Today I'm very pleased to wind down "31 Days of Suspense" by presenting my personal favourite episode of the series: Lucille Fletcher's masterful program "The Hitchhiker" with star Orson Welles which you may download from archive.org here!
This episode is so lauded that it's easy to forget it came extremely early in the series' history - only the 10th episode aired! Of course, with a fine writer like Fletcher, an able producer such as William Spier and radio's own boy genius Orson Welles commanding the episode, how could it fail?
I love the ambiguity of this episode's climax. It explains so much, yet tells so little - as a great ghost story should. This episode began Fletcher & Welles' associations with Suspense (and was only Spier's second episode), something both they and the show profited immensely from.
I suppose I'm mandated to mention this script was also adapted to television as an episode of the Twilight Zone, but much as I enjoy Serling's program, I have to say I'm a purist - I prefer the radio play.
This brings 31 Days of Suspense to a close; thank you for indulging me! If you're a fellow Suspense fanatic, I'd like to see your own lists of favourites! And if you weren't a Suspense fan before... perhaps you are now?
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