I've spoken before about the Escape episode entitled "Papa Benjamin." It's from a story by Cornell Woolrich and it's been adapted in a few places, such as in the film Dr. Terror's House of Horrors and an episode of Boris Karloff's Thriller. Still, this is one I keep returning to because my initial encounter was so memorably frightening. Part of my initial fascination with old-time radio shows were the scary programs - Suspense, the Whistler, the Shadow - and then, as now, I would listen to QR77's old-time radio rebroadcasts every night.
One evening I awoke to hear the radio on; I had fallen asleep early into the evening's shows. Half-awake, I heard a drama unfold about policemen venturing into a filthy New Orleans back alley where they found a dead man. Investigating the murder, they learn this is all tied up in voodoo. In my drowsy state the eeriness of the situation seemed all the more intense; I could have easily gone back to sleep but no, I remained awake - I had to know how it all turned out!
Don't take my word for it - listen to "Papa Benjamin" here (archive.org link).
Haunting and disturbing. The misappropriated music was so good and unearthly that "it was worth it" in the sense of the episode. The jazz is so good that you believe the show's premise of a down and outer who finds his last big break. I too have listened to this episode in various states of repose. Because three different Escape versions are consecutive on the Escape Single Episodes listing on Archive.org, it's easy to drift in and out over the hour and a half. Escape and Suspense are shows where the different versions are worth checking out.
ReplyDeleteI am not a big Agnes Moorhead fan but there are multiple versions of several shows on Suspense featuring her. To me, she over-acts, so I am not a huge fan of hers contrary to many. I thought she over-acted on Bewitched as well. Perhaps she was the female Joaquin Phoenix of the day. Herbert Marshall and Joseph Cotten are so adept at their work that they can be listened to again and again and they seem to me, to handle accents fairly competently unlike anyone playing an Irish person or Scottish or Cockney speaker in which the accents seem to diverge into hack renditions.
One thing about the King's English, is that it is lightly accented and spoken clearly, similar to a "continental accent" which is something old time radio is also famous for utilizing. Such accents were fairly authentic in the U.S. until the 60's or so and Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Tallulah Bankhead and many others used such accents in which the main feature is the broad A and non-rhotic R, something Canadian English generally lacks as do non-East coast port accents in the U.S.