Suspense Upgrades

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

thank you so much Greybelt for all the work you put in for all the background info

Today's episode wasn't upgraded all that long ago, and I can't find any new newspaper clippings. I can use the brief rest and relaxation in terms of writing these posts

This is the episode written by a Minneapolis ad agency executive, Don Nathanson, the only script he had produced on radio that we know of. He went on to much bigger things, becoming a cable executive on the west coast and the southwest. But we will know him for something much darker and awful from his advertising days: helping Toni sponsor Casey, Crime Photographer. Oh, the agony!

This is the first known appearance by Howard Duff in a Spier production. Kay Thompson would recommend the relatively unknown but busy actor for Sam Spade. Spier listened. Suspense was owned by an ad agency. But Spier owned the entire Sam Spade production. Smart move. Smart casting. Thank you, Kay.

Other news after the links...

Suspense_1945-04-05_A_Guy_Gets_Lonely_wDaneClark&HowardDuff (38sec to ID) UPGRADE-2.mp3
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hubiC (to be posted later; site under maintenance) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The other network recording was posted about 18 months ago...
Suspense_1945-04-05_A_Guy_Gets_Lonely_wDaneClark&HowardDuff (15sec to ID) UPGRADE-2.mp3
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Newspaper clippings were posted previously.


OTRR's newsletter has an exceptional article by Karl Schadow on Man from Homicide, and there are two articles about Suspense episodes, The Mystery of Marie Roget and Beware the Quiet Man.
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If you're looking for good and reliable cloud space, IceDrive is getting better and growing. They've grown so much they will stop selling lifetime accounts. For $499 you get 5TB... it's a better deal than pCloud. They'll be selling the lifetime accounts until the end of this month. I think the service is marvelous. I don't have a lifetime account, but wish I did! The timing was not right for me when it was offered. There will be Black Friday deals for other services, I'm sure, and will advise as I learn of them.

The Hehn Project continues on... we are hoping to have lots more stuff up in time for the first anniversary of his passing on October 17. I created some new pages yesterday. The page that has had the most traffic has been MGM Theater of the Air where there are some previously uncirculated shows. I will be creating new pages most every day. Lots of disc recordings are being added over these next weeks. There's some really good stuff already there.
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Thanks greybelt

Best regards
Art

Short post today...

This is one of those "wow" sounding upgrades. So many of the upgrades are minor, less noise, less hiss, a little more richness. This one is a bigger step than that. And the source reel tape indicated which coast the recording was from, and that cleared up another little mystery.

Suspense_1945-04-19_PearlsAreANuisance WC (4sec to ID) UPGRADE.mp3
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The east version was upgraded a few months ago
Suspense_1945-04-19_PearlsAreANuisance EC (direct to ID) UPGRADE-4.mp3
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Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art

Today's episode has been upgraded a few times recently. That's okay... better is better... and there's something about Herbert Marshall's appearances on Suspense that make them better than most.

Suspense_1945-05-24_MyOwnMurderer_wHerbertMarshall (10s to ID) UPGRADE-3.mp3
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This file was updated two years ago. The intended coast is still not identified.
Suspense_1945-05-24_MyOwnMurderer_wHerbertMarshall (6s to ID) UPGRADE-7.mp3
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This AFRS recording was posted two years ago. It was a new find at the time.
Suspense_1945-05-24_MyOwnMurderer_wMarshall (from 10s rec) AFRS#104 FROM DISC (rough open 10sec).mp3
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A newspaper clipping was posted previously; these are new...


Author of the original novel was Richard Henry Sampson, a British accountant. He became a successful mystery writer under the name "Richard Hull." The original story was published in 1940.

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

Today's episode is an upgrade via lasombra (don't tell anyone she is in a key position at the C3DS lab -- those positions are secret). 1945's August Heat was posted last year around this time. There were three recordings, and one had the R-O-M-A opening when it shouldn't. We still don't know where that's from. There are two recordings that have the correct opening but we don't know which is east or west. The difference between the recordings is that one has a push for the Seventh War Loan Drive and the other doesn't. The drive was national, so that does not seem to be a clue.

Before one of the daily posts is made I've done a fresh search for newspaper clippings. Newspapers.com is always adding to their archives, and I'm getting better skilled at navigating search obstacles. This time, there are indications that the title of the program was supposed to be "Summer Heat," at least that's what the CBS publicity had. Was it an error back at CBS? Or was it the working title? We may never know. The title of the original story by W.F. Harvey was "August Heat." Spier did occasionally change titles, so there's a good chance he did, and then thought better of it.

This is the recording lasombra posted. It has now been sound processed for enhancement.
Suspense_1945-05-31_AugustHeat_wRColman 7thWarLoanDrive@End dir to ID UPGRADE.mp3
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This one was posted previously and does not have the load drive plea.
Suspense_1945-05-31_AugustHeat_wRColman UPG-5 NO 7th WAR LOAN DRIVE AT END direct to ID.mp3
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Thanks greybelt
Best regards

Art

These recordings were upgraded over the last year, and here we are again. We still don't know which coast either recording is for. They have different times to ID, and one of the recordings has a misread line that the other does not have. It could be that the flawless performance is the west coast broadcast since he had "practice" on the east coast, but these things can happen any time... especially if the cast went "out" between broadcasts.

Footfalls with J. Carroll Naish was originally scheduled for this date. Naish performed it two weeks later.

Suspense_1945-06-28_DealingsOfMrMarkham_wHDaniell (misread line ~3m) (7sec to ID).mp3
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This is the other recording from about 3 years ago...
Suspense_1945-06-28_DealingsOfMrMarkham_wHenryDaniell (15sec to ID) UPGRADE-3.mp3
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Newspaper clippings were posted previously; these are new...

Thanks greybelt
Best regards
Art

This is the debut of the AFRS recording of this episode and an upgraded west recording. It was in very limited circulation. SWN resources are numerous... but the research site has a different take on things...
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Newspaper clippings say this is the fourth SWN broadcast. Maybe for listeners where they lived it is. This is actually the sixth (EC) and seventh (WC) Moorehead performances once the east and west broadcasts are counted.

Suspense_1945-09-06_SorryWrongNumber_wAgnesMoorehead_v4 WC UPGRADE-3.mp3
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The C3DS advises us that the AFRS recording is from the east broadcast.

The AFRS recording is drawn from the East broadcast as follows:
at 14:06 KNX has “Now, just, now I’ve got a couple of other matters here on my desk that require immediate attention. Good night, ma’am, and thank you”
at 11:48 the AFRS has "Now, now, just now I’ve got a couple of other matters here on my desk that require immediate attention. Good night, ma’am, and, and thank you”
the abridged East recording matches the AFRS starting at 11:41

Suspense_1945-09-06_SorryWrongNumber_wAgnesMoorehead_v4 AFRS#119.mp3
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This is the EC broadcast, but it's an odd, edited recording, posted previously
Suspense_1945-09-06_SorryWrongNumber_wAgnesMoorehead_v4 EC ODD RECORDING NO OPEN CLIPPED END.mp3
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This is the west coast recording as a KNX aircheck, posted previously
Suspense_1945-09-06_SorryWrongNumber_wAgnesMoorehead_v4 KNX AIRCHECK (nice sound).mp3
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It's hard to believe, but with Newspapers.com regularly adding new archives, I'm still finding SWN clippings...

The week prior to this episode, Joe Kearns announced that Myrna Loy would appear on Suspense. He sounded so confident, but based on the newspaper clippings, that wasn't settled too long before that broadcast. Some clippings don't mention a guest at all. Other newspaper clippings show confusion about what script they would use. "Library Book" is not in many of them. Others just mention Loy. And this is a new one: Myrna Loy in... The Waxworks! I had not seen that one before, but it's in quite a few papers. That casting would have been quite a surprise. This means that adaptation was hanging around Suspense since this time; it was not broadcast until almost two years later, March 1947 with Claude Rains, a performance that is still missing. Alfred Hitchcock was even planned for that 1947 role. This is a new Suspense mystery... maybe more information will be found about it all.

Two upgrades today, but we don't know which recording belongs to which coast. If anyone hears any clues in here, please let us know.

Suspense_1945-09-20_LibraryBook_wMyrnaLoy (direct to ID) UPGRADE-3.mp3
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Suspense_1945-09-20_LibraryBook_wMyrnaLoy CLIPPED OPEN (8sec to ID) UPGRADE.mp3
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Newspaper clippings have been posted before; these are new...

Here are generic listings that mention Loy only...


Here are two from the same paper... the first has no mention of Loy or the title, the other pushes The Waxworks


Here's another Waxworks mention


Finally! Library Book reaches the editorial desk for the radio page... not many newspapers got it in time...



Could civilians listen to Armed Forces Radio? Of course! Hawaii did not have many radio stations, and during the war AFRS was important to the territory for everyone.
Hey... it's Thursday! What time is Suspense on?

They would hear Suspense once the discs arrived, usually two to three weeks after that particular episode was heard in the 48... it looks like this station was mixing AFRS programming with their own.


The history of this station is at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Here's an ominous excerpt:

Prior to the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, KGMB was asked to broadcast music in order to provide long-range guidance to a flight of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses on their way to Hawaii from the mainland. Ironically, the Japanese aircraft picked up the same transmissions and used them for guidance while they approached the islands. During the attack, KGMB dispatched reports to CBS Radio, which in turn were cited on-air by John Charles Daly, who anchored the network's coverage of that day's news.

Researcher Karl Schadow sent me a note about Wally Maher:

A week ago (Sunday, September 12th), Murray Horwitz interviewed Wally Maher, Jr. during THE BIG BROADCAST (WAMU) here in the DC area. The show is available at
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The interview starts at about 1:53:00; it's 10 minutes
Also read the Wally Maher profile that is linked on the page at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

I cannot find the Life Magazine article around the 1945-09-06 SWN performance. (Help appreciated!!)

But I did find the Time article.

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Radio: Repeat Performance
Monday, Sept. 10, 1945

Radio networks usually operate on the worthy theory that practically nothing on the air is worth hearing twice. But last week, CBS for the fourth time in two years scheduled a tense 30-minute drama, Sorry, Wrong Number, starring Agnes Moorehead (CBS, Thurs., Sept. 6, 8-8:30 p.m., E.W.T.). CBS says it has had thousands of requests for this repeat. Repeat or no, it is radio's best half hour of thrills & chills.

The story:

A nervous, high-strung, bedridden woman (Agnes Moorehead), alone in her Manhattan apartment, keeps phoning her husband at his office, gets nothing but a busy signal. She finally persuades the operator to dial the number for her, is cut in on a conversation between two men making plans for murder. Cut off, she calls the police, who listen to her frantic tale with half an ear and hang up. After a good deal of hysterical hocuspocus, she decides that the two men had been hired by her husband to kill her.

She tries to get the police again, hears the killers in the house. Listeners suddenly hear a shrill, terrifying scream. Then a second of complete silence—so intense that it can almost be heard. Finally, the police get through on the phone, and a killer, having done his job, answers: "Sorry, wrong number."

One of Hollywood's best movie bitches (Since You Went Away), a veteran of Orson Welles's Mercury Theater and radio's MARCH OF TIME, chic, redhaired, fortyish Miss Moorehead has perfect timing, can control her voice as expertly as a radio engineer can control sound. Before going on the air with Sorry, she never takes a peek at the script, feels it would unnerve her. She acts the part without an audience; during the half hour (which is almost a monologue) wears herself to a frazzle.

greybelt wrote:I cannot find the Life Magazine article around the 1945-09-06 SWN performance. (Help appreciated!!)

It's in the September 24, 1945 issue, pp. 91-92:

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THANKS VERY MUCH
I made a PDF of the article
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GREATLY APPRECIATED!

Today's episode has not been updated for... 9 years! No network recording of this episode has ever appeared. The disc must have been damaged when it was found. The opening has always been rough, but the sound gets better as it plays.

This is an adaptation of the famous H.P. Lovecraft story. Does it really fit Suspense? (More below)

Suspense_1945-11-01_DunwichHorror_wRonaldColman AFRS UPGRADE-3.mp3
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Newspaper clippings were posted previously; these are new...


Suspense always had guidelines for the kinds of scripts it was looking for... the details were available to writers, but they became the subject of a press release in 1946. I've had the feeling that Spier made an exception for Dunwich Horror... and perhaps Cypress Canyon... but just felt they were compelling scripts and worth doing.


If you didn't catch it the first time on YesterdayUSA, the August interview of Keith Scott and yours truly about Suspense is now up on the Same Time Same Station blogsite. The hosts are Walden Hughes and John and Larry Gassman. It's two podcasts, about an hour each...

This one opens up with making fun of Keith being in Australia... where it's already a day of us...
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continues with a discussion of the importance of logs and the work of the late Stewart Wright...
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Thanks greybelt
Best regards

Art

Nancy Kelly strikes again in today's episode. The author, Winifred Wolfe, only wrote this episode for Suspense but also wrote for Arch Oboler's Plays, Murder at Midnight, Cloak and Dagger, Theater Five, and other programs. She wrote short stories, novels, plays, movies and many TV soap operas. This Suspense entry was repeated in 1958.

This recording is updated from last year...
Suspense_1945-11-29_AWeekAgoWednesday_wNancyKelly WC KQW AIRCHECK UPGRADE.mp3
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This is a "missing" AFRS recording. It's drawn from the east coast broadcast.
Here are the details from the confidential C3DS report:

EC 26:02 - "I know now what wrong I've done."
WC 26:40 - "I know now what I've....what I've done is wrong."
AFRS 23:01 - "I know now what wrong I've done."

Suspense_1945-11-29_AWeekAgoWednesday_wNKelly EC AFRS#131.mp3
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This east version was posted two years ago.
Suspense_1945-11-29_AWeekAgoWednesday_wNancyKelly EC UPGRADE-4.mp3
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Newspaper clippings were posted previously; these are new...



The Ray Bradbury short story The Screaming Woman was first produced as a Suspense play but also became a TV movie in 1972 with Olivia DeHavilland. The cast also included Joseph Cotten and Walter Pidgeon. (Yes, Cotten was still acting and even made an appearance on The Love Boat!). A little down the cast is OTR's Russell Thorson.
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The movie is available for purchase on DVD. I could not find a streaming version of this movie, but adaptation in 1986's Ray Bradbury Theater is available on multiple streaming services like FilmRise.
(a big hat tip to Jeff K for this info)

Today is an update of both the east and west recordings of one of the unluckiest programs... and it ends up showing how skilled and adaptive the Suspense leadership and staff were under a looming deadline...
- Glenn Ford was intended guest star; newspaper reports indicate he called from the movie set a few hours before broadcast stating he could not make it to the studio on time
- Lee Bowman was available and agreed to rush over
- Truman Bradley had a fever and was hoarse, but was able to perform
- sound effects artist Berne Surrey slashed a hand on the effect for a breaking door and required three stitches before broadcast (Surrey was going to medical school while working at CBS and became an MD! Believe it... or Not!)

The script was later broadcast as Finger of Doom on Escape (1949-03-19).

Bowman would become a key executive behind ABC's Theater Five.

Suspense_1945-12-06_I_Wont_Take_a_Minute_wLeeBowman EC (Now the Roma Wine Co presents) UPGRADE.mp3
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Suspense_1945-12-06_I_Wont_Take_a_Minute_wLeeBowman WC (Roma Wine Co of Fresno CA presents) UPGRADE.mp3
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Newspaper clippings were posted previously; this one is new...



I wish there was a pattern to the use of the openings "Now, the Roma Wine Company presents..." and "Now, the Roma Wine Company of Fresno, California, presents..." that indicated east or west. There's not. RATS!

Thanks greybelt

Best regards

Art

Today's recording is an aircheck that fell out of circulation. It probably did so when the network transcription became available. But, we're completists, so we're very interested.

When this was found as a KQW San Jose, CA aircheck, that mean that we could compare it with the network copy and the AFRS recording that was recently found. The network and the aircheck matched as west broadcasts, and the AFRS is from the missing east broadcast.

Suspense_1945-12-13_TheArgyleAlbum (direct to ID) (clipped open, some pts LQ) KQW AIRCHECK.mp3
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Suspense_1945-12-13_TheArgyleAlbum_wRobertTaylor (direct to ID) UPGRADE-3.mp3
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Suspense_1945-12-13_TheArgyleAlbum_wRobertTaylor (from missing ntwk) AFRS#133.mp3
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From the double secret C3DS dossier about this episode...

...the AFRS version is derived from a network version that is not in circulation.
Wally Maher speaks his lines differently in the AFRS 2m19s as "Say....you're Harry Mitchell, aren't you?"
while in the network at 2m59s he says "Say...you're...you're Harry Mitchell, aren't you?"

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


Endfield got caught up in Red Channels and rather than stay swirling in it, moved to the UK and continued his work as a writer and director in movies.
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The script became the movie The Argyle Secrets starring Barrie Craig and also in the cast are Mrs. Cleaver and Sgt. Schultz!

Thanks greybelt

Best regards
Art