Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: October 8, 1951
Suspense #442, "Betrayal in Vienna," Colonel Alfred Radel, commander of the VIII Corps and creator of Emperor Franz Joseph's feared Black Cabinet, faces a devastating personal and professional crisis. When he learns that his dearest friend, Captain Oscar Helsinger, has been executed as a spy in St. Petersburg, Radel makes a fateful decision to flee Vienna. At the post office, he retrieves envelopes containing fourteen thousand kronen, adding to the three hundred thousand he already has hidden in a Roman bank. This routine transaction takes an ominous turn when Radel narrowly escapes detection, realizing he may have nearly stepped into the very trap he once set for others.
As Radel prepares for his final evening in Vienna, donning his dress uniform one last time and dining at Holbaum's, he reflects on the secret life that began two years earlier. His brilliant career creating an espionage network to rival Scotland Yard seems to be crumbling around him. The master spymaster who once commanded fear throughout Europe's capitals now finds himself on the run, his infallible memory forcing him to relive every step that led to this moment of betrayal and flight.

Originally Aired: October 1, 1951
Suspense #441, "The Case Study of a Murderer," Beth Lathrop reflects on her marriage to Hank, a man she thought she knew until troubling changes emerge. When a series of brutal murders near Lincoln Park dominates the news, Hank becomes obsessed with following every detail in the papers. His fixation intensifies after he loses his job, and Beth watches helplessly as her sweet, wonderful husband transforms into someone she barely recognizes. He grows paranoid, argumentative, and increasingly erratic, making strange accusations and contradicting himself about simple things like whether windows should be open or closed.
As the summer heat bears down and the killer remains at large, Hank's behavior becomes more disturbing. Beth begins to sense that her husband is harboring dark secrets, even from himself. She describes him as two different men, one she loved and another she's only now discovering. Speaking from an uncertain present, Beth reveals she's expecting a baby and has been assured by doctors that whatever mental sickness afflicted Hank cannot be inherited. Her haunting narration suggests that Hank tried to ask for help the only way he could, but his plea came too late.

Originally Aired: September 24, 1951
Suspense #440, "The McKay College Basketball Scandal," presents the story of Fred Hudson, a 20-year-old junior and star basketball player at McKay College, where the sport isn't just a game but a way of life for the entire town. As Fred takes the court, something is clearly wrong with his performance. He's fumbling plays, losing the ball, and playing far below his usual all-state caliber. The pressure mounts from all sides: his feuding parents at home, where his unemployed father lives vicariously through his son's athletic glory while his mother resents that Fred has no job skills beyond basketball, and the campus community that has built its entire identity around the basketball brigade. Two mysterious strangers have come to town asking about Fred, and his professors reveal he's flunking most of his classes except history.
Based on actual headlines about bribes offered to college athletes, Tony Curtis stars as the troubled young player caught in circumstances that threaten to destroy everything he's worked for, while the town that once celebrated him begins to turn against his inexplicably poor performance on the court.

Originally Aired: September 17, 1951
Suspense #439, "Neal Cream, Doctor of Poison," presents the chilling story of Dr. Neal Cream, a calculating murderer who slowly poisons his wife Emily over six months. After her death is attributed to a refined intestinal disorder, Cream relocates to London and takes lodgings at a boarding house run by the widow Mrs. Minnes and her daughter Daisy. Though he finds Daisy charming and honest, Cream decides it's too soon to pursue her. Instead, he turns his attention to Mildred Vickers, a sweet young woman with rosy cheeks whom he meets at a pub in Hammersmith and showers with flattering attentions.
When Millie suddenly breaks off their relationship because her young man is returning from sea, Cream's veneer of civility begins to crack. His desperation and anger surface as he insists on one last conversation, revealing the dangerous obsession lurking beneath his gentlemanly facade. Based on the true story of history's most notorious poisoner, this episode stars Charles Lawton as the sinister Dr. Cream, whose murderous impulses threaten to claim another victim.

Originally Aired: September 10, 1951
Suspense #438, "The Evil of Adelaide Winters," Adelaide Winters, played by Agnes Moorhead, defends herself from what she claims are unjust accusations. Speaking after years of paralysis caused by a bullet lodged in the base of her skull, Adelaide recounts her work as a medium during the war years. With her assistant Robert reading names of soldiers missing in action, Adelaide contacts grieving families, offering them hope of communication with their lost loved ones. When Edward Porter receives word that his son John is missing, Adelaide reaches out to him. Though Porter is a skeptical businessman who has always dealt in facts and figures, his desperation leads him to Adelaide's office. Over seven days of séances, Adelaide appears to make contact with John's spirit, bringing Porter both comfort and anguish. Adelaide insists she helped people when they had nowhere else to turn, but her methods and motivations remain deeply questionable as she builds toward explaining the horrible affair that left her shot and paralyzed.

Originally Aired: September 3, 1951
Suspense #437, "Steel River Prison Break," starring Jeff Chandler, presents a tense escape drama based on actual events. Bragg, a hardened convict, has meticulously planned a prison break from Steel River Prison with his fellow inmate Muss. When Bragg hears radio reports of rising floodwaters threatening the area, he realizes they must accelerate their carefully timed escape. With a gun smuggled in by an outside contact named Cronin hidden in his radio, Bragg moves up the timetable, taping the weapon to his leg and preparing to make his move. The flood emergency provides an unexpected opportunity when prison guards ask for volunteers to help sandbag the town's flood walls.
As the convicts are taken into Frickburg to fill sandbags, Bragg finds himself tantalizingly close to his mother's house, just blocks from freedom. However, when he and Muss are separated and assigned to different work details, Bragg faces an agonizing choice. The automatic taped to his leg cuts off circulation as he works through the day in the rain, but loyalty to his partner and the pressure of the rising waters create mounting tension as the escape plan threatens to unravel.

Originally Aired: August 27, 1951
Suspense #436, "Report on the Jolly Death Riders," William Holden stars in this tense drama based on actual events. Lieutenant Harbor of the San Francisco Police Department investigates a tragic hit-and-run accident on the Oakland Bay Bridge. Warren and Gladys Milford are celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary when two hot rods racing across the bridge force Warren to swerve, crashing into a steel support beam. Warren survives with minor injuries, but Gladys dies in the ambulance. Before losing consciousness, Warren catches a glimpse of white letters on a gold background reading "Jolly High Riders" painted on one of the cars that didn't stop.
Detective Sergeant Boyle tracks down the Jolly High Riders club to a cheap gymnasium on West Stockton, where he interrogates the five charter members: Lodge Brisson, the gym manager and hard boy; Mickey Holzer, who works at a parking garage; Julie and Wanda Lake; and overweight Wally Bergman. The club members claim their car was stolen just before a big Saturday race, but Harbor suspects one or more of them knows the truth about what happened that deadly night on the bridge.

Originally Aired: June 28, 1951
Suspense #435, "The Case for Dr Singer,"
When brilliant physicist Dr. Rudolf Ellman is shot outside the American Embassy in Switzerland and dies after revealing that secrets about America's thermonuclear weapons program are being leaked, the FBI must act quickly. Dr. George Singer, a scientist working on the top-secret H-23 project, is called to security headquarters where Mr. Whiteside from the FBI and General Busher inform him of the crisis. Ellman's dying testimony reveals that someone has been passing detailed information about their thermonuclear research to the Soviets. The information is so accurate and current that the spy must be one of only six people with access to the project: Professor Young, Dr. Singer himself, and four other trusted colleagues.
Singer is shocked to learn he's been chosen to help unmask the traitor among his fellow scientists. Despite his protests that all his colleagues are trustworthy, the FBI insists they need someone on the inside to identify the spy before more deadly secrets fall into enemy hands. With national security hanging in the balance, Singer must investigate the very men he works alongside every day.

Originally Aired: June 21, 1951
Suspense #434, "The Greatest Thief in the World," presents James Mason as Peter Marriott, a sophisticated gentleman who may or may not be the elusive criminal known as the Squire. Scotland Yard possesses two bulky files—one on Peter Marriott and one on the Squire, a jewel thief who has stolen half a million pounds over five years without leaving a trace of evidence. When Marriott attends a shooting party at the estate of Sir Leslie and Lady Banbridge, he listens politely as his host rails against the infamous thief and boasts about his own security measures. Days later, 8,000 pounds worth of jewels disappear from Sir Leslie's safe in the Squire's unmistakable style.
Scotland Yard begins to notice a troubling pattern: Peter Marriott has attended several parties thrown by the Squire's victims. As detectives watch him more closely, they discover he maintains a relationship with Jenny, a working-class girl who keeps mysterious parcels for him. When Jenny mentions that a stranger came asking questions about Peter—a man who referenced Canada and someone named Bushby—Peter's composed demeanor cracks for the first time, revealing there may be more to his story than meets the eye.

Originally Aired: June 14, 1951
Suspense #433, "The Truth About Jerry Baxter," tells the harrowing story of a teenage narcotics addict struggling to escape a life of crime and addiction. Gregory Peck stars in this hard-hitting drama based on actual events. Juvenile investigator McIntyre works to help sixteen-year-old Jerry Baxter, a boy who started using drugs to fit in with his crowd and eventually turned to dealing marijuana to support his growing habit. After Jerry's arrest for peddling narcotics in the high school yard, McIntyre sees past the angry, violent teenager to recognize a sick kid who needs help rather than more punishment. Despite Jerry's troubled record in correction school, including a vicious fight that lands him in the infirmary, McIntyre convinces the parole board to give the boy a second chance with a job in Oakland.
Freshly paroled with fifty dollars and a warning to avoid his former associates, Jerry accepts a ride from a well-dressed woman in a fur coat. Though temptation surrounds him at every turn, Jerry resists his criminal impulses. But when the woman leaves him alone in her car with the keys in the ignition and police arrive on the scene, Jerry finds himself in the worst trouble of his young life.