Suspense - The Dark Tower (#89)
Channel: Old Time Radio Researchers
Date: 2023-04-06

Suspense - 05/04/44, episode 89
Brought to you by the Old Time Radio Researchers, courtesy of The Suspense Project

A well-known actor turns to murder to save his sister from her unhappy marriage. That’s the excuse for the story, a satire about the stage and movies and those who engage in such enterprises. If you are expecting regular Suspense fare, you will be disappointed. If you are expecting a play overflowing with Welles and lines often drenched with innuendo, you may find this an unexpected pleasure. 

The original story was a 1933 Broadway play by George S. Kaufman and Alexander Woollcott. It was adapted for Suspense by Peter Barry. Woollcott had died about 15 months before this broadcast at age 56. He was a writer and playwright and was part of the Algonquin Round Table of authors who regularly met at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City. Woollcott was also a drama critic and wrote for The New Yorker. This play is about actors and the theater, something which Woollcott and Kaufman knew much about.

Welles deliberately overacts in this play as it is somewhat of a satire about theater and actors, and he makes it about himself. It is amusing how so many of the lines could apply to Welles' public persona, even though the play was introduced in 1933 when he was just starting in the profession.

At about the 4:30 mark of the broadcast. The character comments about being asked to stop drinking. He says he told her “Would you have me subsist entirely on food? And reach the gargantuan proportions of an Orson Welles?” 

There are three recordings of the episode. The east coast network broadcast has survived, but the west broadcast has not. There is an Armed Forces Radio Service recording (#50) and a 1980s AFRTS recording. Both Armed Forces recordings are derived from the east network broadcast. 

The best of the three is the east network recording. The west recording remains lost, but it would not be a surprise to find many different in-jokes or nuances when compared with the east, since the west broadcast would be four days later, leaving plenty of time to concoct even more verbal mischief.

The cast: ORSON WELLES (Damon Wellington / Max Hartsfeld), John McIntire (Ben), Jeanette Nolan (Jessica), Will Wright (David Torrence / end commercial voice), Gloria Gordon (Martha) Hans Conried (Stanley Vance), Joe Kearns (Man in Black)

For more information, visit https://suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/04/1944-05-04-dark-tower.html