Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: July 22, 1948 Suspense #299, "Deep into Darkness," stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Ken Matthews, an ex-convict struggling to rebuild his life in New York City after serving seven years in Joliet Penitentiary for manslaughter. Released early for good behavior, Ken follows the warden's advice to start fresh in a new city, but quickly discovers that his criminal record makes finding...

Originally Aired: July 15, 1948 Suspense #298, "Summer Night," Anna Macaulay makes a desperate phone call to her old friend Helen after years of self-imposed isolation. For nearly four years since her father's death, Anna has lived as the town's recluse in a gloomy house with locked windows and doors, shutting out the world and earning a reputation as the town's "queer one." But tonight is differe...

Originally Aired: May 15, 1948 Suspense #296, "Deadline at Dawn," brings together two desperate strangers racing against time to solve a murder before sunrise. Quinn Williams and Brickie Coleman find themselves standing over a dead man's body in a quiet apartment, knowing they must find the real killer or face incrimination themselves. As the night wears on, they frantically search for clues, foll...

Originally Aired: May 8, 1948 Suspense #295, "Life Ends at Midnight," stars Faye Bainter as Mrs. Bates, a poor, worn woman living in a miserable tenement apartment in the Chicago slums. Her troubled son Walter arrives unexpectedly from Pittsburgh, claiming to visit his mother, but he's really desperate for money. Walter has embezzled $1,500 from his employer and must repay it by midnight or face t...

Originally Aired: May 1, 1948 Suspense #294, "The Blind Spot," presents a psychological thriller centered on research pioneer Leland Rogers, who finds himself receiving mysterious threatening messages as he prepares to publish his controversial survey findings. When narrator Eric Strange arrives at Rogers' hotel suite to settle a business matter, he discovers his colleague deteriorating under the...

Originally Aired: April 24, 1948 Suspense #293, "The Search," follows Sid Latch and a young woman named Iris as they flee across the country, pursued by authorities investigating the mysterious death of wealthy cowboy Roger Miles. The pair found themselves trapped with Miles during a severe blizzard, and when the man died under suspicious circumstances in Sid's wagon, they became the prime suspect...

Originally Aired: April 10, 1948 Suspense #292, "Crossfire," brings the acclaimed RKO radio picture to life as Captain Finley investigates the brutal beating death of Joseph Samuels in a Washington, D.C. apartment. The case centers on a group of soldiers who met Samuels in a bar earlier that evening. When Montgomery returns to the apartment looking for his buddy Mitchell, he walks into a murder sc...

Originally Aired: April 3, 1948 Suspense #291, "Suspicion," presents a chilling domestic mystery when a husband becomes convinced that his household may harbor a deadly secret. The narrator, recovering from mysterious bouts of nausea and illness, becomes increasingly paranoid as news spreads about a sweet, motherly-looking poisoner on the loose—a middle-aged cook who mixed arsenic into her delicio...

Originally Aired: March 27, 1948 In Suspense #290, "Night Must Fall," charming but unsettling Dan arrives at the isolated Bramson cottage after Mrs. Chalfont, a guest at the nearby Tall Boys hotel, mysteriously disappears. Scotland Yard investigators search the surrounding forest, but it's Dan who captures everyone's attention—especially the wealthy, bedridden Mrs. Bramson. Dan works at the Tall B...

Originally Aired: March 20, 1948 Suspense #289, "Wet Saturday and August Heat," presents two chilling tales of murder and madness. In the first story, the respectable Princey family gathers in their living room on a rainy afternoon, united by a shocking secret. Millicent Princey has just killed a curate named Withers in a moment of rage after learning he intends to marry another woman instead of h...

Originally Aired: March 13, 1948 In Suspense #288, "Nightmare," Vince awakens from a terrifying dream, but the nightmare refuses to release him to the morning. He vividly recalls a white-masked woman's face turning evil, a struggle with a shadowy figure, and killing a man whose body he locked in a closet with a clover-shaped key. As he dismisses it as nothing more than a bad dream - perhaps caused...

Originally Aired: March 6, 1948 In Suspense #287, "In a Lonely Place," Dixon Steele is a former Air Force pilot turned aspiring novelist, trying to adjust to civilian life in post-war Los Angeles. When he reconnects with his old war buddy Brub Nicolai, Dix discovers that his friend has become a detective with the LA police force. The reunion seems pleasant enough, but there's an underlying tension...

Originally Aired: February 28, 1948 Suspense #286, "The House by the River," presents a dark tale of murder and its aftermath. When something terrible happens to Emily, a young servant girl, the protagonist finds himself desperately trying to cover up the crime. John Burns takes a motorboat out on the river, searching the angry black water in ever-narrowing circles, looking for signs of what he ha...

Originally Aired: February 21, 1948 Suspense #285, "Beyond Reason," stars Robert Ryan and Ruth Warwick in a gripping tale of suspicion and sudden death. When businessman Pinkton Carr is killed in a hit-and-run accident on a San Francisco street corner, his eldest daughter Evangeline finds herself tormented by questions that go beyond grief. Why did her father die so suddenly, and who is the myster...

Originally Aired: February 14, 1948 In Suspense #284, "The Lodger," Robert Montgomery stars in this chilling adaptation of Marie Belloc Lowndes's novel set in 1888 London during the reign of terror known as Jack the Ripper. Ellen and Robert Bunting, a struggling middle-aged couple living in the Whitechapel district, desperately need a lodger to make ends meet. As they discuss the latest gruesome m...

Originally Aired: February 7, 1948 Suspense #283, "Donovan's Brain," Dr. Patrick Corey becomes dangerously consumed by his obsessive experiments to keep brain tissue alive outside the body. Working tirelessly in his laboratory, Patrick has successfully sustained a monkey's brain in a jar using a sophisticated circulation system, demonstrating that it can still react and possibly think independentl...

Originally Aired: January 24, 1948 Suspense #281, "The Black Angel," presents a Hollywood murder mystery where a woman's life unravels after a disastrous evening. Eve finds herself caught in a web of circumstantial evidence when what begins as a canceled dinner party spirals into a nightmare. Her husband Frank rushes off to see Lorna Moore, a famous actress and former friend, leaving Eve humiliate...

Originally Aired: January 17, 1948 Suspense #280, "Love's Lovely Counterfeit," presents James Cagney as Ben Grace, a tough driver working for Sal Caspar, the crime boss who runs Lake City through bookies, gambling, and sheer intimidation. When a reform candidate named Jansen and his campaign manager, the intriguing June Lyons, threaten Sal's political machine, Ben finds himself caught between loya...

Originally Aired: August 13, 1935 In Lum & Abner #172, "Having Contest to Name New Grocery Store," Lum and Abner eagerly await the completion of their latest business venture: a grocery store on wheels. With local blacksmith Caleb Weehunt hard at work building a store body onto Abner's old car chassis, the partners have launched a contest over the party line for folks to suggest a name for the...

Originally Aired: January 10, 1948 Suspense #279, "The Kandy Tooth," brings back Sam Spade in a new adventure that rivals the infamous Maltese Falcon case. Private detective Sam Spade finds himself entangled in an international mystery when the notorious fat man, Caspar Gutman, reappears with another elaborate scheme. This time, Gutman seeks a priceless Buddhist relic—a tooth of Buddha—which he be...

Originally Aired: January 3, 1948 Suspense #278, "The Black Curtain," begins with a terrifying mystery. Frank Townsend regains consciousness on an icy street after being knocked down, only to discover that the year is December 1944—three years later than the July 1941 day he last remembers. A black curtain of amnesia has erased three entire years of his life, and the evidence suggests he's been li...

Originally Aired: December 26, 1947 Suspense #277, "Too Little to Live On," presents Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Hilliard in a dramatic departure from their usual comedy roles. Dave, a struggling dentist, and his wife Myra live in grinding poverty while caring for Dave's elderly, wheelchair-bound Uncle Ed. The couple endures constant humiliation and abuse from the cantankerous old man and his vicious...

Originally Aired: December 12, 1947 Suspense #275, "The Man Who Couldn't Lose," presents Leonard Snell, a down-on-his-luck insurance salesman and compulsive gambler whose wife Celia constantly berates him for his failures and broken promises. Leonard's fortune suddenly changes when he discovers he's won $40,000 in the Irish Sweepstakes, an incredible stroke of luck that seems to answer all his pro...

Originally Aired: December 5, 1947 Suspense #274, "The Clock and the Rope," young Henry Guildford finds himself trapped in a nightmare he never saw coming. Working nights at a gas station, the shy Hank finally works up the courage to ask out an attractive customer who's been dropping hints for weeks. They arrange to meet at the Owl Inn after midnight, but when Hank arrives early, he stumbles upon...

Originally Aired: November 28, 1947 Suspense #273, "The Pit and the Pendulum," stars José Ferrer as Captain Jean Dalbray, a French artillery officer imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition during the Napoleonic Wars. Accused of destroying the Holy Church of Saint Martha the Innocent with cannon fire, Dalbray defends his actions as military duty, insisting the church was being used as an enemy powder...