31 Days of Suspense: "John Barbie and Son"

I enjoy mystery-thriller stories which have a great surprise ending - but at the same time (as I've droned on about before), I like stories which play fair with the audience.

On February 22, 1945, Thomas Mitchell starred in the Suspense episode "John Barbie and Son." Mitchell portrays a devoted father, determined to protect his son, a child whose developmental needs have forced them to go on the run from the authorities. You may download the episode from archive.org here.

The clues to the central mystery of "John Barbie and Son" are laid out for anyone with the attention span to notice them; the sharp WHAM! ending of this episode will not surprise you if you've been pitting your wits against the creators - but it's not required of you to match wits with the creators! As I've complained before, Suspense's first auteur John Dickson Carr seemed so obsessed with upsetting his listeners' expectations that his episodes are almost unbearable - they're certainly not entertaining. Suspense is entertainment. Settle back and enjoy it.

Tomorrow: "The face I said I wouldn't want to run into - close."

31 Days of Suspense: "A Little Piece of Rope"

The content of Suspense was a mixture of scripts adopted from other programs (such as "Four Hours to Kill"), scripts adapted from motion pictures (such as "Odd Man Out"), scripts adapted from classic literature (such as "The Moonstone"), scripts adapted from the popular literature of the day (such as "Donovan's Brain"), scripts drawn from real events (such as "The Truth About Jerry Baxter") and this, an original script.

I've already spoken of Cornell Woolrich when presenting his episode "The Black Curtain;" as I noted, Woolrich had a gift for stories where the protagonist is unable to trust others because of the nature of their dilemma. Author Virginia Cross had something similar in mind with her script "A Little Piece of Rope," which aired October 14, 1948 with star Lucille Ball. You may download the episode from archive.org here.

In this episode, Ball portrays a young woman whose slight stature results in her constantly being mistaken for a teenager. In need of money, her solution is to employ her natural gifts: pose as a schoolgirl, lure wealthy men into offering her a ride, then slug them over the head and rob them! This scheme succeeds for a long time until she chooses as her victim a man who happens to be a serial killer!

I'm not a terrific fan of Lucille Ball but she did tremendous work in her six Suspense appearances. Her sly, streetwise voice suits this particular character and the conflict - serial robber versus serial killer - is kind of ingenious. As in Woolrich's stories, we have a protagonist who can't involve anyone else in their trials - because in this instance, she's as much a criminal as the person she's battling!

Tomorrow: "If it hadn't been for that kitten--"

31 Days of Suspense: "The Butcher's Wife"

You may chalk this up to Halloween-themed joshing but... there was a time when Kirk Douglas was young.

I know, you probably find it hard to believe even Michael Douglas was once young, yet I swear, it's true.

In the February 9, 1950 episode of Suspense - "The Butcher's Wife" - Douglas played a young supermarket clerk who fools around with another man's wife. The butcher's wife, as the title indicates. This proves fatal for more than one person! You may download the episode from archive.org here.

The highlight of the episode comes in the carefully constructed climax, the explosion of the slow-burn relationship dynamics. Douglas is ultimately caught in the supermarket after hours with the knife-wielding butcher pursuing him. This is radio at it's best - the simple sound effects do an excellent job of cranking up the terror so that when the grisly moments arrive it all seems inevitable. Perhaps we're all a little wiser about fooling around with butcher's wives now.

The script reappeared as "Never Steal a Butcher's Wife" on August 19, 1954 & December 29, 1957, but I prefer the Douglas performance.

Tomorrow: "Remember, I pick them old enough to have families, dignified jobs. Would they want to admit to chasing bobbysoxers?"

31 Days of Suspense: "Lunch Kit"

There are many episodes of Suspense where the lead character is backed into a tense, stressful situation by knowledge only they possess. It could be the name of the killer - it could be that they themselves are the killer in question. In today's instance, the tension is derived from an impending act of violence - yet, strangely, the person responsible is rather sympathetic.

John Lund is the sympathetic leading man of "Lunch Kit," broadcast on June 9, 1949. Lund's character is the son of a radical anti-atomic energy extremist. To pacify his father, he must carry a bomb into the plant where he works - concealed within his lunch kit. All that remains is for him to trifle his way through an ordinary day of work, then the bomb will take care of itself. However, knowing what he's agreed to do and how soon the bomb will detonate, his nerves fall apart. You can download the episode from archive.org here.

"Lunch Kit" is one of the few episodes which originated on another radio series (a series other than Escape, I should add). As "Death Carries a Lunch Kit," it was first heard as an episode of the Whistler on October 23, 1944. I prefer the Suspense version but if you'd like to compare flavours, you can find it at archive.org here.

Tomorrow: "I saw the knife. He'd fallen on it! It stuck out of the middle of his chest!"

31 Days of Suspense: "The Waxwork"

The stable of professional radio performers who turned up again and again in the 1940s & 50s were a tremendous asset to Suspense, a large part of how the series endured twenty years so gracefully. Not every performer was fantastic - personally, I can't bear to listen to Larry Thor's monotone for very long - but the majority of them brought colour and personality to their parts.

William Conrad was definitely one of the best; of course, he also had a film career and a bona fide leading role as Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, but in his many parts on Suspense (sometimes as cops, other times as robbers), he could bring savage, thundering tones to villains or invest police officials with wearied, laconic voices.

Conrad's tour de force on Suspense had to be the May 1, 1956 broadcast of "The Waxwork," wherein Conrad provides all of the voices heard! It's an appropriate choice, as the story is that of a reporter who shuts himself inside a wax museum by night to inspire his writing efforts. Unfortunately, in the quiet museum full of lifelike characters, one's imagination can run wild. You can download the episode from archive.org here.

"The Waxwork" had earlier been produced as a Suspense episode on March 20, 1947 with Claude Rains starring, but unfortunately the episode appears to have been lost to the ravages of time. Suspense adapted it a third time on March 1, 1959 with Herbert Marshall in the role and the story (by A.M. Burrage) was also adapted to television's Alfred Hitchcock Presents that same year. However, the television version by its very nature couldn't serve as a one-man show and while I like the episode quite a bit, I think Conrad's Suspense version is the superior product.

Tomorrow: "The unlit cigarette turned to garbage in my mouth. I spit it out and stamped it to pieces on the cement floor."

31 Days of Suspense: "The Pasteboard Box"

Now and then when discussing the horror genre people will discuss the impact of what is left unseen - in films such as Cat People (1942) where the audience does not see the terrifying creature around which all the tension is generated, or the short story "Casting the Runes" by M.R. James where something the protagonist cannot perceive is haunting him to his doom. In other words, the audience is left to employ their imagination to fill in the gaps and this can often be far more terrifying than anything the creators deliberately set in front of them.

On January 17, 1946, Joseph Cotten starred in the Suspense episode "the Pasteboard Box," in which he portrays a man who kills his twin brother and assumes his place. You can download the episode from archive.org here.

The episode derives its title from the box which Cotten places his brother's decapitated head inside. In fact, he completely eviscerates his brother's corpse in order to dispose of it. Pretty ghastly stuff for a prestige CBS radio drama, no? And yet, the details of the dismemberment are left to the audience's imaginations. Their sick, twisted, macabre imaginations.

Tomorrow: "Th-they're like naughty children in a classroom! Whispering, fidgeting and laughing behind their teacher's back but blandly innocent when his gaze is turned upon them..."

31 Days of Suspense: "Death Has a Shadow"

As I mentioned earlier, Suspense offered performers who were well-known in certain types of roles - that is, typecast - opportunities to experiment with heavier, more challenging material. Take for instance, Bob Hope.

Bob Hope starred in the May 5, 1949 episode of Suspense, "Death Has a Shadow," in which he portrays a lawyer trapped in his office after hours, waiting for a killer to arrive. You can download the episode from archive.org here.

If you examine Hope's film and television career you'll find an awful lot of froth; after all, he was a comedian. He was at home making people laugh (I mention this because it may seem unbelievable to modern audiences). Although some of Hope's films delved into mysteries - such as the Cat and the Canary (1939) or Ghost Breakers (1940), it was primarily to parody the genre. However, there is no parody to be found in "Death Has a Shadow," none of his usual asides to the audience - Hope take the material and plays it straight. He's actually quite good here! His character winds up being a completely terrible louse, which is also a departure for him.

Tomorrow: "I got the body over my shoulder then carried it upstairs and put it in the bathtub. I locked the bathroom door from the inside. Then I got to work."