Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Muddy Track

Originally Aired: November 11, 1948
Suspense #314, "Muddy Track," Harry Clark is flat broke and nursing a Coke in a bar when he meets Brandy, a woman with connections to the local bookie, Augie Persian. Before the night is over, Persian offers Harry an easy job answering phones in an apartment, paying five percent of the take from his illegal betting operation. The setup seems almost too good to be true, and Harry's instincts tell him to walk away, but desperation wins out. Working from apartment 3B, supposedly rented by a woman named Eleanor Grayson, Harry spends his first morning taking bets and admiring a photo of a smiling woman by the telephone.
When Harry finally takes a break to search the kitchen for coffee, he discovers why Persian was so eager to hire him. Brandy lies dead on the kitchen floor, her blonde hair matted with blood. Harry realizes he's been set up as the perfect fall guy, positioned at a murder scene with his fingerprints all over the apartment. Now he must figure out who killed Brandy and why Persian wanted him to take the fall.

Death Sentence

Originally Aired: November 4, 1948
Suspense #313, "Death Sentence," stars John Garfield as Tommy, a private investigator who returns from a Brazilian vacation only to find himself in deadly trouble. Six months earlier, Tommy had captured Maxie Dunn, a killer working for crime boss Lou Cromwell, collecting a fifteen thousand dollar reward in the process. Tommy thought the killing was a private matter and Lou wouldn't care, but he was wrong. Within minutes of arriving back in town, Tommy is summoned to Lou's office, where the powerful gangster delivers a chilling ultimatum: Tommy has exactly seven days to live, the same amount of time until Maxie goes to the gas chamber.
Lou explains that letting Tommy grab one of his boys makes him look weak, and in his business, appearing weak is fatal. Tommy can either handle his own death sentence himself or Lou's men will take care of it when the week is up. Though Tommy protests and considers going to the district attorney, Lou dismisses the threat, insisting their conversation was merely friendly with no witnesses to any threats. As Tommy leaves to rejoin columnist Brad Cummings at Lou's cocktail party, he's determined to find a way to beat the house at its own deadly game.

Give Me Liberty

Originally Aired: October 21, 1948
Suspense #312, "Give Me Liberty," stars William Powell as Earl French, a cunning embezzler who has successfully hidden a quarter of a million dollars from authorities. While being transported to prison by train, handcuffed to a detective, French sees his chance for freedom when the train crashes. The detective becomes trapped in the burning wreckage, his legs pinned by debris, desperately begging French for help. The detective claims not to have the key to the handcuffs, and as the flames grow closer, French makes a brutal choice: he attacks the helpless man, switches their identities by placing his college ring on the detective's finger and swapping wallets, then flees into the night. Now everyone will believe Earl French died in the wreck.
However, French's newfound liberty comes with an unexpected complication—he's still wearing the handcuffs, and the chain binding his wrists proves nearly impossible to remove. As morning arrives, French grows increasingly desperate, trying everything from holding his hands overhead to drain the blood, to rubbing the chain against stones until his skin tears. Finally, he resorts to building a fire in the woods, hoping heat will break his steel bonds.

A Little Piece of Rope

Originally Aired: October 14, 1948
Suspense #311, "A Little Piece of Rope," stars Lucille Ball as Isabel, a con artist who preys on wealthy older men by posing as an innocent schoolgirl. Her scheme is simple yet effective: she lets respectable gentlemen pick her up near exclusive schools, waits until they drive to a secluded location, then knocks them unconscious with a blackjack and steals their wallets. Her victims never report the crimes, too ashamed to admit they were pursuing what they believed was a young girl. Isabel has built a comfortable life from this racket, earning up to a thousand dollars a month while her landlady believes she's a sweet, invalid tenant who takes therapeutic walks.
Everything changes when Isabel targets Alexander Rice, a seemingly ordinary insurance salesman who picks her up near Miss Cadwaller's school. After knocking him out as usual, she discovers something horrifying in his wallet: newspaper clippings about an unsolved series of murders and a small piece of rope. Isabel realizes she has just robbed the notorious strangler who has killed five girls in the past year, always leaving them in the hills with rope around their necks. Now the hunter has become the hunted, and Isabel must figure out what to do with her deadly knowledge.

Night Cry

Originally Aired: October 7, 1948
Suspense #310, "Night Cry," finds Detective Lieutenant Mark Duglin nursing a bitter grudge after being passed over for promotion in favor of his colleague, now Captain Knight. The department believes Duglin is too much of a lone wolf, too quick with his fists, and unwilling to work as part of the modern investigative team. When a murder occurs at an upscale gambling club - a man named L.O. Morrison stabbed to death after a fight - Duglin sees it as an open-and-shut case. The victim had brawled with Candel Payne, a war hero, earlier that evening, and Payne has a fresh bandage over his eye to prove it. Against his partner Riley's advice to wait for the medical examiner and identification team, Duglin rushes off alone to confront the suspect.
Duglin finds Payne in his apartment, packing to leave, and the tense confrontation quickly turns volatile. The war hero is defiant and hostile, refusing to cooperate with the aggressive detective. As Duglin's temper flares and his methods grow increasingly brutal, the stage is set for a dangerous game of cat and mouse that will test whether this old-school cop's instincts are as sharp as he believes - or whether his refusal to play by the rules will finally catch up with him.

The Man Who Wanted To Be Edward G Robinson

Originally Aired: September 30, 1948
Suspense #309, "The Man Who Wanted To Be Edward G Robinson," stars Edward G. Robinson himself in a darkly comic psychological thriller. Homer J. Hubbard is a meek, browbeaten husband who has endured twenty years of constant nagging and persecution from his domineering wife, Ada. His mundane existence takes a dramatic turn when he sees the reissue of Little Caesar and becomes utterly transfixed by Edward G. Robinson's tough-guy persona. Homer begins obsessively identifying with the actor, noticing their similar voices and features, and escaping into elaborate daydreams where he assumes Robinson's commanding personality. He imagines himself holding up his office at gunpoint and confronting his timid reality with the actor's trademark swagger.
Homer's fantasy world intensifies as he sees every Robinson picture multiple times and practices the actor's mannerisms in secret. When Ada catches him imitating Robinson while shaving and ridicules his pathetic performance, something inside Homer snaps. The humiliation pushes him past his breaking point, and he decides to kill his wife. The question becomes whether this meek daydreamer can actually summon the ruthless determination of his cinematic idol to commit murder.

Celebration

Originally Aired: September 23, 1948
Suspense #308, "Celebration," follows Todd Ward as he visits his wife Emily at a sanitarium on what she believes is their recent wedding anniversary, though in reality eight years have passed. Emily suffers from brain damage after falling down the stairs, creating pressure that distorts her grasp on reality but cannot be operated on without fatal consequences. As Todd takes her out for the day to revisit their old haunts by the lake, Emily cheerfully announces her surprise: she has packed a suitcase and plans to come home with him for good, eager to redecorate their house together.
Todd faces an agonizing dilemma as he drives to their familiar spots, knowing Emily can never truly come home but unable to make her understand why. The tension escalates when Emily discovers a box of 38 caliber soft-nosed shells in her purse while freshening her makeup. As their bittersweet celebration unfolds against the backdrop of cherished memories, the discovery of the ammunition transforms their anniversary outing into something far more sinister, leaving Todd's true intentions chillingly uncertain.

Hitch-Hike Poker

Originally Aired: September 16, 1948
Suspense #307, "Hitch-Hike Poker," presents a harrowing tale of betrayal on the open road. Ridge Fowler, a college student hitchhiking home, gets picked up by the seemingly affable J. Stuart Beldon, a well-dressed middle-aged man driving a canary yellow convertible. As they travel down the California coast, Beldon teaches Ridge a harmless game called license plate poker and even gifts him an expensive camel's hair coat. But the friendly atmosphere takes a deadly turn when Beldon suddenly transforms into a cold-blooded predator on a treacherous mountain road.
Without warning, Beldon opens his door, twists the wheel, and leaps from the speeding car, leaving Ridge to plunge over the cliff. Miraculously surviving the crash, Ridge struggles back up the hillside only to find Beldon waiting with a gun, determined to finish the job. After narrowly escaping and making his way back to Santa Inez on foot, Ridge seeks sanctuary at the police station, ready to report the murder attempt. But when he walks through the door, he discovers Beldon has already arrived with a shocking accusation of his own.

The Big Shot

Originally Aired: September 9, 1948
Suspense #306, "The Big Shot," stars Burt Lancaster as Charlie Morton, a young mining engineer with curly blonde hair and a baby face who has learned to compensate for his innocent appearance with ruthless violence. Morton arrives in Mexico to work for Quinn on an illegal gold operation—setting up a secret stamping mill to process half a million dollars in gold ore and smuggle it out of the country before the government or local bandits discover it. Morton's cut is twenty-five thousand dollars, but his arrogance and barely concealed greed quickly put him at odds with Quinn, who warns him to keep a low profile and stay away from Lolita, the beautiful daughter of the local cantina owner.
As tensions mount at the remote mining site, Morton's need to prove his toughness leads to a violent confrontation with one of the miners named Logan. When Logan refuses to follow orders, Morton's brutal response results in the man falling over a cliff to his death. With Quinn calling it murder and the operation now threatened by Morton's hair-trigger violence, the young engineer's ambitions and dangerous temperament threaten to destroy everything—unless his ruthlessness becomes the very thing that saves him.

The Morrison Affair

Originally Aired: September 2, 1948
Suspense #305, "The Morrison Affair," stars Madeline Carroll as Sheila Morrison, a desperate Englishwoman seeking the help of Boston attorney Mr. Ballou. She needs advice about divorcing her husband, Dr. Paul Morrison, a prominent surgeon from a distinguished family, but she's terrified to reveal her identity. As she reluctantly tells her story, she explains how she met and married Paul in London in 1939, where they were happy until the war changed him hideously. Unable to have children of her own, Sheila begged Paul to adopt an orphan, but he refused, citing concerns about heredity and insisting any son must truly belong to both of them or not at all.
After Paul returned to America with the Army Medical Corps, Sheila remained in London, consumed by loneliness and her desperate desire for a child. On a fateful train journey to the countryside, she encountered a struggling war widow traveling with three children, including an infant named Jamie whose father had just been killed. As Sheila held the baby and the overwhelmed mother spoke wistfully about wishing someone well-off could give him a better life, a dangerous opportunity presented itself that would lead to the desperate circumstances now forcing Sheila to seek legal help.