Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: December 30, 1954
In Suspense #578, "Odd Man Out," Johnny, a wounded revolutionary, finds himself dying and abandoned after a payroll robbery goes terribly wrong. During the raid with his comrades Murphy, Nolan, and Pat, Johnny kills a man and is shot in the arm. As police sirens converge and panic sets in, his fellow raiders flee, leaving the badly wounded Johnny to fend for himself. Murphy stays behind long enough to hide Johnny in a dark shelter, promising to return with help from Dennis and the rest of the organization, but as Johnny's condition deteriorates, the promise seems increasingly hollow.
Alone in the darkness, battling rats and overwhelming pain, Johnny drifts in and out of consciousness while police patrols scour the area. He's discovered by Shell and Mr. Fancy, two opportunistic locals who debate whether to turn him in for reward money or let him die in peace. As Johnny's life ebbs away, he becomes a prize to be bartered over, caught between those who would profit from his capture and the dwindling hope that his comrades will return to rescue him before the police cordon closes in.

Originally Aired: December 23, 1954
Suspense #577, "Premonition," Tony and Gwen Christopher, Americans living in Austria, find themselves stranded in a blizzard while attempting to cross the Alps to Paris for Christmas. When their car becomes stuck in deep snow, they make their way to a remote mountainside inn run by Herr Landick. Despite his wife's relief at finding shelter, Tony experiences an overwhelming sense of foreboding about the place—a premonition he can't quite explain. The inn's other guests include Monsieur and Madame Rouge and a Swiss gentleman named Herr Brown, all waiting out the dangerous storm.
When Gwen casually mentions her husband's premonition at lunch, treating it as an amusing quirk, she inadvertently triggers Madame Rouge's own terror about their situation. Talk turns to the very real dangers surrounding them: avalanches have already destroyed two nearby villages and killed three people that morning. Herr Brown suggests Tony's instincts may be detecting genuine peril—the unseasonably warm temperatures and days of heavy snowfall have created explosive conditions throughout the Alps. As the guests contemplate their situation, the question becomes whether Tony's dark feeling is mere imagination or a warning they should heed.

Originally Aired: December 16, 1954
Suspense #576, "Pretty Girl," Emmy Carter is found wandering in the rain, clutching a mysterious heavy object, with no coat or purse. When Police Lieutenant Lewis Gagan arrives at the station, he's surprised to learn the disheveled young woman specifically asked for him by name. Emmy, a pretty university student, seems disoriented and confused, asking desperately for her lipstick. As Gagan questions her, the story shifts to earlier that evening, revealing Emmy's complicated romantic entanglements with Ray Hamilton, an instructor in her economics class.
Through flashbacks, we see Emmy skillfully manipulating Ray, canceling their date with a convenient excuse about studying original documents at Dr. Church's house. Ray grows suspicious and insistent, ultimately driving Emmy to the professor's home himself. Their tense conversation reveals Emmy's pattern of controlling the men around her, though Ray's jealousy and possessiveness hint at darker undercurrents. As the evening unfolds, the connection between these events and Emmy's disturbing condition at the police station becomes increasingly ominous.

Originally Aired: December 9, 1954
Suspense #575, "On a Country Road," stars Harry Bartell and Virginia Gregg as David and Dorothy, a young couple who make a fateful decision to take a shortcut on a stormy Long Island night. While caught in heavy traffic, they hear a radio bulletin warning that Nellie Golar, a dangerous mental patient armed with a meat cleaver, has escaped after brutally murdering hospital staff and is now loose in the area. Despite the warnings to stay off lonely roads, David decides to take a back road through the woods to avoid traffic and beat the approaching storm. As they drive deeper into the isolated countryside, more radio reports reveal fresh murders near their route, and Dorothy's anxiety grows with each bulletin.
When their car runs out of gas on the dark, deserted road surrounded by woods, the couple finds themselves stranded in precisely the kind of situation authorities warned against. Dorothy becomes increasingly terrified that the killer could be hiding nearby in the darkness, while David tries to calm her fears. Trapped in their locked car with rain pounding down and lightning flashing around them, they must decide whether to wait out the night in the vulnerable vehicle or risk walking through the storm-swept woods where a murderer may be lurking.

Originally Aired: December 2, 1954
Suspense #574, "The Shot," stars William Conrad as Lieutenant Zachary Peyton, a man consumed by an incomplete duel from seven years past. When Benjamin Rolls drew the first shot in their duel, he fired and missed—but Peyton refused to take his return shot, declaring that he would choose his own time and place. Rolls walked away laughing and eating cherries, seemingly indifferent to death itself, which only deepened Peyton's obsession. Now Peyton has tracked Rolls down, discovering his former adversary has inherited a fortune and just married Marcia Pemberton, a woman he loves deeply. Peyton practices relentlessly with his dueling pistols, terrifying his landlord Mr. Temple, who watches him shoot playing cards off a fence post from his bed with chilling accuracy.
As Peyton's old friend Jim Stockwell tries to dissuade him from his revenge, it becomes clear that Peyton has been waiting for this precise moment—when Rolls finally has something precious to lose. The question that haunts Peyton is whether the man who once laughed down a gun barrel can still face death so carelessly now that he has found love and happiness worth living for.

Originally Aired: November 18, 1954
In Suspense #572, "Blind Date," Gloria Le Fay, a contortionist performing her late mother's act in a Chicago theater, waits in her dressing room after closing night. She's agreed to meet a mysterious admirer named Vincent Hawthorne who sent her a note earlier that day. Against her better judgment and relying on a fortune-teller's assurance that the handwriting shows him to be a gentleman, Gloria accepts this unusual blind date. Vincent arrives with champagne and roses, insisting they celebrate in her dressing room rather than at Gregory's restaurant where Gloria had hoped to go.
As Vincent becomes increasingly controlling and unsettling, Gloria grows uneasy. He produces an enormous trick knife to open the champagne bottle, knows disturbing details about her stage act, and seems determined to keep her isolated in the empty theater. The callboy's earlier warning that her stage door Johnny is "no improvement" begins to ring true. Gloria realizes too late that she may have invited danger into her dressing room, and with everyone else gone for the night, she's completely alone with this strange man who seems to have sinister intentions beneath his polished gentleman's facade.

Originally Aired: November 11, 1954
In Suspense #571, "The Sure Thing," Phil Brannon is an independent bookie who has built his success on a sharp understanding of horses and calculated risks. When Marty, a syndicate representative, offers Phil a place in their organization, Phil refuses, confident he can eventually buy his way in on his own terms with their money. Phil has been making steady wins against the syndicate while supporting his girlfriend Eileen, who grows impatient waiting for him to earn enough to divorce his wife Barbara and start fresh.
Phil's ambitions take a dramatic turn when a mysterious stable boy tips him off about a fixed race. After verifying that the favorite will be scratched, Phil sees his opportunity for the big score he's been waiting for. He places a staggering quarter million dollars on Happy Wanderer, betting money that isn't his. As Phil frantically pushes through the crowd at the track with Eileen, desperate to witness the finish of the eighth race, his carefully constructed plans hang in the balance. The sure thing he's been chasing may prove far less certain than he believed.

Originally Aired: November 4, 1954
Suspense #570, "The Last Letter of Dr Bronson," Dr. Bronson writes an urgent letter to his colleague Dr. Mosher as midnight approaches, explaining a dangerous year-long experiment that has led to his current predicament. Bronson has been testing his theory that five basic checks restrain men from committing murder: fear of the law, religious principles, and three others yet to be revealed. To prove his hypothesis, he systematically finds five different men, gives each a compelling motive to kill him, then relies on one of his theorized checks to prevent the murder. Dr. Mosher himself becomes the first test subject, illustrating how fear of legal consequences prevents murder. A devout church clerk named Tutton demonstrates the power of religious conviction when he refuses Bronson's offer of five thousand dollars to administer poison. The small-time criminal Matt Doyle, whom Bronson once saved from death, represents the third test. As the clock ticks toward midnight and Bronson hurries to complete his letter, something has clearly gone terribly wrong with his carefully calculated experiment.

Originally Aired: October 28, 1954
Suspense #569, "The Shelter," a woman finds herself stranded at a remote bus stop on a dark night, waiting for the midnight bus. She takes refuge in the shelter, only to discover she's not alone. A talkative stranger sits in the darkness, rattling off obscure facts gleaned from magazines and rambling about human anatomy, counting systems, and peculiar theories. At first his chatter seems merely eccentric, but the woman grows increasingly uneasy as his monologue continues and his behavior becomes more controlling.
The tension escalates when the man mentions a radio broadcast warning that a patient has escaped from the nearby mental hospital and may be dangerous. He insists the woman must stay in the shelter with him where it's "safe." As she sits trapped in the pitch-black space, unable to see her companion clearly, the woman begins to recognize familiar patterns in his relentless talking and odd mannerisms. Memories from her past surface, hinting at a connection she hadn't initially realized, while the stranger's behavior grows more unsettling with each passing moment.

Originally Aired: October 21, 1954
Suspense #568, "Rave Notice," presents a chilling psychological portrait of Sam, a struggling actor whose ego proves as dangerous as any weapon. When director Norman strips Sam of his cherished role in a new play, declaring him "not right for it" and even suggesting he's "no actor," Sam's wounded pride explodes into murderous rage. Despite Norman's dismissive cruelty, Sam's response is anything but theatrical—he calmly purchases a shotgun and waits outside the stage door on 45th Street, methodically planning his revenge.
After shooting Norman in cold blood, Sam faces the electric chair for premeditated murder. His lawyer sees no defense until mentioning insanity as a possibility. Suddenly, Sam seizes upon a darkly ironic solution: he'll give the performance of his lifetime by convincing psychiatrists he's been insane all along. Drawing on his training in the Stanislavski method, Sam begins mining his deepest memories for moments of genuine madness, dredging up a childhood incident involving a cat and searching for the emotional truth that will make his greatest role—that of a homicidal maniac—utterly believable and save him from execution.