Suspense - Roma Wines Shows from December 1943 to September 1944
When Roma Wines started its sponsorship of Suspense in December 1943, the show was aired on two nights. The CBS network approximately up to the Rockies had a broadcast on Thursdays, and the CBS Pacific Network had a new performance of that script on Mondays. This lasted until mid-September 1944 when the show became a Thursday night fixture nationally. These are all of the recordings that have been identified and are now properly dated. There are still many missing recordings. Also included here are the AFRS versions of the shows where available. Not all of these can be assigned as "East Coast" or "West Coast" as the AFRS would edit out the announcements that noted the day of the next broadcast. The AFRS recordings have been assigned the East Coast date as a default; either recording could have been used by the AFRS but there may not be enough information in that recording to identify the original source for certain. The episode "Fugue in C Minor" that is announced as a Thursday East Coast program has some minor "flubs" which has caused the recording to be labeled as a rehearsal for many years. It is probable that it is the actual Thursday broadcast. Another recording of the script had a clipped ending without the "flubs" and it was assumed that this was the Monday West Coast broadcast. This recording has since been replaced with a complete Monday recording. There are some recordings where no day is mentioned for one broadcast but is for the other; in this case the date assigned is by process of elimination. There were often some changes to the supporting cast; note that one of the recordings has Joseph Kearns as the "Man in Black" and another does not. (Kearns might be more familiar to those who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s as Mr. Wilson on the "Dennis the Menace" TV program). If other recordings are found to supplement this compilation, it is desired to add them here. The day of the next broadcast is announced at the end, usually as "Join us next Thursday" or a similar wording. Please contact this poster through the forum or in the reviews below to do so. In June 2016, a Thursday broadcast of "Donovan's Brain (Part 1)" was posted at archive.org; this recording has been added to this compilation after some minor sound processing was done. In August 2016, the Monday performance of "Portrait Without a Face" was added. The Monday performances of "The Visitor" and "Fugue in C Minor" were upgraded (the latter mentioned above is now a complete recording with the mention of Monday intact). A word of thanks are due to members of the "Cobalt Club" OTR online forum who identified many of the shows and scoured many collections to find many of the obscure recordings in this set.
This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.
Chapters
Reviews
Don't underestimate this era of Suspense
NoSpillBlood
Giving lie to the assertion that these episode are boring, I submit the following: Actor's Blood The Night Reveals Narrative About Clarence Donovan's Brain The Man Who Knew How A Friend To Alexander Case History of Edgar Lowndes Fugue In C Minor The Beast Must Die Diary of Saphronia Winters Listen and enjoy! Thank you for the gorgeous sounding uploads.
Early years: blechchhch
AncientAxim
These really are not very good at all. The later years of "Suspense!" were excellent- these are dull, badly written, and just plain off putting. They don't even hold the listener's attention. Nice to have old shows archived just for posterity's sake, but I gave these a try and their kind of terrible. If you're new to the show, PLEASE ignore these as an example of the show and try the later years, the ones with the most reviews. Totally different than these.
Fugue In C Minor. Monday Show
jimjam4264
These are the best sounding copies I've heard from this series. Do you have more episodes that sound this good?
Suspense in good sound
Greybelt
This is the main set of Suspense assembled by the Old Time Radio Researchers from which many of these are drawn. https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Certified_Suspense OTRR is working on a revised set. Much of that work is being done at the Cobalt Club where we have a lot of research about the series and also are working hard to find upgraded recordings. The website is http://cobaltclubannex.forumotion.com Once we're done there, the set is submitted to OTRR for final review before it is posted here at archive.org. It is likely that a new, revised set will be posted at archive.org sometime in late 2019. For individual years of Suspense, use this link which searches for the pages that are focused to particular years https://archive.org/search.php?query=OTRR%20Suspense%20single%20episodes Here's some general guidelines Dec 1943 - Nov 1947 the Roma Wines years; In my mind, 1945 to the beginning of 1947 the series really came into its own. In early 1948, they experimented with hour-long versions, and there was lots of chaos behind the scenes. These are viewed by most collectors as sub-par. July 1948 - June 1954 the Auto-Lite years (my personal favorite are from July 1948 to June 1949 produced by Anton M. Leader). The rest of the years were unsponsored. From October 1956 to August 1959 the producer was William N. Robson. Though just more than half of his productions were repeated scripts, they are top-notch. After that time, Suspense moved back to New York productions.
Thanks for the upgrade to Donovan's Brain Part 1(EC)!
likecats
Thank You for fixing my recording of Donovan's Brain Part 1. You even fixed the middle portion where I had to pause it to turn over the tape. Thanks again!
Lots of research....
bojim8088
Thanks for these files Dr. Joe...and thank you to all who helped in the project......Jim