Suspense

Lurene Tuttle (left) and Rosalind Russell in "The Sisters" on Suspense (1948)
Genre	Drama and suspense
Running time	30 minutes or one hour
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
Home station	CBS Radio Network
Written by	John Dickson Carr, Lucille Fletcher, Sigmund Miller, E. Jack Neuman, Walter Newman, Louis Pelletier, Hugh Pentecost, James Poe, Robert L. Richards, Larry Roman, John Shaw, Robert Tallman, George Wells, J. Donald Wilson, Mel Dinelli
Directed by	Ted Bliss, John Dietz, Fred Hendrickson, Anton Leader, Elliott Lewis, Norman Macdonnell, William N. Robson, Robert Lewis Shayon, Charles Vanda, Bruno Zirato Jr.
Produced by	Norman Macdonnell, William Spier, William N. Robson, Bruno Zirato Jr.
Original release	June 17, 1942 (1942-06-17) – September 30, 1962 (1962-09-30)
No. of episodes	946

Suspense is a radio drama series broadcast on CBS Radio from 1940 through 1962.^[1]

One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era. Approximately 945 episodes were broadcast during its long run, and more than 900 still exist.

Suspense went through several major phases, characterized by different hosts, sponsors, and director/producers. Formula plot devices were followed for all but a handful of episodes: the protagonist was usually a normal person suddenly dropped into a threatening or bizarre situation; solutions were "withheld until the last possible second"; and evildoers were usually punished in the end.

In its early years, the program made only occasional forays into science fiction and fantasy. Notable exceptions include adaptations of Curt Siodmak's Donovan's Brain and H. P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror", but by the late 1950s, such material was regularly featured.

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock directed its audition show (for the CBS summer series Forecast). This was an adaptation of The Lodger^[2] 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 flavor 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 nearly 20 years later, playing Mrs. Al Chambers, the sheriff's wife, 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

1942–1962

In the earliest years, the program was hosted by "The Man in Black" (played by Joseph Kearns or Ted Osborne) with many episodes written or adapted by the prominent mystery author John Dickson Carr.

One of the series' earliest successes and its single most popular episode is Lucille Fletcher's "Sorry, Wrong Number", about a bedridden woman (Agnes Moorehead) who panics after overhearing a murder plot on a crossed telephone connection but is unable to persuade anyone to investigate. First broadcast on May 25, 1943, it was restaged seven times (last on February 14, 1960) – each time with Moorehead. The popularity of the episode led to a film adaptation in 1948. Another notable early episode was Fletcher's "The Hitch Hiker" (aired September 2, 1942), in which a motorist (Orson Welles) is stalked on a cross-country trip by a nondescript man who keeps appearing on the side of the road; however, the first performance of "The Hitch-Hiker" actually took place on The Orson Welles Show the previous year. "The Hitch-Hiker" was later adapted for television by Rod Serling as a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone.

After the network sustained the program during its first two years, the sponsor became Roma Wines (1944–1947), and then (after another brief period of sustained hour-long episodes, initially featuring Robert Montgomery as host and "producer" in early 1948),^[3] Autolite Spark Plugs (1948–1954); eventually Harlow Wilcox (of Fibber McGee and Molly) became the pitchman. William Spier, Norman Macdonnell and Anton M. Leader were among the producers and directors.

Suspense received a Special Citation of Honor Peabody Award for 1946.^[4]

The program's heyday was in the early 1950s, when radio actor, producer and director Elliott Lewis took over (still during the Wilcox/Autolite run). Here the material reached new levels of sophistication.^[opinion] The writing was taut,^[opinion] and the casting, which had always been a strong point of the series (featuring such film stars as Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Ronald Colman, Marlene Dietrich, Eve McVeagh, Lena Horne, and Cary Grant), took an unexpected turn when Lewis expanded the repertory to include many of radio's famous drama and comedy stars – often playing against type – such as Jack Benny. Jim and Marian Jordan of Fibber McGee and Molly were heard in the episode "Backseat Driver", which originally aired February 3, 1949.

The highest production values enhanced Suspense, and many of the shows retain their power to grip and entertain.^[opinion] At the time he took over Suspense, Lewis was familiar to radio fans for playing Frankie Remley, the wastrel guitar-playing sidekick to Phil Harris in The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show. On the May 10, 1951 Suspense, Lewis reversed the roles with "Death on My Hands": A bandleader (Harris) is horrified when an autograph-seeking fan accidentally shoots herself and dies in his hotel room, and a vocalist (Faye) tries to help him as the townfolk call for vigilante justice against him.

With the rise of television and the departures of Lewis and Autolite, subsequent producers (Antony Ellis, William N. Robson and others) struggled to maintain the series due to shrinking budgets, the availability of fewer name actors, and listenership decline. To save money, the program frequently used scripts first broadcast by another noteworthy CBS anthology, Escape. In addition to these tales of exotic adventure, Suspense expanded its repertoire to include more science fiction and supernatural content. By the end of its run, the series was remaking scripts from the long-canceled program The Mysterious Traveler. A time travel tale like Robert Arthur's "The Man Who Went Back to Save Lincoln" or a thriller about a death ray-wielding mad scientist would alternate with more run-of-the-mill crime dramas.

The series expanded to television with the Suspense series on CBS from 1949 to 1954, and again in 1962. The radio series had a tie-in with Suspense magazine which published four 1946–47 issues edited by Leslie Charteris.

The final broadcasts of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and Suspense, ending at 7:00 pm Eastern Time on September 30, 1962, are often cited as the end of the Golden Age of Radio. The final episode of Suspense was Devilstone, starring Christopher Carey and Neal Fitzgerald. It was sponsored by Parliament cigarettes.^[5]

Opening introductions

There were several variations of program introductions. A typical early opening is this from April 27, 1943:

(MUSIC ... BERNARD HERRMANN'S SUSPENSE THEME ... CONTINUES IN BG)

THE MAN IN BLACK: Suspense!

This is The Man in Black, here again to introduce Columbia's program, Suspense.

Our stars tonight are Miss Agnes Moorehead and Mr. Ray Collins. You've seen these two expert and resourceful players in "Citizen Kane" – "The Magnificent Ambersons" in which Miss Moorehead's performance won her the 1942 Film Critics' Award. Mr. Collins will soon be seen in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Technicolor film, "Salute to the Marines."

Miss Moorehead and Mr. Collins return this evening to their first love, the CBS microphone, to appear in a study in terror by Lucille Fletcher called "The Diary of Sophronia Winters."

The story told by this diary is tonight's tale of... suspense. If you've been with us on these Tuesday nights, you will know that Suspense is compounded of mystery and suspicion and dangerous adventure. In this series are tales calculated to intrigue you, to stir your nerves, to offer you a precarious situation and then withhold the solution... until the last possible moment. And so it is with "The Diary of Sophronia Winters" and the performances of Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins, we again hope to keep you in...

(MUSIC: ... UP, DRAMATICALLY)

THE MAN IN BLACK: ... Suspense!^[6]

Recognition

Suspense was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2011.^[7]

Since 2007, Radio Classics, on Sirius XM channel 82, has been airing episodes of Suspense. The show is also streamed nightly at 7 pm Pacific time on kusaradio.com from the original masters.

Satire

The familiar opening phrase "tales well-calculated to..." was satirized by Mad as the cover blurb "Tales Calculated to Drive You... Mad" on its first issue (October–November 1952) and continuing until issue #23 (May 1955).

Radio comedians Bob and Ray had a recurring routine lampooning the show called "Anxiety." Their character Commander Neville Putney told stories that were presented as dramatic but were intentionally mundane, with the opening line "A tale well designed to keep you in... Anxiety."

In the “Chicken Heart” sketch on his Wonderfulness album Bill Cosby relates radio programs during his youth “that were scary.” One is Suspense.

Theater

For PowPAC, San Diego actor-director Robert Hitchcox mounted a 2006 stage production recreating two episodes of Suspense, complete with commercials, in a stage set designed like a CBS radio studio.^[8]

Partial list of episodes of Suspense

1940

Date	Title	Star(s)
July 22	The Lodger	Herbert Marshall and Edmund Gwenn (Audition program)[9]

1942

Date	Title	Star(s)
June 17	The Burning Court	Charlie Ruggles[10]
June 24	Wet Saturday	Clarence Derwent
August 19	The Cave of Ali Baba	Romney Brent
September 2	The Hitch-Hiker	Orson Welles[9]
September 16	The Kettler Method	Roger Dekoven, John Gibson, Gloria Stuart
September 23	A Passage to Benares	Paul Stewart
September 30	One Hundred in the Dark	Eric Dressler and Alice Frost[11]
October 27	The Lord of the Witch Doctors	Nicholas Joy
November 3	The Devil in the Summer House	Martin Gabel
November 10	Will You Make a Bet with Death?	Michael Fitzmaurice
November 17	Menace in Wax	Joe Julian
November 24	The Body Snatchers	E. G. Marshall
December 1	The Bride Vanishes	Hanley Stafford, Lesley Woods
December 15	Till Death Do Us Part	Peter Lorre, Alice Frost
December 22	Two Sharp Knives	Stuart Erwin

1943

Date	Title	Star(s)
January 5	Nothing Up My Sleeve	Elissa Landi[12]
January 12	The Pit and The Pendulum	Henry Hull
February 2	The Doctor Prescribed Death	Bela Lugosi[13]
February 16	In Fear and Trembling	Mary Astor
June 22	The Man without a Body	John Sutton, George Zucco[14]
July 6	The White Rose Murders	Maureen O'Hara[15]
July 20	Murder Goes for a Swim	Warren William
August 3	A Friend to Alexander	Robert Young, Geraldine Fitzgerald[14]
August 21	Sorry, Wrong Number	Agnes Moorehead[9]
August 28	The King's Birthday	Dolores Costello, Martin Kosleck, George Zucco, Ian Wolfe[14]
September 9	Marry for Murder	Lillian Gish, Ray Collins, Bramwell Fletcher[14]
November 2	Statement of Employee Henry Wilson	Gene Lockhart[14]
November 16	Thieves Fall Out	Gene Kelly, Hans Conried, William Johnstone[14]
November 23	The Strange Death of Charles Umberstein	Vincent Price
December 2	The Black Curtain	Cary Grant

1944

Date	Title	Star(s)
January 6	One Way Ride to Nowhere	Alan Ladd[16]
January 13	Dime a Dance	Lucille Ball[14]
January 20	A World of Darkness	Paul Lukas[14]
January 27	The Locked Room	Virginia Bruce and Allyn Joslyn[17]
February 3	The Sisters	Ida Lupino and Agnes Moorehead[18]
February 10	Suspicion	Charlie Ruggles[19]
February 24	Sorry, Wrong Number (rebroadcast)	Agnes Moorehead[14]
March 2	Portrait without a Face	Michèle Morgan, Philip Dorn, George Coulouris[14]
March 9	The Defense Rests	Alan Ladd[20]
March 23	Sneak Preview	Joseph Cotten
March 30	Cat and Mouse	Sonny Tufts
April 6	The Woman in Red	Katina Paxinou[21]
April 13	The Marvelous Barastro	Orson Welles
May 11	The Visitor	Eddie Bracken[14]
May 18	Donovan's Brain (Part 1)	Orson Welles[22]: 35
May 25	Donovan's Brain (Part 2)	Orson Welles[22]: 35
June 1	Fugue in C Minor	Ida Lupino, Vincent Price
June 8	Case History of Edward Lowndes	Thomas Mitchell, Donald Crisp
June 15	A Friend To Alexander	Geraldine Fitzgerald
June 22	The Ten Grand	Lucille Ball[14]
July 7	The Beast Must Die	Herbert Marshall
August 3	Banquo's Chair	Donald Crisp
August 10	The Man Who Knew How	Charles Laughton
August 17	The Diary Of Sophronia Winters	Agnes Moorehead
August 24	Actor's Blood	Fredric March
August 31	The Black Path of Fear	Brian Donlevy
September 7	Voyage Through Darkness	Olivia de Havilland and Reginald Gardiner[23]
September 14	You Will Never See Me Again	Joseph Cotten

1945

Date	Title	Star(s)
May 24	My Own Murderer	Herbert Marshall[23]
August 16	Short Order	Joseph Kearns, Gerald Mohr and Conrad Binyon.[24]: 34
September 20	Library Book	Myrna Loy[24]

1946

Date	Title	Star(s)
February 21	Consequence	James Stewart
March 21	The Lonely Road	Gregory Peck[25]
June 27	Return Trip	Elliott Reid[26]
August 8	Dead Ernest	Wally Maher[9]
October 17	The Man Who Thought He Was Edward G. Robinson	Edward G. Robinson[27]
October 24	Dame Fortune	Susan Hayward[28]
November 21	Drive-In	Judy Garland
December 5	The House in Cypress Canyon	Robert Taylor[29]

1947

Date	Title	Star(s)
January 30	Three Blind Mice	Van Heflin
February 6	The End of the Road	Glenn Ford
February 13	The Thirteenth Sound	Agnes Moorehead
February 20	Always Room at the Top	Anne Baxter
May 1	Lady In Distress	Ava Gardner
May 22	Her Knight Comes Riding	Virginia Bruce[30]
June 12	Stand-In	June Havoc[31]
June 19	Dead of Night	Elliott Reid[32]
August 28	Double Ugly	June Havoc and Lloyd Nolan[33]
October 2	The Story of Markham's Death	Kirk Douglas
October 30	Subway	June Havoc[34]
November 20	One Hundred in the Dark	Howard Duff and June Havoc[35]
December 19	Wet Saturday	June Havoc and Boris Karloff[36]

1948

Date	Title	Star(s)
January 3	The Black Curtain	Robert Montgomery[37]
January 10	The Kandy Tooth	Howard Duff[29]
January 24	The Black Angel / Eve	June Havoc and Prince Michael Romanoff[38]
July 22	Deep Into Darkness	Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
September 2	The Morrison Affair	Madeleine Carroll and Gerald Mohr
November 4	Death Sentence	John Garfield

1949

Date	Title	Star(s)
February 3	Backseat Driver	Jim and Marian Jordan[22]
April 21	The Copper Tea Strainer	Betty Grable, Raymond Burr, and William Conrad[9]
May 5	"Death Has A Shadow"	Bob Hope and William Conrad
May 26	"The Night Reveals"	Fredric March[39]
January 24	Blind Date	June Havoc and Charles Laughton[40]
November 24	The Long Wait	Burt Lancaster
December 1	Mission Completed	James Stewart[41]
December 15	The Flame Blue Glove	Lana Turner

1950

Date	Title	Star(s)
February 9	The Butcher's Wife	Kirk Douglas[42]
March 2	Lady Killer	Loretta Young[43]
March 23	One and One's a Lonesome	Ronald Reagan[44]
September 7	The Tip	Ida Lupino, Joseph Kearns, Jerry Hausner, Hy Averback, Henry Blair[45]
November 16	On a Country Road	Cary Grant[9]
November 23	"Going, Going, Gone"	Ozzie Nelson, Harriet Hilliard[46]

1951

Date	Title	Star(s)
January 4	Alibi Me	Mickey Rooney, Peggy Webber, Wally Maher, Charlotte Lawrence, Leo Cleary[47]
May 10	Death on My Hands	Phil Harris and Alice Faye[48]
September 17	Neal Cream, Doctor of Poison	Charles Laughton, Charles Davis, Betty Harford, Jeanette Nolan, Georgia Ellis, Alma Lawton, Herb Butterfield, Joseph Kearns[49][50]
September 24	The McKay College Basketball Scandal	Tony Curtis[51]

1952

Date	Title	Star(s)
June 2	A Good and Faithful Servant	Jack Benny and Gerald Mohr [24]: 37
October 6	The Diary of Dr. Pritchard	Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Paula Winslowe, Alma Lawton, Norma Varden, Ben Wright[52]
October 20	The Death of Barbara Allen	Anne Baxter
December 22	Arctic Rescue	Joseph Cotten[53]

1953

Date	Title	Star(s)
February 9	The Man Who Cried Wolf	Joseph Kearns
February 16	The Love And Death of Joaquin Murrieta	Victor Mature
May 4	Othello	Elliott Lewis, Cathy Lewis, and Richard Widmark[54]
May 11	Othello	Elliott Lewis, Cathy Lewis, and Richard Widmark[54]
December 21	'Twas the Night Before Christmas	Greer Garson[55]

1954

Date	Title	Star(s)
March 8	Circumstantial Terror	Ronald Reagan
March 29	Somebody Help Me	Cornel Wilde[56]
April 12	Parole to Panic	Broderick Crawford[41]
August 3	Goodnight, Mrs. Russell	Virginia Gregg and Vic Perrin[15]: 37
November 18	Blind Date	Shirley Mitchell and Vic Perrin[57]

1955

Date	Title	Star(s)
April 5	Zero Hour	John Dehner (narrator)[9]
May 17	Lili and the Colonel	Ramsay Hill, John Alderson, Paula Winslowe, Larry Thor (narrator)[58]
July 26	Greatest Thief	Ben Wright[59]
October 25	To None a Deadly Drug	Harry Bartell[60]
November 15	Once a Murderer	Ben Wright[59]
December 13	A Present for Benny	Jack Kruschen[61]

1956

Date	Title	Star(s)
March 1	The Waxworks	William Conrad (narrator)[11]: 39
July 25	The Tramp	Ben Wright[59]
October 23	The Doll	Patty McCormack[43]: 39

1957

Date	Title	Star(s)
June 30	"The Yellow Wallpaper"	Agnes Moorehead, Joe De Santis
August 18	Peanut Brittle	Skip Homeier[62]
August 25	Leinengen vs. the Ants	William Conrad[59]

1958

Date	Title	Star(s)
April 20	Alibi Me	Stan Freberg[41]

1959

Date	Title	Star(s)
January 4	Don't Call Me Mother	Agnes Moorehead[63]

1961

Date	Title	Star(s)
December 17	Yuletide Miracle	Larry Haines and Santos Ortega[64]
December 31	The Old Man	Leon Janney[65]

1962

Date	Title	Star(s)
September 30	Devilstone	Christopher Carey and Neil Fitzgerald[9]

Revival

This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (September 2016)

In 2012, John C. Alsedek and Dana Perry-Hayes of Blue Hours Productions revived Suspense for Sirius XM Radio, recording all-new scripts including originals and adaptations of works by the likes of H.P. Lovecraft, Cornell Woolrich, and Clark Ashton Smith. The Suspense revival is currently airing on nearly 250 radio stations worldwide, and nominated for a Peabody Award.

Season One episodes

1. "Cool Air," starring Adrienne Wilkinson & Daamen Krall
2. "The Pipes of Tcho Ktlan," starring Daamen Krall & Rocky Cerda
3. "The Return of the Sorcerer," starring Tucker Smallwood & Ron Bottitta
4. "Proof in the Pudding," starring Adrienne Wilkinson & Christina Joy Howard
5. "The Devil‘s Saint," starring Daamen Krall & Christopher Duva
6. "Gag Reflex," starring Daamen Krall & Elizabeth Gracen
7. "The Graveyard Rats," starring Daamen Krall & Christopher Duva
8. "An Ungentle Wager," starring Elizabeth Gracen & Adrienne Wilkinson
9. "The Fire of Asshurbanipal," starring Christopher Duva & Steve Moulton
10. "The Walls Between Us," starring Adrienne Wilkinson & Rocky Cerda
11. "The Horla," starring Christopher Duva & Elizabeth Gracen
12. "Essence," starring Dana Perry-Hayes & Skyler Caleb
13. "The Hounds of Tindalos," starring Christopher Duva & Daamen Krall
14. "Madeline’s Veil," starring Dana Perry-Hayes & Rocky Cerda
15. "Wet Saturday," starring Daamen Krall & Adrienne Wilkinson
16. "Forest of the Dark Unbound," starring Catherine Kamei & Elizabeth Gracen
17. "Who Goes There?" starring Steve Moulton & Sean Hackman
18. "De Vermis Manorum," starring Elizabeth Gracen & John Lauver
19. "The Night Reveals," starring David Collins & Susan Eisenberg
20. "Ebb Tide," starring Christopher Duva & Adrienne Wilkinson
21. "Far Below," starring Daamen Krall & Catherine Kamei
22. "Behind Every Great Man..." starring Brett Thompson & Adrienne Wilkinson
23. "Pigeons From Hell," starring Scott Henry & Daniel Hackman
24. "Red Rook, White King...Black Cat," starring Adrienne Wilkinson & David Collins

See also

References

Sources

External links

• Escape and Suspense
• 911 episodes of Suspense at the Internet Archive
• Old Time Radio Review: Suspense – episode reviews
• OTR Plot Spot: Suspense – plot summaries and reviews.
• Suspense on Way Back When
• 'Podcast Feed'