Suspense Upgrades

Thanks Art but I read some reviews and don't think this one is for me.

lasombra here's the suspense file

Suspense_1943-06-15_Last_Night_wJosephKearns&Margo UPGRADE-4 Incl tax PS announcement at open.mp3
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

No reason to re-post the file -- just use the hubiC link which I will post every day

Yes, thank you kdmarket. I was able to get it via hubiC. And thank you greybelt for also posting to hubiC!

I was able to find a news clipping for Last Night.

Suspense_1943-07-06_TheWhiteRoseMurders_wMaureenOHara (has full open) UPGRADE-4.mp3
Degoo: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

This copy of the recording finally has a full, unclipped open.

This broadcast has been documented as an unfortunate inspiration of serial killer George Hodel.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


While at SPERDVAC, transcription collector David Gibbs and I sat together and talked about discs and other matters of earthshaking importance in OTRdom. David has been a marvelous contributor to the Suspense project.

David is also a musician. That affects the way he assesses sound and plans his recording strategy.

As most of us know in in Cobaltia, recording discs is hard work tempered by its being a labor of love. I hope you enjoy our discussion!

And... I'm glad that others have the patience and the diligence to care for and record from these discs -- because I don't!  There are many ways we can support OTRdom, and though I transferred many discs successfully in the mid-to-late-1970s, I learned the limits of my capabilities. Just listen to the way David talks about the process -- I'm so glad he's here.

THANKS AGAIN for our chat, David!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art

Suspense_1943-09-02_SingingWalls_wPFoster&DClark UPGRADE-3.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks greybelt

Best regards
Art

This day in Suspense history...
December 8
1949 For Love or Murder
1952 Joker Wild
1957 Speed Trap

Today's episode is the first of the Roma sponsorship and the beginning of the 2x per week period where East + Central time heard the show on Thursdays and Mountain + Pacific heard it on Mondays. I'm still finding ads for the series that indicate some of the Mountain cities broadcasts were flexible as to the day of broadcast they selected to air.
Suspense_1943-12-02_The_Black_Curtain_wCaryGrant (first Roma Wines) UPGRADE-4 (no day announced).mp3
Degoo: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


and a review by the legendary New York radio and later TV columnist, Ben Gross...

Just got another bunch of recordings to review, some with the assistance of the almighty Toebig... seems like I won't be posting for just a few days, more like I'll be posting for a few weeks. Uncovered some more East-West pairs in the process, but have no clue which is which, just that they're different.

Today's Black Curtain episode has no internal clues that I can find. It's one of the few times in this December 1943 to September 1944 run where they say "next week" and not "Thursday" or "Monday." So I may have reviewed copies of this program that were East or West but we may never know for sure. Some of the internal differences, like changes in dialog, may never be caught, which is where some of the Cobaltian support has come in handy where aspects of the recordings are discovered by serendipity.

I may have to skip a day or so this week as I go through these new recordings and prepare them for posting.

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

Today in Suspense history...
December 9
1943 The Night Reveals
1948 The Sisters
1954 On a Country Road
1956 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Suspense_1943-12-23_BackForChristmas_wPeterLorre UPGRADE-3 EC Thursday.mp3
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks greybelt
Best regards

Art

This day in Suspense history...
December 10
1951 Blackjack to Kill
1961 And So to Sleep My Love

Today's episode is an upgrade of one of the different recordings of Dateline: Lisbon that make up an East Coast - West Coast pair. We just don't know which is which because I can't find an internal clue in the program, and the documentation of the recordings from the disc labels is long gone.
The spreadsheet tracking the pairs, identified and unidentified, is at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Suspense_1944-10-05_Dateline_Lisbon_wJohnHodiak UPGRADE DELAYED NETWORK ID AT END.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


This was a curious news item... wonder if any of the Suspense regulars were found in this way...

Thanks!!

Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art

This day in Suspense history...
NOTHING!! It's amazing that even though the series was on the air for 20 years, there were no broadcasts on this day, Wednesday, December 11. There are 30 days in 2020 for which there was no Suspense broadcast for that date.

Here is another part of an E-W pair, one has a well-timed close, while this one is more rushed to get it all in. This one was uncovered in some files that Cobaltian favorite, Toebig, sent me the other day. The light scratchiness disappears as the show plays and is in nice sound overall.
Suspense_1944-11-30_TheBlackCurtain_wCaryGrant RUSHED CLOSE.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Newspaper clippings for this episode were posted earlier.

Thanks greybelt

Best regards
Art

Today in Suspense history...
December 12
1946 They Call Me Patrice
1947 The Man Who Couldn't Lose

Suspense_1944-12-21_BrightonStrangler_wJohnLoder UPGRADE-3.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

This was an interesting situation. Today's episode was a novel that was adapted to become a movie with our episode's stars...

With the movie underway, the producers could get publicity by having Suspense adapt the script and present it as a radio play with the stars of the movie...

The movie was released in Spring 1945... here's a poster for it...

The movie is online on YouTube. Enjoy!

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

This day in Suspense history...
December 13
1945 The Argyle Album
1955 A Present for Benny
1959 The Country of the Blind

This is an upgrade of one of the three files we have of this episode. These are East and West but unidentified. One says "... the Roma Wine Company of Fresno, California..." and this one is "Roma Wines present..." There are two versions of the latter, this one, which is an upgrade, and another, that has a Boy Scouts of America promo at the end.
 
Suspense_1945-02-08_A_Tale_Of_Two_Sisters (OPEN IS ROMA WINES PRESENT) UPGRADE-4 (noBSOA PSAatEnd).mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Newspaper clippings for this episode were posted earlier.


Tomorrow: another one-hit-wonder writer! This was a new one on me... an ad agency executive who became a publisher and then a successful broadcast cable TV media mogul... and his activities turn into a successful a multi-generation presence in broadcasting that survives him today... wrote one and only one script in his career... and it becomes a Suspense production!

Thanks greybelt
Best regards

Art

This day in Suspense history...
December 14
1944 The Lodger
1950 A Killing in Abilene
1953 The Mystery of Marie Roget
1958 For Old Times Sake

Today's episode is a "one-hit-wonder" script-writer hitting the grand slam in the bottom of the ninth on a first pitch 12-6 curveball in their first at-bat... since Little League. Well, maybe not so dramatic... first, here's the episode and the recordings...

Suspense_1945-04-05_A_Guy_Gets_Lonely_wDaneClark&HowardDuff UPGRADE-2.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

These are the newspaper clippings...

This was the clipping that began the one-hit-wonder investigation...

The writer's name is Donald Paul Nathanson, an advertising executive in Minneapolis. He submitted A Guy Gets Lonely for consideration, likely in 1944. He was about 30 years old at the time. Nathanson's specialty was radio advertising, how it was developed, targeted, negotiated, and placed. The ad agency he worked for in 1944, Manson-Gold, can be found on this page
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

He was deeply knowledgeable about the medium and station operations. The best ad execs always know their advertising client, their products, their customers, but also the intricacies about how decisions are made by those who supply advertising space (newspapers, magazines, billboards, etc.) or time (broadcasting).

Five years earlier, he was in on the founding of Radio Showmanship magazine. Some copies are preserved online [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (individual issues are searchable but the collection is not searchable).

The magazine was offered to individual stations to buy exclusive subscriptions in their specific market for their customers and prospective advertisers in their marketing area. Articles would focus on the effectiveness of local advertising using a case study approach. In this way, station prospects would read about businesses like theirs that used radio advertising to be successful, and hope to replicate that in their town.

This was no newbie writer preparing this script... this was someone who already understood how well-constructed radio drama could engage and hold onto an audience. I think the script is pretty good in that regard... a trap, a crisis, hidden identity, evil perpetrator, false accusation, a whole range of devices used in many Suspense presentations by professional writers, assembled rather neatly.

His career is summarized at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
It does not do justice to how he moved up in the advertising and broadcasting business. He would become an executive at Grey Advertising, one of the industry's legendary companies. He would eventually own television stations and cable systems. After his death, the Nathanson family continued the broadcast businesses he led; this Wikipedia article describes one of them [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Suspense is always full of behind-the-scenes surprises....

Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art

This day in Suspense history...
December 15
1942 Till Death Do Us Part
1949 The Flame Blue Glove
1952 The Man with Two Faces
1957 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Suspense_1945-05-03_Fear_Paints_a_Picture_wLanaTurner UPGRADE-3.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Newspaper clippings for this episode were posted earlier.


This little item in Radio Daily does not convey the importance of the event. Robert L. Richards had been Suspense editor on a freelance basis. He reviewed virtually all of the show's scripts during Spier's Hollywood tenure, and wrote quite a few himself. One of six scripts bears his name as author or adaptor, but the other five of six benefited from his editorial oversight. His tenure ended when Lewis took over the series, as Lewis liked getting into the small details and was his own editor. Richards ventured into television and motion pictures. He ended up on the Hollywood blacklist and moved to Mexico where he successfully took up carpentry and home construction to adjust for his limited writing opportunities.

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art