31 Days of Suspense: "The Black Curtain"

Suspense's stories were an interesting mixture of original scripts and adaptations; some of the adapted material came from time-tested classic material, but many of the adapted works originated with contemporary authors. One of the most prolific contemporary authors featured on Suspense - especially in in the program's early years - was Cornell Woolrich, whose stories can be heard in 28 broadcasts!

Woolrich's story "the Black Curtain" first appeared on December 2, 1943 and was popular enough to repeat twice: November 2, 1944 & January 3, 1948. The first two versions featured Cary Grant and you may download the original version from archive.org here.

"The Black Curtain" concerns a man who awakens from a concussion to find years have passed since his last memory; evidently in the intervening years he lived another life under another name - and for some reason, his other self is wanted by the police!

Woolrich's stories frequently delved into unreliable narrators - men who are (conveniently) unable to recall whether they are a murderer (as you can hear in Suspense episodes such as "the Singing Walls" and "Nightmare"). Although elements of paranoia run rampant in Woolrich's tales (such as another broadcast with Cary Grant, "the Black Path of Fear"), his memory-challenged protagonists definitely drew the shortest possible straw - they can't trust anyone, not even themselves.

Woolrich comes to the verge of cheating his audiences, which - as I've said before - is a problem I have with some radio shows, including a few episodes of Suspense. And yet, Woolrich keeps up such a frantic pace and places the listener so firmly in his protagonist's shoes that the ride is entertaining. It also helps that the lack of memory is a feature of his stories - not a surprise revelation in the climax, but a plot point resolutely entrenched from the outset.

Tomorrow: "You see Joe, I happen to be one of those lawyers who knows his law."

31 Days of Suspense: "Drury's Bones"

Now and then Suspense produced an episode which - taken as a whole - should not work. If the climax of the story is truly the most important part, then today's should not be given the time of day. And yet, there's something - or rather someone - who defeats all my common sense.

On the January 25, 1945 episode of Suspense, horror movie icon Boris Karloff starred in "Drury's Bones," the tale of an amnesiac man who becomes a Scotland Yard detective. While investigating the discovery of a skeleton on an abandoned property, he begins to finally dredge up his past - but every clue points to him as a killer! You may download the episode from archive.org here!

Karloff truly held a power to enliven any material - certainly he was the best part of most of the pictures he appeared in, pictures which were often little more than half-baked dreck (notwithstanding diamonds in the rough such as his pictures with Val Lewton or the later film Targets). Here, Karloff stars in a fantastic mystery story whose climax abruptly transforms the entire affair into little more than a farce. And yet! And yet, this episode works because of Karloff's ability to suggest impending catastrophe, to play his character with just enough ambiguity that his final fate is a mystery up until the end.

Tomorrow: "We must have known a love that I'll never know again."

31 Days of Suspense: "Mission Completed"

Eight years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and more than four years following V-J Day, it's safe to say the USA still felt a pretty sharp pain at the memory of the legendary sneak attack which launched them into war; thus it was that the eight-year anniversary was marked on Suspense through a special episode.

Starring James Stewart, the December 1, 1949 episode "Mission Completed" features Stewart as a paralyzed veteran lying in a hospital. One day, he recognizes a flower dealer as the Japanese officer who tortured him during the war; all at once, his long-lost strength begins to boil to the surface... You may download the episode from archive.org here.

Because most of the episode was narrated by its protagonist, it needed a strong, captivating actor. Naturally, Stewart had the chops; in fact, his own time spent in uniform during the war gave him credentials for this role which would eluded a home-bound actor. In my mind, I imagine the paralyzed Stewart looks a lot like the similarly-paralyzed Stewart from his later role in Vertigo (hence the above image).

Tomorrow: "As to forgetting one's worries in absorbing work, I can't think of a better place in the world for a man to do that than Scotland Yard."

31 Days of Suspense: "Return Trip"

In yesterday's entry of "31 Days of Suspense," I noted how contemporary programs often shied away from the supernatural. Another problem I would say mystery shows of the time had were "cheats." Stories where crucial information is withheld from the audience because it would collapse the entire narrative instantly if it were known. Thankfully, Suspense was a program which, more often than not, played fair.

Such a program is "Return Trip," first broadcast June 27, 1946 with star Elliott Reid. This tale concerns four people aboard a bus which has just left an asylum, but a raging snowstorm traps them in the wild; paranoia runs rampant as they wonder whether one of them might be an escaped mental patient. As I've intimated above, the clues are each provided fairly. Better still, each of the four passengers has a distinctive voice and personality so you're never at a loss to understand how the drama is unfolding (something Suspense struggled at in its first year but very quickly conquered). You can download "Return Trip" from archive.org here.

Tomorrow: "Oh, once in a while they dump me in a wheelchair and push me out into the sunshine, wheel me up and down the walk like I was a baby. Only babies can cry."

31 Days of Suspense: "The Furnished Floor"

Horror and science fiction were two of the genres which first attracted me to the old-time radio medium. However, although there were a few shows dedicated to horror, they seldom committed to horror. To pick on Inner Sanctum Mysteries (to take a frequently-cited example), the supposed supernatural goings-on in that program are (invariably) a deception. In fact, even the non-supernatural episodes of that show tend to involve someone being tricked, whether it's believing in ghosts or thinking they're a murderer, Inner Sanctum was averse to "playing fair" with the audience.

This, then, is part of what sets the scripts on Suspense apart; on those rare occasions when they delved into the supernatural, they committed. Not only would otherworldly events transpire, they were almost always unidentified and unexplained.

Take today's episode for instance: "The Furnished Floor," written by Lucille Fletcher (best known as the author of "Sorry, Wrong Number") from September 13, 1945. Mildred Natwick portrays a busy-bodied housekeeper who welcomes a former tenant back to his rented flat. Mr. Jennings originally left after the death of his wife; now he's found another love and he wants everything the way it used to be. Everything.

It's a very slow burn, leading to a moment of... ambiguous horror. Let your imagination decide what happens in the climax - it's more effective that way. You may download the episode here.

Tomorrow: "Anyway... I outlived those three..."

31 Days of Suspense: "Elwood"

One of Suspense's great strengths was to play against the expectations of their audience by casting familiar actors in roles they were decidedly unlikely to portray on the silver screen. Frequently they cast comedians in serious dramatic roles, but would also give dramatic actors an opportunity to loosen up (even satirize themselves). It's surely part of why Suspense was seen as a prestigious program among Hollywood's top actors and how they successfully attracted so many major talents during the show's Hollywood-based years.

Today's program is an example of how the show played against typecasting - "Elwood," starring Eddie Bracken, from March 6, 1947. You may download it here.

Eddie Bracken plays a young gas station attendant, frustrated by his aimless life and unfulfilled ambitions. There are murders being committed in his town and Elwood himself is quite close to the killer...

Eddie Bracken's nervous energy suited him well in the comedies he normally appeared in, but his Suspense performances are a revelation; I mean, look at his picture above - is that the face of a menacing figure? Is that chipmunk-like expression even the least bit unsettling? Yet on the radio, he's undeniably able to agitate the audience's nerves.

Tomorrow: "It's good to be home."

31 Days of Suspense: "Four Hours to Kill"

It's my custom to celebrate the month of October with a series of Halloween-themed posts on this blog. Although the old-time radio series Suspense delved into the supernatural occasionally, it would be a little off-base to call it a horror series - but as my favourite radio program in the genres of mystery/thriller/horror, I can't think of another program I'd rather spotlight! Thus, for 31 days I'll count backwards through my favourite 31 episodes of Suspense, culminating with my favourite episode on Halloween.

Suspense lasted from 1942-1962 and underwent huge chances over those two decades. I've stated before on the blog that I find the early programs by John Dickson Carr to be stuffy, poorly-paced and unevocative of radio's strengths. However, the program quickly fell under the control of writer-producer William Spier and he set the standard for the series which his successors would imitate.

Today's spotlight falls upon an episode from the able hands of William Spier: "Four Hours to Kill," which originally aired January 12, 1950 with star Robert Taylor. You may download the episode from archive.org here.

In this program, Taylor portrays a man who murders his brother, then realizes his brother's phone had been off the hook during the assault - a woman on the other end of the line overheard their scuffle. Now, Taylor must discover the woman's identity so he can trace her down and kill her!

Cleverly, the episode places the audience on the same side as the killer, following his desperate ploys to determine the woman's identity, despite the fact that, strictly speaking, he ought to be punished for his first murder rather than encouraged to commit a second one, right?

Suspense's crew of regular performers, musicians and technicians were a key part of the show's high quality, especially compared to other mystery-thriller shows of the time. This episode includes familiar voices such as Cathy Lewis, who seemed to portray every second woman on the show.

Never one to let a well-received script languish, Spier often reused Suspense scripts elsewhere; in this instance, he was actually reusing a script from the series Philip Morris Playhouse which he'd produced the year prior on May 13, 1949. You can compare broadcasts by listening to the Philip Morris version here. Notably, Cathy Lewis played in both versions.

Tomorrow: "I like nice things. Valuable things."