In "Macao," a power-hungry gal learns that there are limits to how far you can push people.
Mrs. Connie Rawls is the head a number of operations in Macao's underworld, and yet, she wants even more power. Everyone fears her and with good reason. She is tough, and at a times, downright cruel.
Her downfall begins with the arrival of Johnny Hook, a man who had come to Macao because of a job offer from Connie's late husband. Johnny quickly becomes interested in Connie, but then realizes that her lack of human compassion is a problem for him. Connie thinks that he is a sap, but she soon discovers that Johnny may be right.
In "The Walls Came Tumbling Down," a society columnist becomes involved in a mystery involving two missing Bibles.
As the episode opens, Mr. Darcy, a columnist of "cafe society chatter," is in his office. His secretary enters and announces that he has a visitor, a priest. At first, Darcy is amused, but then it turns out that his visitor is Father Walsh, one of his teachers from grade school.
Father Walsh has come to tell Darcy about the peculiar man who came to see him three days earlier. This stranger had demanded that Father Walsh give him the Bibles marked "EB." The stranger also told him that he had just three days to help him find the "Walls of Jericho." Father Walsh doesn't have the Bibles, and he doesn't know where to find the "Walls of Jericho." Can Darcy help Father Walsh sove the mystery?
For your holiday entertainment, here are a couple of surreal Thanksgiving episodes from The Jack Benny Program. Aside from the usual jokes about Jack Benny's cheapness and vanity, both of these episodes involve unusual dream sequences about turkeys.
"Jack Dreams He is a Turkey" begins at the supermarket butcher counter where Jack attempts to find a turkey that fits his budget. Ultimately, he discovers that the cheapest turkey is a live one, but after Jack brings it home, he has doubts. His guilt about having to kill it causes him to dream that he is a turkey. This episode aired on November 11, 1943.
In the second half of the episode "Turkey Dream," Jack has a strange dream wherein he is tried for murder by a court of turkeys and then eaten. The trial also includes the bizarre, but catchy, song about the "Turkey of 29 pounds." The episode aired on November 30, 1947.
There was big news in Suspensedom over the weekend. A copy of the long lost episode "The Rescue," starring Jimmy Stewart, has been found! You can listen to it via the player below, or you can head on over to Rand's Esoteric OTR to learn more about it. "The Rescue" originally aired on April 19, 1951. Thanks to Randy Riddle, it is available again.
In "The Power of Hammer," a jungle guide is hired to take a government official into the remote kingdom of a cruel bully.
Sam Kerrigan is an American working as a guide/hunter in the Belgian Congo. As the episode opens, he drinking too much and muttering to himself even more. As Kerrigan is leaving his favorite bar, he is taken into custody by government officials. The local inspector has been given orders by the Belgian government to take Benjamin Hammer, an embezzler and murderer, into custody. The problem is that Hammer has set himself up as a king, deep in the jungle, and the inspector needs a guide to help find him. Kerrigan warns the inspector to stay away, but in the end, he is forced to lead them into Hammer's kingdom.
In "The Companion," two hysterical women convince themselves that their home companion is trying to kill them
Mrs. Lois Hughes is unhappy that her husband is frequently away on business. It makes her nervous to be home at night with only her invalid mother for company. In order to ease her fears, she hires Miss Lord, sight unseen, to live with them as their home companion.
As soon as Miss Lord moves in, Mrs. Hughes becomes concerned that there is something wrong. Strange things seem to be happening in their house. With a terrible storm outside, and no one to help them, Mrs. Hughes and her mother frantically try to escape the home companion that they believe is a psychopath.
"The Companion" was written by Walter Black and produced/directed by Paul Roberts. Elizabeth Lawrence played Lois, Rita Lloyd played Mrs. Lord, and Virginia Payne played Lois' mother. This episode aired on November 15, 1959.
In "The Strange Death of Gordon Fitzroy," an ex-con is consumed with a desire for revenge.
Johnny Malone was sent to prison for attempted robbery, but soon, he will be released. He and his associate, Gordon Fitzroy, had planned the robbery together, but Johnny was the one who went to jail. It was Fitzroy's own jewelry store that they had tried to rob in order to collect on the insurance, but their plan failed. The explosives they used to crack the safe were too powerful. When the police arrived on the scene, Fitzroy double-crossed Johnny and told them he had caught the burglar in the act.
Johnny's face was horribly disfigured as a result of the blast, so badly that he can't even look at himself. When Johnny gets out of prison, he has only one objective -- to find Gordon Fitzroy.
Here is an amusing little snippet of film that demonstrates how sound effects were created for radio. It is an excerpt from a 1939 film called Back of the Mike that was produced by the Jim Handy Organization for the Chevrolet Motor Company.
If knowing how these sounds were created ruins the magic for you, then don't watch. Otherwise, enjoy this interesting, and chuckleworthy, look at radio actors and sound technicians.
To watch the complete version of Back of the Mike, click here.
In Escape's "Pass to Berlin," an American G.I. in occupied Germany is blackmailed by a mind-reading act.
As the episode opens, Sargeant Ed Sawyer and his German girlfriend, Greta, get into a fight. In her drunken stupor, the fight becomes violent, and Sawyer accidentally kills her. He then runs from her boarding house and takes refuge inside a theater.
The headline act of the evening is a pair of mind-readers, The Great Stanley and his lovely assistant Mona. As The Great Stanley works his way through the audience, Mona tells all that she sees. Suddenly, their show comes to an abrupt end when Mona annouces that there is a murderer in the audience!
Sawyer goes backstage to ask The Great Stanley about the unusual ending to their show. He claims it was just a bit of sensationalism, but the next morning, Sawyer finds a reminder of his crime on his door. How do they know what Sawyer did?
In "Dime a Dance," Lucille Ball plays a taxi dancer who becomes involved in the search for a murderer.
Cornell Woolrich's classic noir short story, "Dime a Dance" (Black Mask, February, 1938), is also known under its reprint title, "The Dancing Detective." The story was adapted for Suspense in 1944, not long after Suspense had presented Woolrich's similar tale, "The White Rose Murders." Woolrich wrote a number of stories with taxi dancer and dance hall themes, but the most famous of these is "Dime a Dance."
Ginger Allen is a taxi dancer at the Joyland Palace in New York City. As the episode opens, she arrives at work expecting to see her friend, Julie, but she isn't there. No one knows where Julie is or why she isn't at work. Later, Ginger is told that Julie has been murdered and the police want her help.
In "Easy Money," Jack Carson stars as a husband who wishes to rid himself of his famous wife... one way or another.
Paul is a down-on-his luck piano player who wants to rise above his circumstances. His girlfriend, Ellen, wants to marry him, but he has turned her down numerous times. Finally, Paul admits to her that he is already married. His wife is Martha Leighthrop, an author known for her books about the secrets of world politics. He hasn't seen Martha in 14 years, but she is currently in town, and he plans to ask her for a divorce.
When Paul visits his estranged wife, he finds that she has changed. She is paranoid and suspicious, and she has no interest in giving him a divorce. Paul decides that to be free of Martha, death must part them.
"Easy Money" was written by Sydney Renthal and produced/directed by William Spier. Jack Carson starred. Also appearing were Cathy Lewis, Elliot Lewis, and Paul Frees. The name of the actress who played Martha isn't given. (The sound effects for the pet macaw in this story are almost as bad as those for the kitty cat in "The Lucky Lady.") This episode aired on November 7, 1946.
In "Affair at Mandrake," an army officer must decide whether or not his childhood friend is a German spy.
The story is set in wartime in 1940, and a British colonel named Guy Baker is convinced that one of the Germans captured by his unit in Dunkirk is a childhood friend. He is startled by the similarity at first but then accepts that it must be a different man.
Weeks later, back in England, Baker is given a new command to carry out field tests of rockets in the Mandrake forest. The assignment is dangerous and it means that they will be a target for German agents. Shortly afterwards, Baker is also told that one of the German prisoners captured in Dunkirk has escaped. The P.O.W. that he thought may have been his old friend, is now on the loose near Mandrake.
In the "White Rose Murders," Maureen O'Hara stars as society girl who attempts to catch a killer.
"The White Rose Murders" was adapted from the Cornell Woolrich story "The Death Rose" (Baffling Detective Mysteries March 1943). The story revolves around Ginny Trowbridge, a well-to-do debutante and her boyfriend, Terry, a homicide detective. He has been assigned to the case of the "White Rose Murderer," a case that the New York City police department is desperate to solve. If Terry doesn't solve the case, his job may be on the line. Ginny decides that the best way to help him is to secretly try to lure the murderer into a trap herself.
No writer is credited for Suspense's radio adaptation, but Francis M. Nevins, Jr., in his 1988 biography of Woolrich states that: "If the radio play was not written by Woolrich--and, as with "Last Night" no other writer is credited--then its author's ability to capture the Woolrich mood and feel is nothing short of miraculous. Not only is "The White Rose Murders" better constructed than the magazine tale, but with its noir implication that the world is full of lonely and twisted men who are ready, willing and able to kill women, it's much more disturbing."*
"The White Rose Murders" was produced by William Spier and directed by Ted Bliss. This episode aired on July 6, 1943.
"Sorry, Wrong Number" was the Suspense radio play that not only gave the series its biggest success, but it also became "radio's most famous play." This story was presented eight times between 1943 and 1960, and it created a phenomenon of its own by provoking tremendous listener response. The radio play was written by Lucille Fletcher and, aside from "The Hitchhiker," it is her best known work. "Sorry, Wrong Number" was the only Suspense story to be made into a film.
In the sixty or so years since "Sorry, Wrong Number" was first presented on radio, it has made the transition to film, television, novel, and play. In recent years, it has made its way on to the internet via old time radio websites and YouTube videos.
However, to fully appreciate Fletcher's unique style of conjuring up suspense, one must listen to the story as it was presented on radio.
All eight versions of "Sorry, Wrong Number" starred Agnes Moorehead in the lead role of Mrs. Elbert Stevenson.
The first time this story was presented was on May 25, 1943. In the East Coast version, there was a flubbed line at the end that made the end of the story confusing. The performance done for the West Coast has the correct ending. William Spier directed.
The sixth version of this episode was presented on September 15, 1952, but there is no known recording of that episode at this time.
In 1957, William N. Robson brought "Sorry, Wrong Number" back to Suspense. As he states in his introduction, he felt that great radio plays, like great stage plays, should be revived from time to time.
In the 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number, the role of Mrs. Stevenson was played by Barbra Stanwyck, for which she later received an Academy Award nomination. Stanwyck performed the role of Mrs. Stevenson once on radio, along with her costar Burt Lancaster, in an hour long adaptation of the film for Lux Radio Theater. This episode aired on January 9, 1950.
Here also, is the movie trailer for Sorry, Wrong Number. It mentions Suspense and how the craze over the radio version brought the story to the big screen.
Ever wonder what a modern remake of Sorry, Wrong Number might look like? Well, below is a trailer/drama project from Dark Ocean Films that gives us an idea.
In "The Ring of Thoth," an Egyptologist visits the Louvre and accidentally witnesses a strange event.
Based on the short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Escape's adaptation is an interesting one with an unexpected ending. "The Ring of Thoth" was first published in 1890 and the short story is available online at Wikisource.
Mr. John Vansittart Smith, a British student of Egyptology, has come to the Egyptian Room of the Louvre to study. There he meets a curious looking attendant but otherwise, he is alone in the great hall. Not long afterwards, the quiet surroundings and his inability to concentrate cause him to drift off to sleep.
When Smith wakes, it is the middle of the night and he is locked inside the darkened museum. Soon, he becomes aware that someone else is there, too. A mysterious figure holding a light has come into the hall and opened the case of one of the mummies. Smith realizes that it is the attendant that he saw earlier in the day, and as he watches from the shadows, he becomes involved in the extraordinary story of the ring of Thoth.
"Consideration" is a love story about a wife who believes her husband wants to kill her in order to collect the insurance money.
As the episode opens, Charles admits to his wife, Ellen, that he has been borrowing money to keep up their lifestyle. To pay off those loans, he had to steal funds from his company. Now, Charles wants to use the savings in their safe deposit box to replace the money he stole from work, and he asks Ellen to go get it.
Ellen tells him that she would do just that, but she has already gambled away all of that money. She has been betting on the horses but never winning, so there isn't any money left.
Charles appears forgiving, but when he takes out a new life insurance policy on her, Ellen becomes conviced that he is planning to kill her.
"The Man in the Room" stars John Lund as a writer who becomes curious about the peculiar disappearance of his typist.
Burt Freeland is a writer in need of someone who can type up his work at a reasonable rate. After seeing an ad in the paper, he goes to the office of Miss Markheim, a new typist in town.
Miss Markheim's work is always perfect and finished on time, but she never seems to be in her office when Mr. Freeland comes to pick up his typing. The elevator operator makes excuses for her, but he isn't convincing.
Mr. Freeland writes a mystery story based on the situation, but he soon realizes that his story may be too close to the truth.
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