Suspense - Roma Wines Shows from December 1943 to September 1944

(4.7 stars; 6 reviews)

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.