Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: March 3, 1957
In Suspense #688, "Present Tense," a condemned man finds himself trapped in a nightmarish loop of murder and reality. The protagonist, handcuffed to a detective on a train bound for prison, faces execution for killing his wife with an axe. When the train crashes and the detective dies, he seizes the opportunity to escape, switching identification with the corpse and fleeing to his home. There, he discovers his supposedly dead wife alive with her lover, revealing an elaborate frame-up. In a rage, he murders them both with a cleaver, only to find himself once again shackled on a train headed for execution. The story spirals through his desperate attempts at escape and flight to Mexico, blurring the lines between memory, fantasy, and present reality.
As the condemned man awaits his final hours in San Quentin's death row, he reflects on the grey, rain-soaked sky beyond his barred window. Vincent Price portrays a character caught in an psychological maze where past and present intertwine, and the question of what truly happened becomes increasingly unclear. His repeated experiences of the same journey suggest either elaborate fantasy or something far more disturbing about guilt, punishment, and the inescapable nature of consequence.

Originally Aired: February 24, 1957
Suspense #687, "Two Hundred and Twenty-Seven Minutes of Hate," opens with a crisis that has Lieutenant McDougall scrambling for answers. Bill Rand from Hillway Airport reports that a man named Charles Regan has stolen a plane at gunpoint—but there's a terrifying catch: Regan can't fly. Now he's circling erratically over the city, buzzing houses on Delaplane Avenue and rolling his wheels across the courthouse roof, threatening to crash at any moment. McDougall and Sergeant Kelly attempt every option—contacting the Air Force base, alerting civil defense, trying to reach Regan by radio—but nothing works. The plane's radio is turned down too low to hear over the engine noise, and jets can't fly slow enough to intercept him.
With no way to bring Regan down from the ground, McDougall realizes this might be a suicide attempt. The only hope is to understand why Regan is doing this. McDougall and Kelly race to Regan's address, hoping his wife can provide answers that might save lives before the inevitable crash occurs. As calls flood the detective bureau and panic spreads through the city, the clock is ticking on a disaster only understanding can prevent.

Originally Aired: February 10, 1957
Suspense #685, "Door of Gold," presents a deadly honeymoon adventure in the Peruvian jungle. Philip, a young archaeologist, narrates how he and his bride Janice, along with Dr. Clayton and their native guide Juan, finally discover the legendary Porto de Oro—a golden door hidden within an ancient Inca burial mound. When Philip and Janice venture inside the mysterious tunnel to explore what lies beyond, they must carefully navigate a treacherous passage filled with booby traps left behind by the Incas centuries ago. Using a long bamboo probe, Janice tests each stone block while Philip maps their progress, but the danger proves all too real when she suddenly plunges through a pivot stone into a thirty-foot pit.
Their situation turns desperate when they accidentally trigger block 590, causing a thunderous rumble that seals the main entrance and cuts off their air circulation. With Dr. Clayton and Juan trapped outside, the couple must press forward through the dark passageway. They discover a second sealed door and eventually find the mechanism to open it, only to make a chilling discovery about what—or who—awaits them in the darkness beyond.

Originally Aired: January 27, 1957
Suspense #683, "Freedom This Way," brings listeners the harrowing story of Bela Hajos, a Hungarian freedom fighter who has just arrived in America after escaping Communist tyranny. As Bela lands at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey with other refugees, overcome with emotion at the sight of the Statue of Liberty, immigration officers quickly pull him aside. They've discovered he falsified his entry papers, using a false name—a violation that means immediate deportation back to Hungary. Desperate to explain, Bela recounts his dangerous journey to freedom. He describes broadcasting truth from Radio Free Budapest during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution before Russian tanks silenced the station. Captured and imprisoned in the dreaded Koporoshi House by the secret police, Bela was given hope by a condemned cellmate who passed him a small file before being executed. The file allowed Bela to escape, but his freedom came at a terrible price involving betrayal by someone he once trusted. Now, facing American authorities who hold his fate in their hands, Bela must convince them why he risked everything—and broke their rules—to reach freedom.

Originally Aired: January 20, 1957
Suspense #682, "Second Class Passenger," follows Ronald A. Dawson, a department store employee on a cruise around the world. When the ship docks at Mozambique, Dawson goes ashore with the charming Miss Patterson and two fellow passengers, Jones and Twitchell. After Miss Patterson accidentally leaves behind a bronze idol she purchased, Dawson gallantly volunteers to retrieve it from a Greek restaurant, assuring everyone he has plenty of time before the ship departs.
As he races back through the unfamiliar port city, the African twilight descends rapidly and a sudden rainstorm traps him in the maze-like alleys. Lost and disoriented in the darkness, Dawson stumbles upon a mysterious door with voices behind it. When he knocks seeking help, he's admitted by strangers who seem to be expecting someone else. The ominous revelation that they're waiting for "friends" and the police to arrive suggests that Dawson's simple errand has led him into something far more dangerous than getting lost in the rain.

Originally Aired: January 13, 1957
In Suspense #681, "Russian New Year," a revolutionary named Boris reflects on his legacy in what he claims are the last hours of his life. Obsessed with being remembered for his role in the revolutionary movement, Boris seethes over how bourgeois journalists have supposedly minimized his importance while exaggerating the role of Olga Karolska, a woman he dismisses as a political ignoramus and mere puppet. Through flashbacks, Boris recounts how he manipulated Olga, a servant in Prince Ogareff's household who believes herself in love with him, to arrange a fateful meeting with the prince.
When Olga reveals that Prince Ogareff's wife has left him for the Tsar and that the prince has been muttering about killing Russia's ruler, Boris sees his opportunity. He pressures Olga to bring the prince to his room near the university, where Boris presents an audacious plan: to destroy St. Basil's Cathedral during the New Year's Eve midnight mass, when the Tsar and the entire court will be gathered inside. As Boris coldly explains his scheme to use sixty pounds of melanite explosive, he reveals his nihilistic philosophy that revolutions are born from hate, not love, while the superstitious Olga fears for his very soul.

Originally Aired: January 6, 1957
In Suspense #680, "A Shipment of Mute Fate," Christopher Warner boards the ocean liner Chanquei in Venezuela with a dangerous cargo: a live bushmaster snake destined for a museum in New York. Captain Wood initially refuses to transport the deadly serpent, citing his responsibility to the passengers' safety, but orders from the head office force him to relent. The snake is secured in a reinforced sea chest in the captain's cabin, where Warner visits it obsessively, always finding it motionless and watching with beady, unblinking eyes.
As the ship sails into the Caribbean with deceptively calm seas, Warner develops an increasingly morbid dread of the creature. He cannot shake the feeling that the bushmaster is waiting for something. Meanwhile, stewardess Mother Willis harbors her own secret aboard ship, smuggling her pregnant cat Clara in defiance of the new chief steward's orders. When a heavy swell rocks the vessel, Warner's foreboding intensifies, and the question haunts him: what is the deadly serpent waiting for?

Originally Aired: December 23, 1956
In Suspense #679, "Back for Christmas," Professor Herbert Carpenter has endured twenty years of marriage to his dominating wife Hermione, who manages every detail of his life down to which necktie he wears. But the mousy professor has found unexpected romance with Marion Markham, a bookshop proprietor who shares his love of botany, and he's made careful plans to change his circumstances. As Hermione busily prepares for their lecture tour to America, insisting they'll be "back for Christmas," Herbert works on a peculiar project in the cellar—a wine bin that his wife ominously notes looks more like a grave.
While Hermione dismisses the cook and draws her bath upstairs, Herbert secretly phones Marion to confirm their rendezvous at the aerodrome. His cryptic words suggest that only one Mrs. Carpenter will be boarding that flight to America. As the professor puts the finishing touches on his carefully constructed plan, the question becomes whether his scheme for freedom is as foolproof as he believes, or if something will go terribly wrong before the plane takes off.

Originally Aired: December 16, 1956
Suspense #678, "Eyewitness," journalist Kelly arrives at the state prison for what should be a routine assignment—gathering background for an article about life behind bars. The warden makes clear that everything must be cleared through him, and Captain Wolf, his guide, warns him not to speak to any inmates. As Kelly tours the facility, he feels increasingly suffocated by the oppressive atmosphere. But his visit takes a terrifying turn when he and Captain Wolf enter the old cell block, a fortress-like structure built in 1847 to house the prison's most dangerous inmates. Within moments, they're ambushed and taken hostage by prisoners led by the calculating J. Conrad Allen, who insists his name be spelled with one L.
With thirty-two inmates now in control of the old block and holding five hostages, including Kelly, tensions rise as the convicts debate their next move. Some want to attempt a desperate breakout, while others fear the futility of such action. Conrad has a different plan—he intends to use the hostages, especially the journalist, as leverage to demand better treatment and conditions. Kelly finds himself an unwilling participant in a prison mutiny where the outcome remains dangerously uncertain.

Originally Aired: December 9, 1956
Suspense #677, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," presents Ambrose Bierce's haunting Civil War tale starring Victor Jory. Peyton Farquhar, an Alabama planter and Confederate sympathizer, stands on a railroad bridge in northern Alabama with a noose around his neck, awaiting execution by Union forces. As he balances at the edge of death, his mind races with desperate thoughts of escape. Just days earlier, a Confederate soldier had visited Farquhar's home, sharing intelligence about the vulnerable Owl Creek Bridge and suggesting that a civilian might slip past Union sentries to destroy it, potentially halting the enemy's advance toward Atlanta.
The episode unfolds with meticulous detail as Farquhar faces his fate, surrounded by the captain's company standing at rigid attention and a Union lieutenant with drawn saber. When the sergeant steps aside and the plank tips forward, Farquhar plunges between the bridge timbers. In those final moments, the story explores the vivid sensations of a condemned man, the choices that brought him to this precipice, and the thin line between duty and folly in wartime.