“And now...another tale well-calculated to keep you in ...SUSPENSE!”
Boasting some of the best production values and top stars in the business, the real core of Suspense, what made the show one fans still seek today, was most definitely the storytelling.
For scripts, William Spier relied primarily on John Dickson Carr, who either adapted existing stories or wrote originals for the series. Carr had been making a comfortable living as the author of mystery and detective novels, most published in paperback form and featuring such detectives as Dr. Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale. He had long established himself as the master of the “locked door mystery” - complex, puzzling, and plot-driven stories in which a detective solves seemingly impossible crimes. Such baffling tales became a staple of Suspense - but William Spier wanted still more from his creative team.
Rather than present fantastic or bizarre stories, Spier wanted tales to mystify and terrify kept close to home, at a street level where every man and woman could see themselves as the characters on Suspense. This where the basic visions of Hitchcock, the man behind Suspense’s first incarnation, and Spier converged: in their individual fields of entertainment, both insisted upon stories where an average man or woman, apparently minding their own business, ends up caught in an ever more tangled web of disaster, fear, and confusion. Conclusions would be left until the very last minute, allowing listeners the chance to not only visualize the story but, in fact, see themselves in the same situation. How would they react? What would they do? It’s no wonder that William Spier soon earned the title of “the Hitchcock of the Airwaves” - and that Suspense soon became a major success for CBS.
Thrills and chills delivered by top actors giving the best performances of their radio careers await you in Suspense Volume 19 from Radio Archives, restored to Sparkling audio quality by Radio Archives.
In a Lonely Place
Saturday, March 6, 1948 - 60:00 - CBS, sustaining no commercials
Nightmare
Saturday, March 13, 1948 - 60:00 - CBS, sustaining no commercials
Wet Saturday & August Heat
Saturday, March 20, 1948 - 60:00 - CBS, sustaining no commercials
Too Little to Live On
Friday, December 26, 1947 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining no commercials
Life Ends at Midnight
Saturday, May 8, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, sustaining no commercials
Summer Night
Thursday, July 15, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
Deep Into Darkness
Thursday, July 22, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
The Yellow Wallpaper
Thursday, July 29, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
An Honest Man
Thursday, August 5, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
Beware the Quiet Man
Thursday, August 12, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
Crisis
Thursday, August 19, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
Song of the Heart
Thursday, August 26, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
The Morrison Affair
Thursday, September 2, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
The Big Shot
Thursday, September 9, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
Hitchhike Poker
Thursday, September 16, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
Celebration
Thursday, September 23, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
The Man Who Wanted to Be Edward G. Robinson
Thursday, September 30, 1948 - 30:00 - CBS, Autolite commercials
