With "The Black Door" Suspense puts forward a story that is engrossing yet absurd. This episode is about the discovery of a "dead city" once inhabited by dog-headed creatures from the moon.
"The Black Door" is a suspenseful adventure story but there are a couple of flaws. The most obvious is that man has visited the moon since this story was written and we know that it isn't populated by dog-headed creatures. The other flaw is that the main character never gives us his name.
The story begins with the main character, an archaeologist, describing the events that led his current situation. From the sound of it, he is in a piano bar. As he tells it, he wanted to become a full professor and marry his sweetheart but before he could do that, he had to make his mark on the academic world. That opportunity came when he recieved a grant to search for the lost City of the Fire God.
After two months searching the jungles of Central America in a helicopter, the archaeologist meets Pedro Ramidez. He claims to know the remote, mountain location of the legendary city because his grandfather had once been there. Pedro and the archaeologist make a deal to split any treasure that they find and soon they are on their way.
Like the Indiana Jones movies, this is an archeology story wherein priceless artifacts are destroyed and ancient buildings end up in ruins. That's not entirely the fault of Pedro and the archaeologist. It is the result of the earthquake and volcano that they accidentally set off.
"The Black Door" starred Robert Readick and Ralph Camargo. The radioplay was written by Robert Arthur but it was originally presented on the radio program The Mysterious Traveler. Unfortunately, that episode of Mysterious Traveler is one of the many that are now lost.
This episode aired on November 19, 1961.
. Download Suspense_1961.11.19_TheBlackDoor.mp3
(Image of Alexander the Great fighting dog-headed men from Wikimedia Commons)
Comments