Suspense - The Argyle Album (#170)
Channel: Old Time Radio Researchers
Date: 05/07/2023

Suspense - The Argyle  Album
Brought to you by the Old Time Radio Researchers, courtesy of The Suspense Project

A famous journalist who encourages his protégé, played by Robert Taylor, to succeed him in his life's work. The older journalist is murdered, but has a huge album of notes, with a very recognizable argyle cover. The notes had evidence of a great international scheme that he uncovered. There are dangerous interests who want to keep those notes from the light of day.

The Argyle Album was written by Cy Endfield, the son of a Scranton, Pennsylvania furrier, whose hometown newspapers followed his theatrical career from its very beginnings as a performer and a writer, and eventually a director and producer. 

This episode is another Suspense connection to Orson Welles: Endfield was skilled at magic tricks and taught Welles and others how to do them. He was invited by Welles to the sets of some of his movie productions. This was one of the ways Endfield developed his insights into filmmaking. It is possible that Welles’ relationship with William Spier helped Endfield get his script considered for Suspense.

This script was one of a handful of Suspense scripts that became a movie after its broadcast. Watch it on The Internet Archive with Spanish subtitles https://archive.org/details/1948-the-argyle-secrets-cy-endfield-vose  The script got a new title, The Argyle Secrets, assumed to make it more mysterious to attract an audience. It was a B-movie and was filmed in… 8 days, and it shows! The movie is not very good, but it is fun to watch because of the Suspense connection and a nostalgia connection for baby boomers. The movie has early roles of actors we know for their work about 15 years later. The cast includes Barbara Billingsley (June Cleaver) and John Banner (Sgt. Schultz) from the iconic 1960s sitcoms Leave it to Beaver and Hogan's Heroes, as well as Marjorie Lord (The Danny Thomas Show). It was a B-movie created to keep movie-goers entertained for the evening as they waited for the feature attraction to be played. The movie starred William Gargan, who had a 1950s radio role in NBC’s Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator as well as a good film and television career.

There are three recordings of the episode: a west aircheck from KQW of San Jose, California, a west studio recording, and an Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#133) which is derived from the east recording. One of the often-used markers of differences in these identifications is the performance of Wally Maher. He was a natural radio reader and would change his patterns and pace in reaction to his fellow players. There was nothing stilted about Maher’s performances on Suspense. Whatever his character, it sounded natural and had changes in emphasis and timing as the performance flowed. Times are approximate:

AFRS 2:19 “Say....you're Harry Mitchell, aren't you?”

West 2:59 “Say...you're...you're Harry Mitchell, aren't you?”

The west (WC) recording is the best of the three. The west recordings go directly to network ID. The KQW aircheck has a clipped opening. The AFRS recording is in very good sound, rivaling the west studio recording.

The cast: ROBERT TAYLOR (Harry Mitchell), Cathy Lewis (Marla), Wally Maher (Alan Peers / Haggerty), Joe Granby (Gil), Jerry Hausner (Melvin “Pinky” Pincus), Elliott Lewis (Signature Voice / Lieutenant “Horse-lip” Samson), Jack Edwards, Jr. (Winter, alias Gerald Avery), Paul Marion (Jor Brod), unknown (Dr. Van Selvin), Peggy Rea? (Nurse)

For more information visit https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/07/1945-12-13-argyle-album.html