Suspense - A Shroud for Sarah (#163)
Channel: Old Time Radio Researchers
Date: 2023-06-28

Suspense - 10/25/45, episode 163
Brought to you by the Old Time Radio Researchers, courtesy of The Suspense Project

Lucille Ball plays a manipulative, narcissistic woman who plays everyone she deals with to her selfish advantage and pits one against the other. Eventually, they’ve all had enough and conspire against her. Such nasty people make such good stories. A robber-murderer, a crooked politician, an unethical doctor… she’s “friends” with them all and undercuts each one of them. In the end, she is killed in a manner that each of those “friends” could be blamed for her murder and they use that to blackmail each other into silence. Everyone is evil in this story and there is nothing heroic among these lead characters. The story is by Emil C. Tepperman and adapted by Silvia Richards.

In the prior week’s episode, Charles Vanda was filling in for Spier and his name was mentioned at the show open. That likely ruffled someone’s feathers and Vanda’s not officially mentioned here, even though he’s still filling in while Spier recovers from a heart attack. The story goes that Ball was not happy about Vanda’s lack of identification, so at 5:30 an inside joke was inserted that a crime was committed at the “Vanda Finance Company.”

There are three surviving recordings, east and west network and the Armed Forces Radio Service (#126) recording. The network recordings have 11 seconds “(11s)” and 6 seconds “(6s)” to network ID. It is not known which is east or west. The AFRS recording is drawn from the “(6s)” network recording. Times are approximate.

11s 25:40 “...listen carefully, Varney, and you, George...”

6s 25:40 “...listen carefully, Mar...er, Varney, and you, George...”

AFRS has the same dialogue stumble as the “6s” recording

The “(11s)” recording is the slightly better one of the network recordings. The AFRS recording has the lesser sound quality of the three.

The cast:
LUCILLE BALL (Sarah Martell), Elliott Lewis (George Monk), Wally Maher (Police Inspector), Lou Merrill (Steven Archer), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice / Dr. Varney), Alan Hewitt (Peter Martell), unknown (News announcer), unknown (O’Connor)

For more information visit https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/06/1945-10-25-shroud-for-sarah.html