Suspense: 04/07/52, episode 467
Brought to you by the Old Time Radio Researchers, courtesy of The Suspense Project

Dan Duryea, “the heel with sex appeal,” returns to the series and is as unsavory as ever. He’s a cheap bandit who kills an old grocery store owner for resisting his efforts to steal the day’s money from the cash register. It’s near closing time, and a young woman enters the store just after the incident. He has to act natural, like nothing happened. She knows him! She calls him by name and recalls that they went to high school together. She even had a teenage crush on him! Duryea’s character is stuck; it’s easier to deal with a stranger, but this woman can be an identifying witness. He pretends to be working in the store because the owner had an emergency at home. He fills her order, hoping she does not see the body. He asks if he can walk her home and catch up on old times. Since it’s closing time and doesn’t have to wait, she agrees. Now what does he do? She doesn’t suspect that he is contemplating her murder and the best way for him to get away with it. It is so awkward that she remembers so much about him, but he is so narcissistic, even in school, that he does not remember her at all. He finds her recounting of incidents and acquaintances more and more disturbing. The more she remembers, the more he knows he has to kill her.

It’s a good story and Duryea makes it all the better. It’s also a special event. The writer for this episode was series sound effects artist Gus C. Bayz. It was the sixth script that he submitted to Elliott Lewis, and was finally the one he liked. Bayz’ colleague in the show’s effects was Ross Murray. He had already had a script presented, Case History of a Gambler, and CBS publicity created a “stunt” that Murray was fired for the night because he might be nervous about having his first script produced. There was no such publicity gimmick for this episode.

Sometimes doubling doesn’t work as well as intended. Joe Kearns plays the shop owner and then a police lieutenant. Perhaps it was thought that the characters appear so far apart in time that it might not be noticed. Classic radio enthusiasts listening to the program today may be more attuned to detecting this than the broadcast listeners of that time.

The story was also presented on the Suspense television series on 1952-08-12 with Cloris Leachman and Martin Brooks. It was the fourth season’s forty-fifth episode (according to IMDb). It can be viewed at https://archive.org/details/Suspense_...

Duryea was at his creepiest and most entertaining best in the tongue-in-cheek The Man Who Couldn’t Lose at https://archive.org/details/TSP471212

The cast: DAN DURYEA (Harry), Charlotte Lawrence (Ruth), Joe Kearns (Liebowitz / Lieutenant), Ruth Perrott (Mrs. Dooley), Lee Millar (Jimmy), Charles Calvert (Cop), Larry Thor (Narrator)

COMMERCIAL: Tom Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)

For more information visit https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/...