Suspense Upgrades

Thanks!

Near the end of the Hollywood Suspense run, we have had to rely on AFRS and home recordings for many of the episodes. Many of those home recordings were edited to be free of commercials. In some cases, AFRS recordings were edited in a manner to remove their service announcements and all signs of their AFRS production. Occasionally we are in situations where the edited recording, though incomplete, has better sound than the complete recordings. There's a couple of recordings coming up that have much better sound but are incomplete -- but they're great to listen to.

In this particular case, the complete program has never been found; the edited recording is all we have, but finally in improved sound.

Suspense_1958-12-28_ThirtySecondOfDecember_wFrankLovejoy NO COMMLS NO CLOSE (sound upgrade).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

Suspense is getting in on the popularity of Lloyd Bridges and the underwater syndicated TV hit Sea Hunt with this episode. This recording is an aircheck, commercials edited, but it has full show credits, unlike the currently circulating copy.

The writer is Hank Searls, whose name is often misspelled as "Searles." His name also appears in newspapers and other references as "Henry Searles." He also wrote the Suspense episodes Speed Trap and To None a Deadly Drug.

Searls was a Navy jet fighter pilot, who later worked for Hughes Aircraft in its technical department and produced training films with them. His career as a writer literally took off with his novel Crowded Sky, with numerous television and motion picture credits for scripts and adaptations of his novels. Searls had an interest in underwater photography, and this likely played a role into this episode.
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Suspense_1959-04-26_DeepDeepIsMyLove_wLloydBridges WBEN-BuffaloNY (commls deleted & other edits).mp3
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hubiC [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art

This recording has had commercials edited out but the sound is an improvement over the complete recording we have.
Suspense_1959-11-29_LeiningenVsTheAnts_wLVanRooten COMMLS EDITED (sound upgrade).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 episode's title has usually been presented as one word, "turnabout." All of the references to the title from newspaper clippings are as two words, "turn about."

There are three different versions of this broadcast. The other two are intact, and the best one has some signs of encoding defects. This sounds a little better but has had its commercials removed, and it may have a network ID patched on. There is a possibility that this was an AFRS recording and some past collector, decades ago, "restored" the network ID. We'll never know!

I was not familiar with one of the actors credited in the story, Melville Ruick. Turns out he's one of those "it's that guy" actors whom you see in lots of second banana roles but can't remember his name.
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He was married to radio superstar Lurene Tuttle for a while and his son-in-law is John Williams the famous conductor and composer.

Suspense_1960-01-24_Turnabout_wLeonardStone NO COMMLS patched end (sound upgrade).mp3
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This is one of FIVE Suspense episodes that shares a title with another that has a different plotline. This one is about a violent ex-con that marries a model, and she asks for help from the district attorney. The other "End of the Road" is from 1947-02-06 where a car salesman falls in love with a wealthy man's wife.
(The other re-used titles are Long Night, Nightmare, No Hiding Place, and Till Death Do Us Part).

The story is by Eleazar Lipsky with co-writing credit with Allan Sloane. Sloane was one of the regular scriptwriters for The Big Story and many, many other programs, including religious-theme series. Lipsky was a district attorney in New York City, who also wrote the story that became the movie Kiss of Death.


Lipsky and Sloane collaborated on the late 1950s series Indictment, and it is likely that this episode is a re-use of one of those scripts. The series was on CBS from January 1956 to January 1959, and just like this Suspense episode, was produced by Paul Roberts. It's likely that Roberts was the mover behind the idea to bring this and other Indictment scripts to Suspense for cost-savings but also because he believed in the quality of the stories.

The other Suspense episodes that were originally on Indictment or are suspected to be are
1959-10-11 Infanticide
1959-11-22 The Thimble
RadioGoldindex lists 9 Indictment episodes [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  None of them match these storylines.
It is hard to find plotlines in newspaper clippings for the Indictment series, unfortunately.
If anyone has Indictment episodes, please post them -- this thread will be fine to do so since there are so few and it relates to Suspense.

Suspense_1960-01-31_EndOfTheRoad_wBernardGrant COMMLS EDITED (sound upgrade).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

Thanks Greybelt! These are great.

Found a SIXTH repeated title, Black Death, with two different plotlines:
1955-08-02 which had as its original title "Black Magic" about finding a cat that is carrying the black plague, and 1962-07-01 about a mad scientist who has a disintegrating ray.
Yeah, I know, that last year of Suspense got a little strange...

This episode is definitely a network version. The copy that we currently have seems to be an edited AFRS version.
Suspense_1962-05-27_ThatRealCrazyInfinity_wJGrimes&RHolland NETWORK (has Alpine comml at open).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 is a much better network recording of this episode.
Suspense_1962-06-17_LunaticHour_wGeorgeMatthews NETWORK UPGRADE.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 have been posted previously. This is a new one.


This is a good time to download the Suspense log. I've run out of update and addition sources for the time being. A lot of stuff was added this weekend. Suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated.

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

The upgrade and new version recordings are finished with today post, for a little while. I recently recorded a Radio Memories podcast that will be available next week, if all goes well. We discuss Suspense and they had a really nice copy of Three O'Clock that was played and analyzed on the show. I'll post the link as soon as it is available.

I'll be posting links to some articles about the series now and then until some more recordings appear.

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

Today's episode was at a time when CBS was not working their publicity machine on behalf of the program: such was the plight of a sustaining series. Without big stars, there was little to attract the interest of the radio page editors. The production of Suspense was likely less pressured, with less lead time necessary for scheduling of scripts and personnel.

As an example, these are the only kind of news items related to the series that were found in the papers. "Suspense" was listed in the radio timetables, but the title of the episodes and the names of the lead performers were not.

CBS worked hard to find a sponsor, and for a few weeks, Colgate was likely to pen a deal. That fell through.

Things would be changing very soon, however, as in just a few weeks, a sponsor would be found for the program.

Suspense and the episode Three O'Clock is the topic at the Radio Memories podcast.
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There's also a research page just for the podcast
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The copy of Three O'Clock played on the podcast is excellent. I detected some 60hz hum in it, and removed it to make this copy.
Suspense_1949-03-10_ThreeO'Clock_wVanHeflin 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.]

Thank You greybelt

Best regards

Art

Thanks GB this was very good. What a plot blow up his own house to kill his wife LOL

Keith Scott has been helping me find some recordings that just never seem to be found in nice sound so I can at least work with a low generation recording from some of the better-connected collectors he knew in the 1970s. We live in marvelous times for OTR collecting -- Keith is in Australia and within minutes after he digitizes a file I can be working on it here in NC.

This episode has never been found in really good sound. This has been cleaned up a bit to make it less bad and a little more clear. The east coast performance of 1944-02-03 is in disappointing sound as well, and this west one is actually better!. That particular broadcast is hard to find; most all collections have the west version.

Suspense_1944-02-07_TheSisters_wILupino&AMoorehead UPGRADE-3 WC Monday.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.]

No newspaper clippings could be found for the West Coast broadcast.

Thanks!

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

Thank you greybelt!