Suspense - The Furnished Floor (#157)
Channel: Old Time Radio Researchers
Date: 2023-06-22

Suspense - 09/13/45, episode 157
Brought to you by the Old Time Radio Researchers, courtesy of The Suspense Project

This is another Lucille Fletcher story. 

A landlady is pleased when a former border wants to return after losing his wife just a year ago. Now he asks to return and rent the same single-floor apartment. He’s pleased to learn that the apartment is still exactly the same and has not been cleaned or painted. Is he returning with a new wife or does it still have something to do with his deceased wife, and if so, did she die or is he entertaining a ghost? The landlady is suspicious as he starts to re-assemble the apartment the way it was before he left, as he relocates various furnishings he had disposed of. It falls to pieces when the landlady decides to rent to someone else because she thinks the whole thing is strange since she never sees the new wife even though he insists she’s upstairs and ill. It’s pretty clear that the man’s grief has turned into psychological trauma as he really believes his deceased wife has returned and he does not want others to know. At the end of the program, the spiritual Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is played on the piano… who is playing? The man? The ghost of his wife? He tells her to sing, but we hear him as he sings it. It’s safe to assume it’s him playing the song, though in his tortured mind he likely believes her hands are on the piano keys.

Is the landlady okay? Has she passed out? Has she had a fatal heart attack upon gazing at this scene and realizing she’s with a madman or because she’s seen a ghost? Yet again a Fletcher story includes the sound of a body fall as part of its conclusion. In SWN, we know what the body fall meant. In this story, we’re not so sure. Perhaps the conclusion we don’t hear is that she wakes up and calls the police. Perhaps medical personnel will take him away after what is clearly a psychological breakdown. The lack of finality and the open end possibilities of the story actually makes the story more interesting than its core seems to be.

The story was also presented on the Lights Out television series as The Upstairs Floor seven years later. https://archive.org/details/LightsOut-TheUpstairsFloor

There are two surviving recordings of the episode. The network recording is the better of the two. It is not known whether it is east or west. The recording goes direct to network ID and is identified as such, “(dirID).” The Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#120) is derived from the missing network recording. Times are approximate:

dirID 3:21 “You were always so very kind”

AFRS 2:23 “You were always so kind”

The cast: MILDRED NATWICK (Mrs. Hawkins), DON DeFORE (Mr. Jennings), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice), Harry Lang? (Canary whistling)

For more information visit https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/06/1945-09-13-furnished-floor.html