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Suspense Upgrades

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Post by greybelt 10/10/2021, 5:56 pm

soorhands -- THANKS!!
the post has been fixed
for convenience this is the correct link to the west coast one
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The Theater Five Project links to research, blogposts, media [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Joe Hehn Memorial Collection history, recordings, radio scripts, and other items [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Post by greybelt 10/11/2021, 7:00 am

Today's recording is a missing east or west... we don't know which... recording that has a different time to ID than the recording in common circulation. Perhaps there is something that identifies the coast that I missed?

Suspense_1947-08-07_Quiet_Desperation_wWalterAbel (12sec to ID).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 other recording was posted previously
Suspense_1947-08-07_Quiet_Desperation_wWalterAbel (10sec to ID) UPGRADE-3.mp3
Degoo only [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

A newspaper clipping was posted previously; these are new...

1947-08-02 Harrisburg PA Record
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-338

1947-08-03 Shreveport LA Times
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-337

1947-08-07 Cedar Rapids IA Gazette
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-336

1947-08-07 Decatur IL Herald & Review
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-335

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Suspense resource page [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Research and interview links re Suspense, Whistler, Big Story, Casey, and others [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Theater Five Project links to research, blogposts, media [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Joe Hehn Memorial Collection history, recordings, radio scripts, and other items [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Post by artatoldotr 10/12/2021, 12:31 pm

Thanks greybelt

Best regards
Art
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Post by greybelt 10/12/2021, 3:10 pm

Today's recording is an upgrade of Subway starring soon-to-be Mrs. Spier, June Havoc. In fact, I was always told that the only reason this recording came into circulation was that this was  a copy of the discs made for her in her first starring Suspense role.

This program was originally scheduled for October 16... the October 23... and then finally this date. The schedule was in flux because Roma was exiting and didn't want to pay for big stars in the last weeks. Lucille Ball was cancelled for a repeat of Dime a Dance a couple of weeks later and they ran Rhiabouchinska instead (big break for that Bradbury guy!) and Louis Jourdan, who was teased for weeks, never got his Suspense showing. And the rerun of One Hundred in the Dark (sounds like the management of the company where I started my career) was done without a big star, so the regular cast and crew could have one big broadcast together... since they knew Suspense was all done, never to be heard from again. But we know the rest of the story!

Whatever it is, the pending Mrs. Spier got her shot... and they would soon live happily ever after.

Suspense_1947-10-30_Subway_wJuneHavoc UPGRADE-4 (likely WC).mp3
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Newspaper clippings were posted previously; these are new and have some of the background about Bill and June and Subway.

1947-10-01 NY Daily News
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-350

1947-10-16 Corpus Christi TX Times
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-348

1947-10-19 St Louis Post-Dispatch
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-347

1947-10-23 Madison WI Capital Times
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-346

1947-10-23 Miami FL Herald
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-345

1947-10-23 Minneapolis MN Star
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-344

1947-10-25 Harrisburg PA Telegraph
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-343

1947-10-29 Sioux Falls SD Argus Leader
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-349

1947-10-30 Miami FL Herald
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-342

1947-10-30 Miami FL News
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-341

1947-10-30 Minneapolis MN Star
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-340

1947-10-30 N Hollywood CA Valley Times
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-339

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Research and interview links re Suspense, Whistler, Big Story, Casey, and others [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Theater Five Project links to research, blogposts, media [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Joe Hehn Memorial Collection history, recordings, radio scripts, and other items [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Post by artatoldotr 10/13/2021, 9:47 am

Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art
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Post by greybelt 10/13/2021, 1:28 pm

Today's episode is a missing coast episode -- have no clue which coast -- of Henry Morgan's appearance on Suspense. It is very likely this was originally scheduled for the week prior, the spot that Subway took.

Speaking of the east and west coast recordings, what an amazing thing has happened. All of the reel collections transfers (more to come!!) and hunting through lots of digital collections (even bad ones), the east and west recordings population has made incredible and unthinkable progress.

These are after the 2x/week period, once the show went to a single night in mid-Sept 1944
There were 164 E&W broadcast nights in the 1x/week Roma period (pretty sure I counted this right)
We have both network recordings for 78 of them - 48%
We have one network and a different AFRS for 24 of then - 14%
That makes 102 in total for 62% of the 164 now have east-west pairs of some sort.
Before we all started looking hard, I think i knew of only about no more than 10!
Part of it was just learning what to look and listen for. Thanks again, Cobaltia... it could not have been done without you!

Suspense_1947-11-06_Dream_Song_wHenryMorgan (dir to ID).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.]

We recently posted this upgrade of the other coastal recording
Suspense_1947-11-06_Dream_Song_wHenryMorgan (8sec to ID) UPGRADE-3.mp3
Degoo only [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Clippings were posted previously; these are new

1947-10-30 Ottawa ON Citizen
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-355

1947-11-06 Akron OH Beacon Journal
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-354

1947-11-06 Corpus Christi TX Caller-Times
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-353

1947-11-06 Indianapolis IN News
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-352

1947-11-06 Ottawa ON Citizen
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1947-351


An uncirculated Henry Morgan Show was in the Hehn discs! It's an excellent episode.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

SPERDVAC is now having monthly Zoom events... and this next one is open to members and non-members, free to everyone. You just need to sign up to get the link. It's 4pm ET Saturday October 16.
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It's with Jack Ward, founder of modern audio drama alliance The Sonic Society. The group brings together creators of new audio dramas, and will have a convention of these creators in 2022 in Nova Scotia. He's a mover and shaker in the dramatic audio entertainment world today. He'll be interviewed by Walden Hughes, and John and Larry Glassman.

Details about Jack can be found at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

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Research and interview links re Suspense, Whistler, Big Story, Casey, and others [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Theater Five Project links to research, blogposts, media [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Joe Hehn Memorial Collection history, recordings, radio scripts, and other items [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Post by artatoldotr 10/13/2021, 4:26 pm

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art
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Post by bojim1 10/13/2021, 10:39 pm

I'll give Henry Morgan another try.....I really WANT to like his radio work but....Always great on the old game shows

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Post by greybelt 10/14/2021, 4:55 am

This is an upgrade of a file posted about a year ago. Suspense is in limbo, the weeks between the Roma cancellation and the beginning of the hour-long shows. By this time, it was likely that they suspected Suspense would return, in a different format, but there was enough uncertainty to be cautious about it all.

The weeks before this it was not so certain... and without a sponsor, Suspense had to economize. The show was moved to Fridays, and the coastal performances were eliminated. Suspense would have one performance only for the rest of its entire run, and gradually stations would record programs and run at times appropriate for their geographies. Years later, network feeds would send the programs through at different times.

The hour-long Suspense played on Sundays on the Pacific Network, at 4:30pm, by transcription. They had made a big deal about filling a Saturday night block in the network schedule. But only in the East and Midwest (and likely Mountain) did that happen. What a mess. 4:30pm in a pretty Sunday afternoon in Southern California? Don't think so. Even San Fran can be pretty with a jacket at that time. Perhaps the inlanders were listening. CBS was the gang that couldn't program straight.

To save money, some stars were delayed, like Lucille Ball, Danny Kaye, and the multiple-announced Louis Jourdan, who would never make it, and the sudden Friday switch may have been the cause. But some stars were kept in the schedule.
- December 5 was supposed to be For Love or Murder, replaced by a repeat of Clock and the Rope
- December 12 was probably going to be Dime a Dance, but it became Man Who Couldn't Lose, today's recording
- December 19 was announced as I Had an Alibi with Kaye, and it became Wet Saturday with Karloff... Karloff for gosh sakes... a missing performance... [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (oh, please, Santa, can you find this for us... I thought I'd ask early since I know there are supply chain problems with the elves' shops around the world)...
- December 26, Ozzie and Harriet did their Too Little to Live On, another repeated script.

The first newspaper reports of hour-long Suspense were in December 30 papers, so the decision was likely finalized by the time Karloff had his performance that we want to hear so badly.

Man Who Couldn't Lose presses the bounds of common sense, and is one of those plotlines that is so impossible you can't help but happily smirk at it all... despite the murder and nefarious intent. The Emile Tepperman script is a little to happy for his regular haunt of Inner Sanctum, which may be why it ended up on Suspense. When Spier repeats a script, it's an indication that he thinks it's solid and connects well with the audience.

Suspense_1947-12-12_ManWhoCouldn'tLose_wDanDuryea UPGRADE-4.mp3
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Newspaper clipping posted previously.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Who knew? 1945's A Week Ago Wednesday by Winifred Wolfe was later repeated on Murder at Midnight, episode #48; no audio is available. And her Theater Five script Around the Corner from Nowhere (May 12, 1965) was originally syndicated on Murder at Midnight (#43) in 1946 as "City Morgue"; no audio has survived, either. Scriptwriters must have been among the first ecologists; they strongly support recycling, even across the decades...

Details about M@M's syndication, re-use of scripts from Inner Sanctum, Molle and The Shadow can be found at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  Scripts were re-used in both directions! It's Karl Schadow's work. He's been an outstanding supporter to the Suspense research.

_________________
Suspense resource page [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Research and interview links re Suspense, Whistler, Big Story, Casey, and others [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Theater Five Project links to research, blogposts, media [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Joe Hehn Memorial Collection history, recordings, radio scripts, and other items [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Post by artatoldotr 10/14/2021, 9:14 am

Thanks greybelt
Best regards

Art
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Post by greybelt 10/15/2021, 8:16 am

Today's episode was last updated 4 years ago. No AFRS recording has been found.

Is this one of the worst Suspense episodes ever? Christine Miller thinks it is...
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Pamela Wilcox authored other Suspense plays: Overture in Two Keys, Knight Comes Riding, and the recently posted Stand-In.

Christine has not updated her blog in years, unfortunately. I do send her links to various things going on in Suspenseland. It was her blog that helped get this project going.

Suspense_1948-09-02_TheMorrisonAffair_wMadeleineCarroll UPGRADE-4.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
hubiC (not available at this time; to be posted later) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Newspaper clippings were posted previously; these are new...

1948-09-02 Asheville NC Citizen-Times
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-232

1948-09-02 Battle Creek MI Enquirer
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-231

1948-09-02 Cedar Rapids IA Gazette
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-230

1948-09-02 Franklin PA News-Herald
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-229

1948-09-02 Montreal QB Gazette
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-228

1948-09-02 Ottawa ON Citizen
The game show craze is in full swing, gathering the top spots
in the Hooper ratings... but there is Suspense at the top.
Earlier in the year, Suspense was off the radar, but in just
a few months in 30 minute format and the new Auto-Lite
sponsorship, and the direction of Anton Leader, the franchise
was alive once more.
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-227

1948-09-02 Pasadena CA Independent
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-226

1948-09-02 Wichita KS Eagle
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-225

This is not a new clipping but it is one of the negative reviews that I found interesting. It was posted a while ago, but here it is once more...

1948-09-12 Cincinnati OH Enquirer
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-233


Last edited by greybelt on 10/16/2021, 4:51 am; edited 2 times in total

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Research and interview links re Suspense, Whistler, Big Story, Casey, and others [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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The Joe Hehn Memorial Collection history, recordings, radio scripts, and other items [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Post by artatoldotr 10/15/2021, 11:07 am

Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art
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Post by greybelt 10/16/2021, 5:09 am

Skipped a recording the other day, and it's an odd one: a half hour program from the hour era. It has not had an upgrade for 9 years.

CBS needed to fill some time in the schedule. The script Life Ends at Midnight is a repeated script of 1944-02-07. The half hour space was created by the airing of a 30 minute Anti-Defamation League special.

The program got barely any coverage in the timetables. It was almost a surprise Suspense offering. The last broadcast of the hour-long period was supposed to be 1948-04-10 Crossfire, but then the CBS suits and lunch martini crowd said "oops we have open time in the schedule" and gave us two hour long programs The Search and The Blind Spot. Suspense wasn't even broadcast on the same day in east and west at this point, with the Pacific Network airing a transcribed version on Sunday afternoons at 4:30pm which changed to 5:00pm at some point. They served up another one, Deadline at Dawn, a week after this surprise 30 minute episode ripped from the file cabinet...

The ADL program got matched up with Suspense on Sunday on the west coast. The schedule was really flexible for the stations. I found the ADL program broadcast at many different times that weekend throughout the country.

Here is the way it looked in a New Jersey paper on Saturday...
1948-05-08 Hackensack NJ Record
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-234

The lack of newspaper coverage in the timetables implies the decision was made late and there was not enough time to mail the publicity to the stations and newspapers.

Suspense_1948-05-08_LifeEndsAtMidnight_wFayBainter (30 min show) 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.]

Don't worry... the Auto-Lite era starts soon... just ignore yesterday's Morrison Affair Smile
[the hubiC link for that episode is now available]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One of the challenges of the COVID lockdown was the simple gathering of people to put on radio recreations. Audion Project did one in 2020 that was a missing Suspense, The Keenest Edge, and did it over Zoom. They had challenges of latency (those electrons take their sweet time going around the globe... in these kinds of events you realize how impatient we have become with even milliseconds of delay) which have to be dealt with in editing, and video editing has its own challenges, of course.
The group offers a very good performance... AND Zoom let them cross state and country borders to do so...
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The presentation involved 6 different actors from 5 different states/cities including Toronto.
Get more background on their productions at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
They just posted a missing Whistler last week

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Research and interview links re Suspense, Whistler, Big Story, Casey, and others [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Theater Five Project links to research, blogposts, media [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The Joe Hehn Memorial Collection history, recordings, radio scripts, and other items [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Post by artatoldotr 10/16/2021, 12:07 pm

Thanks greybelt
Best regards

Art
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Post by greybelt 10/17/2021, 5:41 am

Two programs today in remembrance of the first anniversary of the passing of Joe Hehn this date last year. Joe's collection of discs and tapes is still in the process of being researched and converted, and has been the source of many of these upgrades this past year. More details below.

Both of these are upgrades of recordings posted in this past year or so.

Suspense_1948-09-09_TheBigshot_wBurtLancaster UPGRADE-6.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.]

Suspense_1948-09-30_ManWhoWantedToBeEGRobinson_wRobinson UPGRADE-5.mp3
Degoo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is a picture of Joe Hehn that appeared in a 1969 newspaper story about him...
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 Joe_he10
... the binder he is writing in is in my possession right now among other things that remain to be scanned from this past year.

The collection is at
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and all of the audio files are available in FLAC or mp3. Our group of 25 collectors who have transferred discs and reels and research and organization and funds have made an effort to post only those recordings that are "new" or fell out of circulation, are equal or better or more complete than currently circulating recordings. Many of the tapes had dried out and we all had our "home cures" for getting one last good recording out of them. Our disc dubbers are among the best our hobby has to offer. All of it has had the benefit of today's incredible computer audio processing tools. What those early collectors considered as excellent often had severe disc rumble, tape hiss, was not on proper speed... but they cherished the recordings because they saved each of them from certain oblivion.

There's more to come over this next year in terms of audio. Most of Joe's recordings were already in circulation among collectors for a long time, but we were able to make some very nice sound upgrades, and in some cases, significant sound upgrades to what has been around. The disc recordings are still being worked on -- they're all recorded, and still many in line for sound processing. Some discs were very fragile and just didn't make the trip in the mails -- we knew that would happen to some of them -- but nothing of great significance was lost.

There were some things that Joe had that were not in circulation much, such as some episodes of MGM Radio Theater, the soap opera Road of Life, the kids' serial Land of the Lost and some incidental recordings of more popular programs. There were "new" recordings of the soap opera Ethel & Albert. The show was written by Peg Lynch, who was incredibly prolific in writing the series that also went to TV. Her granddaughter was extremely pleased to have copies of the programs that had not been heard since they were first broadcast in the early 1940s.

All of the correspondence, photos, scripts were scanned.

The correspondence and the notes were often heartbreaking for me. Most had damage from moisture which blurred much of the signatures and such.

He was planning a history of the juvenile serials, which if published, would have been a monumental early work for the hobby but also radio history. It was not to be. He wrote letters, made phone calls, pounded the streets of New York City after hours of train rides and car drives from northeast Pennsylvania, got people to vouch for his honesty and passion, had a commitment from Scholastic publishers, and then... nothing...

Joe kept all of his carbon copies of letters he sent to prominent radio people, ad agencies, stations, and such. So much of the correspondence was follow-up for their non-response. I kept picturing him coming home from work and opening up the envelopes to just see yet another turndown from something. It got to me a bit and there were times I could not look at the box of letters for weeks, but I did narrow things down to the most important ones. There were a couple of bright spots. He got an incredibly nice letter from the woman who wrote the serial he enjoyed so much, Chandu the Magician, with lots of details about the production. He also had a multi-month correspondence with writer/director/producer Jack Johnstone. The day when Suspense and Yours Truly Johnny Dollar went off the air, September 30, 1962, known among some collectors as "the day radio died," Jack wrote both scripts, a usual Johnny Dollar episode as he had been director and producer when it was in Hollywood. Then Jack walked away and retired after 30+ years doing some prominent radio work. It dawned on me that Jack wrote to Joe because he retired and was away from it, and it wasn't the free time, he had developed some distance and perspective that had him love the era as much as Joe did. Most everyone Joe was writing to was still in the business in some way. They didn't have the time to savor what they did. It was still a job for them, just like it was when they did it decades before. The letter he got from Himan Brown that said
Frankly, what anyone would want with a history of the shows you are trying to gather together is beyond me.
Brown wished him luck at the end of the letter. What an awful way to get Hi Brown's autograph.

As I met many of the people whom he wrote to in the mid-60s, or at least knew about them, at radio conventions of the 1970s and 1980s, it was only then that they had an appreciation of it all -- and it was as their friends were passing away that they wanted to talk to people and fans about it. Joe was too early, but he had a passion for it that they could not sync with. It hurt me to see it all. It seems like the whole effort to his correspondence came to an end in 1967 or 1968.

Despite the disappointment, Joe continued to appear on radio talk shows, local television, and his biggest legacy is the thousands of presentations he made to local clubs and religious organizations, and especially senior living facilities of all levels. As his age advanced, those twice-weekly visits to residents kept him going. The COVID lockdown meant there could be no more visits. The imposed lack of social interaction was overwhelming. The isolation ended up affecting his day-to-day routines and his health started to spiral downward.

Luckily, fortuitous circumstances led to the securing of his reels and papers that had not been viewed other than moving them for about 20 or 30 years. They would have been thrown out. The generous cooperation of many people came about at the right time. There are details to the story that even they are not aware of that will stay private, for now.

One of the things I like to collect from the era of Joe's collecting are the catalogs that collectors made of their collections. All of them thought that they were in a race against time because everything was being thrown out at the stations and ad agencies. So their catalogs were prepared with great care and with detailed descriptions of almost every single recording. They are great resources for the history of our hobby. A collector friend of mine in Australia, Keith Scott, is a voice actor and impressionist who was brought to the states to work on the Bullwinkle movie in 2000ish. He met Skip Craig, the Head of Production for Jay Ward and all those Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons that had some of radio's greatest voices (especially William Conrad!) -- he was a famous old radio collector at the time. [John Dunning dedicated Tune in Yesterday to Skip].

So all these years later, Skip Craig's catalog is in Joe's papers -- Keith was thrilled to get it as he had never seen it before ((shhhh! don't tell anyone that Craig had his collection on punch cards and ran his catalog on Jay Ward's mainframe and line printer -- it's just between us))

In the end, Joe's collection turned out to be rather small in comparison to the collections that we can have today, and even smaller once the items that have since been available in better sound than he had were cast aside. But that small collection has been so rewarding to work on for what was there, untouched or re-discoverable, these pioneer collectors still affect our hobby today. Series like Road of Life, MGM Theater, Big Story, Whistler, have all had new "lost" recordings brought to our hobby in this process, and there are still more to come with lots of upgrades of numerous series, and lots of broadcasting curiosities.

Joe, and his family and caretaker made it clear that they wanted his collection to be available to everyone. We came to an understanding that it would be best done that way through the Internet Archive (archive.org) and that there would be a "Joe Hehn Collection" there. I arranged it all through email with them. Joe passed away a week later. It became the "Joe Hehn Memorial Collection" and it is there, and being added to, and will "outlive" all of us as electrons. This is all far beyond what Joe could have imagined.

I only spoke to Joe Hehn twice in my life. Once as a college kid starting in collecting, probably around 1977. And then a few days before he died over FaceTime. It wasn't the best of conversations because of his health but he was happy that he was remembered by one of his fellow collectors after all those many years.

There are many collections of 1960s and 1970s collections that have been lost, but many are still to be saved. The "digital revolution" in our hobby in the 1990s and early 2000s was the encoding of reels and cassettes that were far removed from their early recordings and had built up generations of tape noise and hiss and speed variances that are best solved by getting as close to the original source recordings and transfers as possible. If you have never volunteered for getting involved in an OTR restoration effort such as this, it is worth considering. I have been involved in this hobby in one way or another since high school, in the early 1970s. I have been an OTR recordings and book dealer, transferred discs, was involved with others in publishing a newsletter, was on convention committees, participated in buying groups, did research on programs... and this hobby has never been as enjoyable and rewarding as it has been for me in these past few years. The effort needs more volunteers for all kinds of tasks, with no real experience necessary.

Take some time today to enjoy the Hehn collection, and to thank all those pioneer collectors from the mid-1960s and forward to today, whose sweat and time and skill created all of the recordings of that brief age of radio.

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Post by greybelt 10/18/2021, 7:48 am

Details about the Joe Hehn Collection are now available at...
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... please share the link with as many collectors you know...

This is one of my most upgraded programs. It's much more listenable than the first one I had 15+ years ago when the project started.
Suspense_1948-10-21_Give_Me_Liberty_wWilliamPowell UPGRADE-5.mp3
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No new newspaper clippings.

There may not be daily postings this week as I catch up on the Casey, Crime Photographer book preparation. The project was set aside as the Hehn events began to unfold. Some days will be skipped... but don't worry, there's much more Suspense ahead!

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Post by artatoldotr 10/18/2021, 11:00 am

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art
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Post by greybelt 10/20/2021, 5:29 pm

Today's episode has not been updated in 8 years. It's one of the odder situations in Suspense history. The title is "Holiday Story," but it's really Back for Christmas, the 1939 John Collier story that had been offered before and was really well-known. They snuck it in, under the wire, and there's no solid information why.

The story that was promoted was "Rich Man, Poor Man" by Miles Connelly (it's really "Myles" but no newspaper got it right, which means that the CBS publicity department didn't get it right). It was supposed to star Ronald Colman in a non-violent, and assumed to be a heartwarming story, appropriate for Suspense in some way.

Something went wrong. Colman was switched to Herbert Marshall. "RM,PM" was withdrawn, and they snuck Back to Christmas in, but I think because everyone knew the popular story, they called the episode "Holiday Story" and really it almost sounds like it has no name. They didn't deliver was was promised in the publicity, that's for sure! There are no newspaper stories about any of the events and I have never seen any comments from Tony Leader about this.

Mr. Blue was a short novel Connelly wrote in 1928 about a modern St. Francis-like figure who has come into money and then gives it all away, then living life as a very happy pauper. It does not seem that RM,PM is this particular story but probably builds on themes of material detachment and generosity that Connelly's Mr. Blue and other works were noted for, and appropriate for the Christmas season.

We'll likely never know what became of it. There is an early script in the KNX archives, and I do have a scan of the first page, below. There's no telling when I might get to see the script again. And I guess if I do, I have to read Mr. Blue now to make a valid comparison!

Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 Rich_m10



Suspense_1948-12-23_HolidayStory_wHerbertMarshall UPGRADE-3.mp3
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1948-12-14 Pittsburgh PA Press
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-240

1948-12-18 Montreal QB Gazette
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-239

1948-12-19 Sioux City IA Journal
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-238

1948-12-23 Ottawa ON Citizen
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-237

1948-12-23 Richmond VA Times Dispatch
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-236

1948-12-23 Indianapolis IN News
This is as close as we get to what ended up happening;
what a non-description!
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1948-235

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Fans have wondered what happened to the later years Suspense writer George Bamber. To make a long story very short, he had mild success as a radio writer, and when Theater Five closed down, he gave up the radio dream and got into business writing, marketing, and trade shows full time. He was already doing work in that area because radio was too infrequent to pay the bills. He was employed for a while by US Plywood, but he had his own marketing agency much of the the time. He developed heart problems and decided to get out of that job and began to raise avocados in southern California in the mid-to-late 1980s. He became a legend at it, a favorite at farmers markets and festivals for his wit and award-winning guacamole dip. He died in 2017 at age 84, his car crushed by a massive tree as he was innocently driving along. His last decades of life in the avocado business seemed extraordinarily happy. More details at an appropriate time. A fascinating character.
[Hat tip to the steadfast nickp57 who started the information snowball rolling about Mr Bamber toward me the other day]

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Post by artatoldotr 10/21/2021, 11:18 am

Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art
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Post by greybelt 10/23/2021, 8:29 am

Here is that Mel Dinelli script that he was writing as a stage production that he turned into a Suspense production that he turned into a screenplay (Beware, My Lovely) that no one would really fund until Ida Lupino got involved while he was working on it as a theatrical piece that became a television program while it was being presented here and there in regional theater. Get all that?

This was supposed to be a reprise for Sinatra and Moorehead then Sinatra and Ethel Barrymore and then Sinatra couldn't do it so friend Gene Kelly did it. No problem, Gene had been on Suspense before and was a big name to make all the CBSian suits happy.

This program has always been around in good sound, but this one is in the best balance and cleanest. The AFRS recording was never good, and the one we posted in 2017 is linked again as a big improvement in sound for that format.

Bill Conrad is here in a supporting role before he got really big. But it may just be the early hours of the day that make me think that Ethel Barrymore sounds a lot like when John Cleese and Graham Chapman used to do their bit of dress-up like old women ("We just finished burying the cat. The husband and I are going away for a fortnight and who wants to come home to a dead cat?" and lines like that). But... she comes off as an older woman here than Moorehead made it sound in the 1945 first airing... does that make it more terrifying? Hmmmm....

Suspense_1949-01-06_ToFindHelp_wGKelly&EBarrymore UPGRADE-5.mp3
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Suspense_1949-01-06_ToFindHelp_wGKelly&EBarrymore AFRS#266 UPGRADE FROM DISC.mp3
Degoo only [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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1949-01-05 Los Angeles CA Mirror
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-257

1949-01-06 Cumberland MD News
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-256

1949-01-06 Edmonton AB Bulletin
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-255

1949-01-06 Latrobe PA Bulletin
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-254

1949-01-06 Madison WI Capital Times
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-253

1949-01-06 Miami FL Herald
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-252

1949-01-06 Ottawa ON Citizen
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-251

1949-01-07 Mason City IA Globe-Gazette
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-250


Last edited by greybelt on 10/23/2021, 8:15 pm; edited 1 time in total

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Post by soorhands 10/23/2021, 3:01 pm

The link for the AFRS "To Find Help" sends you to the "UPGRADE-5" file.

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Post by artatoldotr 10/23/2021, 3:44 pm

Thanks greybelt

Best regards
Art
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Post by greybelt 10/23/2021, 8:15 pm

Thanks soorhands
The link has been fixed
For convenience, it is repeated here
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Post by greybelt 10/24/2021, 11:41 am

Today's recording is a "missing" AFRS version that had fallen out of circulation decades ago. The network version was originally posted four years ago, and is available here.

This is another John Collier story, originally published in the July 18, 1942 edition of The New Yorker. Text of the story can be found in an online Google document [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The name comes from the Latin de mortuis nil nisi bonum, which literally means "Of the dead say nothing but good." In everyday English it has become "Don't speak ill of the dead." In the times of the broadcast 70+ years ago, it would have been common to say the words "de mortuis" and many would have known and been familiar with the rest of the phrase and its meaning.

Like many of the Suspense offerings, the story was later adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents
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At that time Robert Stevens, the producer/director of most of the Suspense television episodes, was the director of this AHP episode.
A discussion of the production that gives some insight into the original Collier story is at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Suspense and AHP liked Collier as a source of stories as they each did Wet Saturday and Back for Christmas, too.
The Suspense TV show aired De Mortuis on June 12, 1951 with Walter Slezak and Olive Deering, directed by Stevens. Unfortunately, no video is available.

Suspense_1949-02-10_De_Mortuis_wCharlesLaughton AFRS.mp3
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from 2017
Suspense_1949-02-10_De_Mortuis_wCharlesLaughton UPGRADE-3.mp3
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1949-02-06 Sioux City IA Journal
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-262

1949-02-06 Sioux City IA Journal
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-261

1949-02-10 Latrobe PA Bulletin
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-260

1949-02-10 Ottawa ON Citizen
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-259

1949-02-10 Scranton PA Times-Tribune
Suspense Upgrades - Page 6 1949-258

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Post by artatoldotr 10/24/2021, 1:31 pm

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art
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