Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: April 28, 1949 Suspense #338, "The Lie," starring Mickey Rooney, presents a twisted tale of murder and family dysfunction. Martin Delavan, a young man expelled from college for the third time, returns home to find his despised stepmother Glad dead on the bed with a broken neck. His father's telltale cigarette butts and newspaper suggest Dad came home early and discovered Glad on...

Originally Aired: April 21, 1949 Suspense #337, "The Copper Tea Strainer," stars Betty Grable as Jeannie Dunn, a thirty-year-old model working at photographer James Irwin's studio when a detective arrives asking pointed questions. The detective produces a gleaming copper tea strainer, and at the sight of it, Jeannie's carefully suppressed memories come flooding back. She lives with her invalid mot...

Originally Aired: April 14, 1949 Suspense #336, "Murder in Black and White," stars Edmund Gwenn as Rice Archer, a meticulous murderer who has planned every detail of the perfect crime. The episode opens with Archer standing over his business partner Tom Hannigan's body, methodically consulting his notebook to ensure he's followed each step of his carefully orchestrated plan. From muffling the guns...

Originally Aired: April 7, 1949 Suspense #335, "The Noose of Coincidence," Christopher Swan, a mild-mannered London bookseller, encounters a strange visitor to his shop—a man who shares his exact name and claims to be a mental telepathist and prophet. The mysterious Christopher Swan makes an unsettling prediction: the bookseller will soon marry a pretty, red-haired woman named Margaret. When this...

Originally Aired: March 31, 1949 Suspense #334, "You Can't Die Twice," stars Edward G. Robinson as Sam Brown, a struggling milkman whose mundane life takes a shocking turn on April Fool's Day. When police call to inform Sam's wife Katie that her husband has been killed by a hit-and-run driver on the Clinton Turnpike, the couple initially dismisses it as a cruel prank. But the news is confirmed on...

Originally Aired: March 24, 1949 Suspense #333, "Dead Ernest," stars Pat O'Brien in a harrowing tale of life and death hanging by a thread. Ernest Bowers, a 34-year-old man suffering from catalepsy, is struck by a car at a busy intersection. The accident appears minor—just a cut on the forehead—but Ernest's condition mimics death so convincingly that the ambulance doctor pronounces him dead at the...

Originally Aired: March 17, 1949 Suspense #332, "Murder Through the Looking Glass," stars Gregory Peck as Jeffrey Bruno, a Greenwich Village mystery writer who awakens on a train to Philadelphia with no memory of how he got there. When Jeffrey checks his wallet, he's shocked to discover identification and personal effects belonging to someone named John Blake, an insurance agent he's never heard o...

Originally Aired: March 10, 1949 Suspense #331, "Three O'Clock," stars Van Heflin as Paul, a watch repairman consumed by jealousy who plants a bomb in his own basement, set to explode at three o'clock when his wife Francie returns from shopping. After wiring an alarm clock to a box of explosives, Paul heads back to his shop to establish an alibi. But before he can leave, two burglars break into th...

Originally Aired: March 3, 1949 Suspense #330, "The Lovebirds," Martha has reached her breaking point after seven long years of marriage to her ailing husband Sam. While everyone in their small town admires them as the perfect couple, calling them "the Lovebirds," Martha harbors a dark secret: she has been waiting for Sam to die so she can inherit his money and escape to the exotic destinations sh...

Originally Aired: February 24, 1949 Suspense #329, "Where There's a Will," Charles Ridgway finds himself in desperate financial straits, owing gambler Mr. Jepson ten thousand pounds with only four weeks to pay. His salvation appears to lie in his elderly Aunt Mary's newly revised will, which names him heir to her forty thousand pound fortune instead of his cousin Miriam. When Dr. Minnell warns tha...

Originally Aired: February 17, 1949 Suspense #328, "Catch Me If You Can," features Jane Wyman as Margot Weatherby, a woman who has just murdered her wealthy husband Phil at an isolated Colorado mountain inn. After suffocating him with a pillow, Margot faces an immediate crisis: Phil had warned her that he called his old friend, a detective named Rocky Rhodes, and hidden pills as evidence of her ea...

Originally Aired: February 10, 1949 Suspense #327, "De Mortuis," Dr. Raggen finds himself in a compromising position when two neighbors, Greg and George, arrive at his home unexpectedly. They discover him in the cellar, having just finished filling in a section of the floor with fresh concrete. When Dr. Raggen claims his wife Irene has gone to visit friends, the neighbors grow suspicious, especial...

Originally Aired: February 3, 1949 Suspense #326, "Backseat Driver," stars Fibber McGee and Molly in a harrowing tale of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary danger. Joe and Ellie are driving home to the San Fernando Valley after seeing a movie in Beverly Hills, listening to radio news about Lewis Matrick, a vicious mass murderer who escaped police in downtown Los Angeles earlier that day. Th...

Originally Aired: January 27, 1949 Suspense #325, "The Thing in the Window," Martin Ames, an actor with too much time on his hands, becomes obsessed with what he believes is a corpse sitting motionless in a window across the street from his apartment. For days, he watches the gray-suited figure slumped in a high-backed chair behind blue draperies on the tenth floor. When his housekeeper Mary can't...

Originally Aired: January 20, 1949 Suspense #324, "If the Dead Could Talk," stars Dana Andrews as Joe, a trapeze artist caught in a tortured love triangle. Joe is hopelessly in love with Fran, his partner in a three-person circus act, but she chooses to marry Tommy, Joe's best friend and roommate. Unable to accept losing Fran to his closest companion, Joe spirals into drinking and sleepless nights...

Originally Aired: January 13, 1949 Suspense #323, "The Too Perfect Alibi," stars Danny Kaye as Sam Rogers, a man hopelessly in love with Catherine, the woman of his dreams. When Catherine and her fiancé Jack Stewart announce they're getting married on Monday, Sam's world shatters. Catherine is lovely and kind, while Jack is a handsome former football hero now working as a clerk in a sports shop. D...

Originally Aired: January 6, 1949 Suspense #322, "To Find Help," stars Ethel Barrymore as Mrs. Gillis, an elderly widow living alone with her maid Sarah and her aging dog. When a mild-mannered young man named Howard Wilton appears at her door seeking odd jobs, Mrs. Gillis hires him to do heavy cleaning work despite warnings from her roomer, Mr. Armstrong. At first, Howard seems harmless enough, bu...

Originally Aired: December 30, 1948 Suspense #321, "Break-Up," follows Marty Connors, a disgraced ex-cop who has crossed over to the wrong side of the law. Suspended from the police force after being set up by a woman who stole his gun during a drunken encounter, Marty angrily rejects the warnings of his former partner, Detective Kivlahan, and takes a job as a bodyguard for criminals Doc Williamso...

Originally Aired: December 23, 1948 Suspense #320, "Holiday Story," stars Herbert Marshall as Professor Wilfred Carpenter, a mild-mannered botanist long dominated by his overbearing wife, Hermione. When Hermione insists he shave his beard before their trip to America, the transformation proves more significant than either could imagine. At the bookshop, Wilfred encounters the sympathetic Miss Mari...

Originally Aired: December 16, 1948 Suspense #319, "No Escape," stars James Cagney as Harry Graham, a bus driver about to receive his town's safest driver of the year award. While racing through the dark canyon road to pick up his girlfriend Eve before the ceremony, Harry encounters another car. In the chaos of swerving and braking, the other vehicle plunges 500 feet down into the canyon, bursting...

Originally Aired: December 9, 1948 Suspense #318, "The Sisters," Lydia and Ellie Haskell live together in quiet isolation, two aging sisters bound by secrets and an uneasy dynamic. When Lydia returns from a mysterious shopping trip, she reveals she's purchased an expensive casket—a Duravo—for herself, to be held for three weeks. Ellie, the fragile younger sister who clings to memories of their gir...

Originally Aired: December 2, 1948 Suspense #317, "The Hands of Mr Ottermole," In the fog-shrouded streets of London's Casper Street district, a mysterious strangler stalks victims with terrifying efficiency, killing without motive or mercy. A veteran police sergeant with fifteen years on the force recounts the chilling crimes to a persistent newspaper man who has been lurking in the district's sh...

Originally Aired: November 25, 1948 Suspense #316, "The Screaming Woman," young Margaret Leary takes a shortcut through Mr. Kelly's vacant lot on Thanksgiving Day when she hears something terrifying: a woman's voice screaming from beneath tons of freshly dumped dirt and debris. The voice comes from the area where she and the neighborhood children used to play in a large concrete pipe they called "...

Originally Aired: November 18, 1948 Suspense #315, "Sorry, Wrong Number," presents Agnes Moorhead as Mrs. Stevenson, an invalid woman alone in her home who becomes inadvertently entangled in a terrifying situation. While attempting to reach her husband's office at Murray Hill 4-0098, where he's supposedly working late, the operator accidentally connects her to a crossed line. Mrs. Stevenson overhe...

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 b...