THE SUSPENSE COLLECTION Volume 14

OLD TIME RADIO - 12 AUDIO CD - 24 Shows

Suspense, one of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills." It was heard on CBS from 1942 through 1962. Approximately 945 episodes were broadcast during its long run, and more than 900 are extant in mostly high-quality recordings

Suspense went through several major phases, characterized by different hosts, sponsors and director/producers. There were a few rules which were followed for all but a handful of episodes: Protagonists were usually a normal person suddenly dropped into a threatening or bizarre situation. Evildoers must be punished in the end. The program made only occasional forays into science fiction and fantasy. Among its science fiction entries were "The Man who Went Back to Save Lincoln" (a time travel fantasy) and an adaptation of Curt Siodmak's Donovan's Brain, as well as an adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft short story, "The Dunwich Horror".

Alfred Hitchcock directed its audition show (for the CBS series Forecast). This was an adaptation of "The Lodger," a story Hitchcock had filmed in 1926 with Ivor Novello. Martin Grams, Jr., author of Suspense: Twenty Years of Thrills and Chills, described the Forecast origin of Suspense:

On the second presentation of July 22, 1940, Forecast offered a mystery/horror show titled Suspense. With the co-operation of his producer Walter Wanger, Alfred Hitchcock received the honor of directing his first radio show for the American public. The condition agreed upon for Hitchcock's appearance was that CBS make a pitch to the listening audience about his and Wanger's latest film, Foreign Correspondent. To add some flavour to the deal, Wanger threw in Edmund Gwenn and Herbert Marshall as part of the package. All three men (including Hitch) would be seen in the upcoming film, which was due for a theatrical release the next month. Both Marshall and Hitchcock decided on the same story to bring to the airwaves, which happened to be a favorite of both of them: Marie Belloc Lowndes' "The Lodger." Alfred Hitchcock had filmed this story for Gainsborough in 1926, and since then it had remained as one of his favorites.

Herbert Marshall portrayed the mysterious lodger, and co-starring with him were Edmund Gwenn and character actress Lurene Tuttle as the rooming-house keepers who start to suspect that their new boarder might be the notorious Jack-the-Ripper. [Gwenn was actually repeating the role taken in the 1926 film by his brother, Arthur Chesney. And Tuttle would work again with Hitchcock exactly 20 years later, playing Mrs Al Chambers in Psycho.] Character actor Joseph Kearns also had a small part in the drama, and Wilbur Hatch, head musician for CBS Radio at the time, composed and conducted the music specially for the program. Adapting the script to radio was not a great technical challenge for Hitchcock, and he cleverly decided to hold back the ending of the story from the listening audience in order to keep them in suspense themselves. This way, if the audience's curiosity got the better of them, they would write in to the network to find out whether the mysterious lodger was in fact Jack-the-Ripper. For the next few weeks, hundreds of letters came in from faithful listeners asking how the story ended. Actually a few wrote threats claiming that it was "indecent" and "immoral" to present such a production without giving the solution.

In the early phase, the program was hosted by "The Man in Black" (played by Joseph Kearns or Ted Osborne) and many episodes written or adapted by the prominent mystery author John Dickson Carr. Escape was a similar anthology thriller and suspense program. Both occasionally adapted the same stories, though Escape had lower budgets--and thus, fewer sound effects and name actors.

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SHOWS LIST

CD 1

Death Sentence - 1948-11-04 Episode 313

Muddy Track - 1948-11-11 Episode 314

CD 2

Sorry, Wrong Number - 1948-11-18 Episode 315

The Screaming Woman - 1948-11-25 Episode 316

CD 3

The Hands of Mr. Ottermole - 1948-12-02 Episode 317

The Sisters - 1948-12-09 Episode 318

CD 4

No Escape - 1948-12-16 Episode 319

Holiday Story - 1948-12-23 Episode 320

CD 5

Break-Up - 1948-12-30 Episode 321

To Find Help - 1949-01-06 Episode 322

CD 6

The Too Perfect Alibi - 1949-01-13 Episode 323

If the Dead Could Talk - 1949-01-20 Episode 324

CD 7

The Thing in the Window - 1949-01-27 Episode 325

Backseat Driver - 1949-02-03 Episode 326

CD 8

De Mortuis - 1949-02-10 Episode 327

Catch Me If You Can - 1949-02-17 Episode 328

CD 9

Where There's a Will - 1949-02-24 Episode 329

The Lovebirds - 1949-03-03 Episode 330

CD 10

Three O'Clock - 1949-03-10 Episode 331

Murder Through the Looking Glass - 1949-03-17 Episode 332

CD 11

Dead Ernest - 1949-03-24 Episode 333

You Can't Die Twice - 1949-03-31 Episode 334

CD 12

The Noose of Coincidence - 1949-04-07 Episode 335

Murder in Black and White - 1949-04-14 Episode 336