Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: September 8, 1949 Suspense #349, "Chicken Feed," stars Ray Milland as Ralph Clark, a San Francisco attorney whose marriage spat over a nickel spirals into a nightmare. After storming out of his house following an argument with his wife Mary about giving their son Junior a nickel, Ralph drives fifty miles to cool off. He stops in Lansing, California—a notorious speed-trap town—for...

Originally Aired: September 1, 1949 Suspense #348, "Nightmare," stars Gregory Peck as Ben, a family man whose tranquil Fourth of July fishing trip turns into a harrowing tragedy. After a near-miss with children playing baseball the previous evening leaves him shaken, Ben drives his wife Elsa, who is recovering from a nervous breakdown, and their young son Stevie into the trout country. When the ca...

Originally Aired: June 30, 1949 Suspense #347, "The Day I Died," stars Joseph Cotten as Wells Galloway, a wealthy lawyer whose life has crumbled around him. Having embezzled bonds from an estate he was entrusted to manage, Wells retreats to his isolated cabin at Lake Latima to contemplate his desperate situation. His wife Leslie has fallen in love with another man, Norman Vale, and his money is go...

Originally Aired: June 23, 1949 Suspense #346, "Ghost Hunt," disc jockey Smiley Smith embarks on a publicity stunt that goes terribly wrong. Looking to boost ratings and help property owner Mr. Thorpe sell a notorious house known as "the death trap," where four people have committed suicide since 1939, Smiley plans to spend the night there with psychic investigator Dr. Clarence Reed. Using walkie-...

Originally Aired: June 16, 1949 In Suspense #345, "The Trap," Agnes Moorhead stars as Helen Crane, a physician's secretary living alone in a large, labyrinthine house. Helen becomes convinced that someone is secretly living in her home when she's awakened in the middle of the night by whistling echoing through the empty rooms. The police find no signs of forced entry or burglary, dismissing her co...

Originally Aired: June 9, 1949 Suspense #344, "Lunch Kit," brings a chilling tale of sabotage and betrayal at an atomic plant. Jonathan, a young man torn between duty and conscience, reluctantly helps his father execute a deadly plan. His father, a fanatic convinced that atomic fission will destroy the world, enlists an old-timer mechanic named Gus to build a bomb disguised inside an ordinary lunc...

Originally Aired: June 2, 1949 Suspense #343, "The Ten Years," stars Joan Crawford as Clara, a woman confined to an institution, haunted by memories of her sister Adele. Clara recounts their childhood promise to remain together "always and forever" after their mother's death, a vow that binds them into adulthood. When Clara falls in love with Douglas Foley and marries him despite Adele's desperate...

Originally Aired: May 26, 1949 Suspense #342, "The Night Reveals," presents Frederick March as Harry Jordan, a fire insurance investigator whose world begins to unravel during a single strange night. When Harry awakens at 2 a.m. to find his wife Marie's bed empty, he questions the elevator operator and learns she left half an hour earlier. Marie claims she only stepped out for aspirin ten minutes...

Originally Aired: May 19, 1949 Suspense #341, "Consequence," stars James Stewart as Dr. Phil Martin, a physician whose seemingly perfect life conceals deep unhappiness. When his old college friend Ted Wolf visits after ten years, Phil confesses a shocking truth: he despises his marriage to Gwen, who has forced him to abandon his dreams of meaningful medical work to maintain their wealthy lifestyle...

Originally Aired: May 12, 1949 Suspense #340, "The Light Switch," stars Claire Trevor as Mrs. John Winston, a wealthy banker's wife who makes a fateful decision to visit a run-down detective agency on East Main Street. Hiring the down-on-his-luck private investigator Skid Webb to follow her husband John, she insists nothing is wrong but simply wants to check on his late nights at work. When Webb r...

Originally Aired: May 5, 1949 Suspense #339, "Death Has a Shadow," finds attorney Harvey Warren trapped in his office building late at night, waiting for a call that could save his life. Still reeling from his wife Lily's murder, Warren sits alone in his office when he receives an ominous phone call from a man named Bolster, who insists on picking up his money in person rather than having Warren m...

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...