

THE CAST

CATHY LEWIS (Shirley), Peter Leeds (Wally), Larry Dobkin (Herb / Nino), Virginia Gregg (The Neighbor), George Walsh (Narrator)

###

1959-08-02 Red Cloud Mesa

Joseph Cotten stars in the second broadcast of the William N. Robson adaptation of a short story by William Eastlake. The original story, “Where the Warriors Crossed,” appeared in the August 3, 1956 issue of Collier’s, just three months before this broadcast. It is a fascinating story as characters navigate their different cultures and history, and their shared experiences of wartime and modern times. Cotten plays Bowman, owner of a store on a Navajo reservation. He was a captain in WW2, and native to this area of New Mexico. One of the men in his charge during the war, had a traumatic wartime experience and never recovered. He was placed in a veterans psychiatric hospital after the war. Frustrated by his treatment, he escaped, killing a guard, and returned to the reservation, and sought out Captain Bowman. He is a fascinating character who knows everyone’s motives and all of their notions, and their desires for expedience rather than justice. He subtly and cunningly navigates the various conflicting objectives and weaknesses of all of the people involved, and brings the story to its sad but appropriate conclusion.

The first broadcast was on 1956-10-30 and starred Reed Hadley. Details about the original story and this broadcast can be found at

• https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2025/03/1956-10-30-red-cloud-mesa.html

• https://archive.org/details/TSP561030 is where recordings can be downloaded and streamed.

The program was recorded on Thursday, June 26, 1959. Because of Cotten’s other commitments, rehearsal began at 6:00pm and recording began at 9:30pm. Production edits began at 10:00pm and concluded at 12:00pm. Music was added in the days ha followed.

The surviving recording is a heavily edited network aircheck. Unfortunately, neither the 1956 broadcast or this one are in high quality sound. It is hoped that a clean Armed Forces Radio Service transcription disc for either broadcast can be found to appreciate this compelling story and its performances to its fullest. A low quality aircheck recording from WCBM of Baltimore, Maryland is available. It is not clear if it was a copy of this aircheck that was edited for the other recording of this episode.

The network broadcast had four ad slots. Two of them were committed before broadcast, AT&T and Hastings Manufacturing (auto parts). The other two slots were allocated in the days before broadcast.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP590802

THE CAST

JOSEPH COTTEN (Captain Bowman the Trader), Jay Novello (Four Thumbs, aka One of Us), Vic Perrin (Rabbit Stockings), Larry Dobkin (Arturo), Howard McNear (Yellow Salt), George Walsh (Narrator)

###