Creeper, Creeper, Creeper. You give ME the creeps!

Joseph Ruscoll was a pretty busy radio script author in the 1940s. Many of his scripts were used on mystery programs, such as the four I'm about to discuss -- four series which I don't often talk about, as they're a llittle more obscure. Late in the 1940s Ruscoll wrote a few scripts for Suspense but most of his work wound up in these lesser-known places. He is not a remembered author today.

However! Ruscoll wrote one script which became seemingly the biggest achievement of his career, considering how frequently it was retold. "The Creeper" first appeared on March 29, 1946 as an episode of The Molle Mystery Theater on NBC. If you consider Suspense to be the epitome of great radio mystery drama (and I do), then The Molle Mystery Theater comes up a little short. Although NBC had some fine radio players, I find that CBS had the best in radio voice talent. To its credit, The Molle Mystery Theater put a lot of effort into adapting famous mystery stories for radio. Since by the time the series was on the air Suspense had mostly given up on adaptations, it was a good little niche to exploit. (I have some problems with how they adapted those stories, but that's another blog post, coming soon)

"The Creeper" is a strong drama about a killer who has been targeting beautiful women and gains access to their homes through unknown means. The so-called 'Creeper' leaves behind the message: "For heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself." The story's heroine is a housewife, married to a police officer who has recently been suspended from the force. After an argument over breakfast, the husband heads to a bar and talks about his wife and the Creeper to a down-on-his-luck reporter, whom we learn was once infatuated with the officer's wife. The reporter has a theory about a pattern to the Creeper's killings and he thinks the officer's wife could be next. The action returns to the wife as she tries to go shopping, but she becomes afraid of everyone she meets, fearing they could be the Creeper. After a neighbour suggests the Creeper could be a woman, she thinks she can't trust women either. The woman is afraid of a clerk, a neighbour, a manager, an elevator boy and then the reporter, who tries to use her as bait for the Creeper before she forces him out of her apartment. All this time she has been trying to get a locksmith to fix the broken deadbolt on her door. Just as the locksmith arrives, she receives a frantic phone call from her husband: the Creeper is believed to be a locksmith! The Creeper kills her and the reporter narrates the wrap-up to her death.

You can hear the Molle Mystery Theater version at the Internet Archive. The full cast is not given but the reporter sounds a lot like Richard Widmark to me. It's a very strong piece of radio drama, much more intense than the usual fare heard on that series. Joseph Ruscoll clearly liked his script a lot, given that he sold it three more times to radio and even tried to sue 20th Century Fox for releasing a 1949 film titled The Creeper (it had nothing in common with his story).

The same year as the Molle Mystery Theater original, Ruscoll brought his play to another mystery series he was contributing to: the transcribed program Murder at Midnight. This adaptation is not quite as polished as the original, but follows the original script faithfully. The show opens by noting this story had been told on radio before, but (naturally) does not name the competing program. You can hear this adaptation on the Internet Archive.

Three years later, Ruscoll was telling a few stories on NBC's Murder by Experts. This is an odd program - it's very well-produced, but it promoted itself as featuring stories selected by the greatest mystery authors - yet pretty often those stories were brand-new tales. One begins to question the premise of the series. Their version of "The Creeper" has a brief new scene to open the story where another woman is killed by the Creeper, but otherwise it's much like the other versions. You can hear it at the Internet Archive.

Four years later, NBC had a series called The Chase. I have to say, I have tried many, many times to get into The Chase -- it has an extremely loose premise which just about any kind of 'thriller' story can fit. It could have been NBC's answer to Escape! But like most of NBC's 1950s dramatic programs, it has a ton of repetitive musical bridges which are the audible equivalence of wallpaper. They don't enhance the productions at all. This is still a fine version of the story, but the music bridges make it feel inferior. Hear it for yourself at the Internet Archive.

Even as Ruscoll's story was being adapted for radio, television had come in. There was an adaptation on the TV version of Suspense in 1949 and on The Web in 1950, but I haven't been able to see either. However, in 1956 came what is probably the best-known version of "The Creeper" -- it's certainly where I first saw the story: Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The television adaptation changes quite a bit from the original -- many of the men who serve as red herrings are removed, the "for heaven's sake" message is gone, the heroine is a blonde instead of a redhead, the Creeper is not thought to be a woman, the reporter's closing remarks are omitted. It's a great adaptation, particularly how the Creeper appears: he's unseen except for his hands as they choke the life out of the heroine.

Ruscoll died a few months after "The Creeper" aired, but 30 years later Alfred Hitchcock Presents was back on television in a new version which had nothing to do with the then-dead Hitchcock and which adapted many stories from the 1950s-60s series. I don't really think a lot of the 1980s series, especially for the ways in which they altered the original stories. But regardless, I watched the 1986 version of "The Creeper", which starred Karen Allen.

Much to my surprise, my highest recommendation out of the six versions I've experienced of "The Creeper" goes to the most recent one! It's extremely different from Ruscoll's original script, keeping only the premise. But it makes one change which I wholeheartedly welcome: the heroine is in the forefront throughout the episode (until she dies). As a Suspense fan, I feel these thrillers are more intense when they don't divert from the protagonist's point-of-view, and the scenes in the earlier versions of "The Creeper" where the husband and reporter met up in the bar were unfortunate decisions that only exist to exposit more about the Creeper. It's ultimately a story about a woman alone in her apartment experiencing feelings of paranoia. If Ruscoll had made that the entire script, he would have penned one of the best thrillers of the 1940s!

There is also an unfortunate sense in Ruscoll's script that the heroine's death is some kind of disproportionate retribution. Mention is made that the heroine is flirtatious and the husband is suspicious of her. Certainly the reporter is attracted to her, and the elevator boy grumbles that she shouldn't be "so nice" to men like him. But this isn't otherwise supported by Ruscoll's script. When the reporter barges in on the heroine, she's not the least bit glad to see him -- because she thinks he's the Creeper. She drives him out; she's not some "loose woman" who should be punished.

And this brings me back to the 1986 version, where the heroine isn't a married woman, just a single woman in an apartment. She's trying to get away on a trip to Rome when her neighbour is killed by the Creeper. She had left her apartment keys with the neighbour so she could water her plants and she's terrified when she sees the keys are missing from the dead woman's apartment. The heroine tries to get a locksmith in to change her locks before she leaves to Rome. At the same time, a man who dated her once has begun stalking her.

The 1986 version really gets across the heroine's feelings of paranoia better than any of the earlier versions. As a lone woman, the audience is better able to sense her isolation.

The only part of the 1986 version I'm not crazy about is what happens after the heroine dies: as the Creeper gets into his car to leave, the dead woman's stalker appears and shoots the Creeper in the chest; the Creeper runs him over with the car before dying. It does serve to punish the Creeper, but I'm not sure the crazy stalker is the right person to meet out vengeance. Then again, the stalker dies too. I guess it's a value-neutral outcome? It certainly ties up all the loose ends while at the same time feeling extremely bleak; all the significant characters are dead! Good night.

So there you have it; if you only listen to one radio version of "The Creeper", go with the Molle original. And it you prefer TV, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the 1986 incarnation.