Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: May 5, 1952 Suspense #472, "Frankie and Johnny," features Dinah Shore in a dramatic retelling of the classic American ballad. Frankie is deeply devoted to her man Johnny, a clarinet player in New Orleans who mysteriously disappears to play music in the back room of Cucaloo's on Basin Street. When Frankie spends her last hundred dollars to buy Johnny a sharp new red suit, she hope...

Originally Aired: April 28, 1952 Suspense #471, "The Shooting of Billy the Kid," presents the legendary outlaw's story from his own perspective. At just 18 years old, Billy reflects on his violent past, having already killed 16 men. The drama opens during the bloody Lincoln County War, where Billy and Charlie Boudra escape a burning house while their employer McSween is gunned down holding only hi...

Originally Aired: April 21, 1952 Suspense #470, "The Diary of Captain Scott," presents the harrowing true story of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his four companions as they face death in the Antarctic. After reaching the South Pole, Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates, and Evans discover they have been beaten by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Devastated but determined, the five men begin their 800-...

Originally Aired: April 14, 1952 Suspense #469, "Mate Bram," presents a chilling true crime story as documented by criminologist Edmund Pearson. Thomas Bram, the first mate of the Barcantine Herbert Fuller, writes to his trusted friend Mr. Cooper about a fatal voyage that began in Boston. Having recently earned his mate's ticket and sworn off drink entirely, Bram signs aboard with Captain Charles...

Originally Aired: April 7, 1952 Suspense #468, "Remember Me," stars Dan Duryea as Harry Norris, a desperate young man who attempts to rob a small neighborhood shop. When the elderly shopkeeper, Mr. Lebowitz, resists, the situation turns violent and Harry panics, shooting him dead. As Harry frantically searches for his dropped hat, Ruth Shaw walks into the store, a customer who needs a few items be...

Originally Aired: March 31, 1952 Suspense #467, "The Lady Pamela," presents a sophisticated jewelry heist that goes terribly wrong. Pamela Barnes poses as a wealthy customer at a prestigious jeweler's shop, examining expensive pieces worth tens of thousands of dollars. When two accomplices burst in to stage the robbery, the plan seems flawless. Pamela, along with her partners David Archer and the...

Originally Aired: March 24, 1952 Suspense #466, "A Murder of Necessity," Mark has reached his breaking point with Herbert J. Sachs, a corrupt private investigator who has been blackmailing him for years over a hunting accident that left a man dead. When Mark finally snaps and shoots Herbie in his office, he believes he's free at last. But then he discovers something chilling: Herbie's telephone re...

Originally Aired: March 17, 1952 Suspense #465, "The Wreck of the Old 97," recreates the fateful journey of the legendary Southern Railway fast mail train. Engineer Joe Brody takes control of the Old 97 at Monroe, Virginia, with orders to make up forty minutes and arrive at Danville on time. Brody has personal motivation beyond professional pride - his wife is expecting a baby in Danville. Fireman...

Originally Aired: March 10, 1952 Suspense #464, "A Watery Grave," stars Joseph Cotten as Callan, a powerful district attorney who has made a devil's bargain with the corrupt businessman McNeely. In exchange for wealth and political advancement, Callan agrees to drop his prosecution and look the other way, which means allowing his key witness, a street-tough informant named Bartel, to be eliminated...

Originally Aired: March 3, 1952 Suspense #463, "The Thirty-Nine Steps," Richard Henai returns to London in the spring of 1914 after ten years in Africa, bored with civilian life and longing for adventure. His mundane existence takes a dramatic turn when his American neighbor, Frank P. Scudder, appears at his door in a state of terror. Scudder claims to be a spy who has uncovered a German conspirac...

Originally Aired: February 25, 1952 Suspense #462, "A Killing in Las Vegas," features Dixie Evans, a dancer who walks into a Las Vegas police station with a terrifying claim: her husband Charlie is trying to kill her. She recounts how the previous night, while waiting for Charlie outside the Oasis Club where she performs, someone attacked her from behind and choked her until she lost consciousness...

Originally Aired: February 18, 1952 Suspense #461, "The Track of the Cat," rancher Kurt decides to hunt down a mountain lion that's been terrorizing his family's cattle in the Nevada mountains, despite warnings from his mother and the family's aging Native American worker, Joe Sam. The old man is convinced the predator isn't an ordinary cat but a supernatural black panther that appears with the fi...

Originally Aired: February 11, 1952 Suspense #460, "Odd Man Out," stars James Mason as Johnny, the leader of a desperate gang attempting a payroll robbery. When the carefully planned raid goes catastrophically wrong, Johnny shoots a security guard in self-defense but takes a bullet himself. As alarm bells ring and police swarm the area, his companions Murphy, Nolan, and getaway driver Pat attempt...

Originally Aired: February 4, 1952 Suspense #459, "The Treasure Chest of Don Jose," When a devastating hurricane destroys Jose Gasparia's ancestral home on Black Key in the Gulf of Mexico, his friend Pedro saves his life. As they clear the rubble of the demolished chimney built by Jose's great-grandfather, Pedro discovers a small iron box containing an old parchment. Jose quickly lies to Pedro, cl...

Originally Aired: January 28, 1952 In Suspense #458, "Carnival," Joseph Cotton stars as Renee Orlando, a sideshow performer known as "Renee the Robot" who presents himself as a man without emotion, moving mechanically like a living automaton. But beneath this cold exterior, Renee is consumed by powerful passions, particularly his obsessive love for his wife Gabrielle and his hatred for O'Mara, the...

Originally Aired: January 21, 1952 Suspense #457, "The Perfectionist," follows an unnamed narrator who has committed what he believes to be the perfect murder. After meticulously planning each step, including transporting his victim's body in a specially designed trunk to a city 90 miles away, his flawless scheme begins to unravel due to a baggage clerk's error at the train station. The trunk cont...

Originally Aired: January 14, 1952 Suspense #456, "The Fall River Tragedy," stars Agnes Moorhead as Lizzie Borden, the infamous woman accused of brutally murdering her father and stepmother with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts. Years after her trial and acquittal, Lizzie receives Mr. Lippitt, a magazine writer, in her home to tell her side of the story. As children outside chant the notorious...

Originally Aired: January 7, 1952 Suspense #455, "The Case Against Loo Doc," presents a gripping tale of San Francisco's Tong Wars, where District Attorney Red Mucia is determined to bring down Loo Doc, a silk merchant he believes leads a double life as a ruthless tong leader. Newspaper reporter Dan Glasgow accompanies the DA on a nighttime stakeout in Sporfoot Alley, where rival tongs—the Hop Yin...

Originally Aired: December 31, 1951 Suspense #454, "Rogue Male," follows an English big game hunter who undertakes what he claims is merely a "sporting stalk" of the most dangerous quarry imaginable: a dictator with a familiar toothbrush mustache. Captured before he can pull the trigger, the hunter insists to his half-English interrogator that he never intended to actually fire, but the brutal con...

Originally Aired: December 17, 1951 Suspense #452, "The Case History of a Gambler," Matt Miller drags himself through the streets with a bullet in his body, six blocks from the hospital, as his mind drifts back to where it all began three years earlier. The story unfolds through flashback as Matt recalls borrowing $10,000 from his friend Frank to bet on a rigged prizefight, part of a $100,000 gamb...

Originally Aired: December 10, 1951 Suspense #451, "Blackjack to Kill," presents the chilling story of Johnny Damon, a cold-blooded assassin who makes his living killing on contract. When crime boss Moyer deals the high card to Johnny among five hired guns, Johnny wins a lucrative job: travel to Havana and eliminate a target for ten thousand dollars up front, with another fifteen waiting when he r...

Originally Aired: December 3, 1951 Suspense #450, "A Murderous Revision," takes listeners inside the increasingly volatile relationship between Christopher Turner, a frustrated radio scriptwriter, and Ken Avery, the demanding producer of the show "Murder Please." After two years of writing a murder a week for Avery's program, Chris has reached his breaking point. When Avery butchers yet another sc...

Originally Aired: October 29, 1951 Suspense #445, "The Hunting of Bob Lee," brings listeners a dramatization of one of Texas's most notorious feuds. Bob Lee, a prosperous rancher returning home after the Civil War, finds himself targeted by his less fortunate neighbors who resent his success. When Lee rides into the village of Pilot Grove wearing a distinctive plumed hat, townsman Hugh Evans and h...

Originally Aired: October 22, 1951 Suspense #444, "The Log of the Marne," presents a harrowing true story of a British gunboat trapped on the Yangtze River under relentless Communist fire. When HMS Marne is ambushed by Chinese batteries while on a routine supply mission, the devastating attack kills the captain and most of the crew within minutes. Lieutenant Bennett Moore, critically wounded with...

Originally Aired: October 15, 1951 In Suspense #443, "The Flame," Cornell Wilde stars as Andy, a troubled young man whose dangerous obsession with fire threatens to spiral out of control. When Andy's sister Mary Lee asks him to help Mr. Boyerjean, a kindly dry goods store owner whose wife is gravely ill, Andy agrees to mind the shop. But when Mr. Boyerjean mentions in passing that he wishes his st...