Stars On Suspense (old Time Radio)

We close out 2023 with a break from radio thrillers. Instead, it's our annual showcase of a classic Christmas film recreated for radio. This year, it's one of the best as James Stewart and Donna read recreate their roles as George and Mary Bailey in a Lux Radio Theatre recreation of It's a Wonderful Life (originally aired on CBS on March 10, 1947).

Jack Kruschen earned an Oscar nod for his performance as Jack Lemmon's kindly and concerned neighbor in The Apartment, but before that he was a busy and very versatile radio performer. With a knack for accents and dialects, it wasn't uncommon for Kruschen to play multiple roles in the same thirty minutes. We'll hear him as a gangster who prepares an explosive Christmas gift for a rival in "A Present for Benny" (originally aired on CBS on December 14, 1955). Then, he's a nightclub mind reader who tries to use his powers to find the man who killed his wife in "With Murder in Mind" (originally aired on CBS on June 24, 1962). Plus, as a holiday bonus, we'll hear an adaptation of "Back for Christmas" from Escape (originally aired on CBS on December 24, 1947).

We're back! And with Christmas right around the corner, I'm sharing my favorite holiday stories from "radio's outstanding theater of thrills." Peter Lorre has a killer idea for a present for his wife in "Back for Christmas" (originally aired on CBS on December 23, 1943) and Dennis Day turns to crime on Christmas Eve to save his family in "Christmas for Carol" (originally aired on CBS on December 21, 1950). Two boys share a Christmas adventure when they explore "The Cave" (originally aired on CBS on December 20, 1955), and Raymond Burr is a Santa Claus looking for revenge on the man who sent him to prison in "Out for Christmas" (originally aired on CBS on December 21, 1958). Finally, a ghost is on the scene to help an ex-con keep a Christmas promise to a dying man in "Yuletide Miracle" (originally aired on CBS on December 17, 1961).

Frank Lovejoy joins our five-timer's club and flies the unfriendly skies in a pair of thrillers involving pilots and their dangerous flight plants. First, he's overseeing the first flight of an experimental plane whose pilot returns with a warning from beyond the stars in "The Outer Limit" (originally aired on CBS on March 17, 1957). Then, Lovejoy plays a pilot who commits a cross-country murder and plans a perfect alibi with a fast flight home in "Jet Stream" (originally aired on CBS on December 1, 1957). Finally, we'll hear him in an outing from Escape where he's offered a fortune in exchange for a murder in "A Letter from Jason" (originally aired on CBS on November 29, 1949). Note: Still no intro - fingers crossed I'll be back on the air next time!

Alan Baxter made a name for himself playing dangerous characters on screen - moody men on the wrong side of the law. He turned to television as film roles dried up in the postwar years, and he was busy on the small screen up through the 1970s. In his one and only visit to Suspense, Baxter played a bank teller with an elaborate plan to get away with robbery in "Money Talks" (originally aired on CBS on July 3, 1947). We'll also hear Mr. Baxter in two more thrillers: "Make No Mistake" from The Mollé Mystery Theatre (originally aired on NBC on April 30, 1948) and "Law of the Jungle" from the syndicated series Crime Does Not Pay. Note: No intro this week; allergy season claimed my voice again but hopefully I'll be back soon!

Veteran character actor John McIntire is back in the spotlight in two episodes of Suspense. First, he's a promising poet who suddenly becomes a killer in the sixty-minute production of "House by the River" (originally aired on CBS on February 28, 1948). Then, McIntire is a father desperate to keep his son out of an institution in "John Barbie and Son" (AFRS rebroadcast, originally aired on CBS on March 29, 1959).

It's a radio short story collection with four tales from the great Ray Bradbury - including one of his terrifying tales that became one of the scariest episodes of Suspense. Agnes Moorehead stars in "The Whole Town's Sleeping" (originally aired on CBS on August 31, 1958). Next, Richard Widmark stars in Bradbury's crime drama "Killer, Come Back to Me" from The Mollé Mystery Theatre (originally aired on NBC on May 17, 1946). Nelson Olmstead reads Bradbury's "The Night" (originally aired on NBC on August 20, 1947), and Radio City Playhouse presents "The Lake" (originally aired on NBC on October 16, 1949). Plus - after "The Lake," an adaptation of Roald Dahl's suspenseful classic "Man from the South" - presented on Radio City Playhouse as "Collector's Item."

Antony Ellis wrote and starred in episodes of Suspense before he became the show's director. From 1954 to 1958, Ellis had the reins of "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and steered the program into the realm of science fiction with adaptations of stories by Ray Bradbury as well as his own stories of fantasy and horror. We'll hear him starring in "Telling," the story of a man desperate to confess to murder (originally aired on CBS on July 20, 1954). Then, he's writer, producer, and director of "I Saw Myself Running," a surreal thriller about a woman haunted by nightmares even when she's awake (originally aired on CBS on May 24, 1955). Finally, we'll hear an episode of Frontier Gentleman - Ellis' outstanding drama about an English newspaper reporter covering the wild west. John Dehner stars as J.B. Kendall in "Aces and Eights" (originally aired on CBS on April 20, 1958).

It's been a crazy month, and the Halloween Haunts countdown of bonus episodes suffered as a result. To make it up to you after a lengthy delay, I'm sharing a trilogy of terror - three scary old time radio shows to enjoy in the days before Halloween. First, Frank Lovejoy learns about the consequences of defying a voodoo curse in "Papa Benjamin," a Cornell Woolrich adapted for Escape (originally aired on CBS on January 24, 1948). Next, Peter Lorre stars in "The Black Cat," Edgar Allan Poe's tale of cruelty, rage, and a killer undone by the strangest of circumstances from Mystery in the Air (originally aired on NBC on September 18, 1947). Finally, Ida Lupino and Vincent Price co-star in Lucille Fletcher's Victorian era horror story "Fugue in C-Minor" from Suspense (originally aired on CBS on June 1, 1944).

Paula Winslowe, aka the long-suffering Mrs. Riley on The Life of Riley, returns to the podcast in two more radio thrillers. First, she's in a frantic race against the clock to find a woman in danger in "The Death Parade" (originally aired on CBS on May 15, 1956). Then, she's a florist who may be the only person who can identify a murderer in "The Twelfth Rose" (originally aired on CBS on June 5, 1956). Plus, we'll hear Ms. Winslowe and William Bendix in a baking contest on The Life of Riley (originally aired on NBC on October 27, 1950).

Our annual countdown to Halloween kicks off with one of the biggest names in Hollywood horror. Boris Karloff plays a scientist who thinks he can bring the dead back to life, and he wants to test his theories on his late wife. Lurene Tuttle co-stars in "Death Robbery," a chilling tale from Lights Out (originally aired on ABC on July 16, 1947).

British actor Ben Wright's natural voice made him a perfect fit for characters like Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard men, but his affinity for accents and dialects allowed him to play all sorts of parts - sometimes even multiple characters in the same radio episode. We'll hear him as a wounded man on the run in a radio adaptation of the classic film Odd Man Out (originally aired on CBS on December 30, 1954) and as a detective investigating a murder in a coal mine in "The Cave-In" (originally aired on CBS on July 5, 1955). Plus, Wright shows off his versatility by playing two roles in "The Englishman" from Have Gun, Will Travel (originally aired on CBS on January 11, 1959).

Big screen tough guy Sheldon Leonard went from cutting a menacing figure in To Have and Have Not and It's a Wonderful Life to producing classic TV sitcoms like The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show. In three old time radio thrillers, he'll show off his acting chops, first as a hired killer who's looking for a friend in "Feast of the Furies" (originally aired on CBS on July 11, 1946). We'll also hear him co-starring with Rosalind Russell in "When the Bough Breaks" (originally aired on CBS on May 3, 1951) and Jack Benny in "The Face is Familiar" (originally aired on CBS on January 18, 1954). Plus he shows off his lighter side as a proud papa of a safecracker in "Butch Minds the Baby" from The Damon Runyon Theatre.

Cathy and Elliott Lewis were two of the busiest - and best - performers of the radio era. Both could get laughs (Cathy on My Friend Irma and Elliott on The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show) and could be heard on mysteries, including "radio's outstanding theater of thrills." Cathy co-starred in several of the show's best episodes, and Elliott directed the program during some of its most innovative years. We'll hear the couple starring together in the story of a comedian who turns to murder in order to be taken seriously in "Joker Wild" (originally aired on CBS on December 3, 1952) and in the tale of a man who picks up a hitch-hiker and ends up on a dangerous drive in "Run, Sheep, Run" (AFRS rebroadcast from July 13, 1954). Plus, the Lewises co-star in "Statement of Fact," a thriller from their own anthology show On Stage (originally aired on CBS on May 14, 1953).

His star in Hollywood didn't burn bright for long, but Zachary Scott made memorable impressions as mysterious villains in movies like Mildred Pierce. In his one and only appearance on Suspense, Scott plays a man accused of bumping off an annoying neighbor in "Murder Off Key" (originally aired on CBS on November 15, 1945). Plus, he stars as the infamous Dr. Samuel Mudd - the man who treated John Wilkes Booth when the assassin was on the lam and later stood trial as a co-conspirator - in "The Prisoner of Shark Island" from Encore Theatre (originally aired on CBS on August 13, 1946).

Joseph Kearns - the longtime voice of "The Man in Black" - makes his final starring appearance on Suspense as a trigger-happy store owner who learns a tragic lesson in vigilante justice in "Hold-Up" (originally aired on CBS on August 29, 1956). Then, he stars in a pair of thrillers from The Whistler - "Final Returns" (originally aired on CBS on October 29, 1945) and "Murder in Haste" (originally aired on CBS on February 25, 1946).

In this bonus show, I'm sharing my favorite Suspense shows starring Robert Young. Before he made rounds as kindly old Marcus Welby or showed how Father Knows Best, Young made several memorable appearances on "radio's outstanding theater of thrills." First, he's tormented by dreams of one of history's most infamous duels in "A Friend to Alexander" (originally aired on CBS on August 3, 1943). Next, he's an arson investigator who finds a firebug close to home in "The Night Reveals" (originally aired on CBS on December 9, 1943). Finally, he's on a frantic search for his missing wife in "You'll Never See Me Again" (originally aired on CBS on September 5, 1946).

Whitfield Connor broke out on the Broadway stage in the 1940s, and he returned to the theatre in the 1960s as a manager and producer. In between, he made two starring turns on Suspense. First, he's an editor who finds a perfect murder plot in a manuscript in "Sequel to Murder" (originally aired on CBS on June 22, 1954). Then he's a prosecutor investigating a death that could be a heart attack or murder in "The Thimble" (originally aired on CBS on November 22, 1959). Plus, we'll hear him face off with Jack Webb in "The Big Try" from Dragnet (originally aired on NBC on September 29, 1953). 

Lucille Fletcher penned some of the best old time radio thrillers of all time - stories that can still keep listeners on the edge of their seats over eighty years later. She wrote "Sorry, Wrong Number," "The Hitch-hiker," and many more episodes that rank among the best of Suspense. We'll hear Mildred Natwick starring in a tale of a boarding house with a ghostly new tenant in "The Furnished Floor" (originally aired on CBS on September 13, 1945). Then, a woman is convinced her mother's killer has escaped prison and is out to kill her next in "The Night Man" (originally aired on CBS on October 23, 1960). Plus, we'll hear some of her non-Suspense shows: "Carmilla," an adaptation of a pre-Dracula vampire tale from The Columbia Workshop (originally aired on CBS on July 28, 1940), and "Bela Boczniak's Bad Dreams," a story of a man haunted by nightmares in his waking life from The Clock (originally aired on ABC on April 25, 1948).

It's our annual (belated) birthday tribute to the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. This year, it's a double feature of Hitchcock pictures recreated for radio. Joseph Cotten stars in adaptations of Foreign Correspondent and Shadow of a Doubt from Academy Award (originally aired on CBS on July 24 and September 11, 1946).