Suspense - Radio’s Outstanding Theater of Thrills

Originally Aired: March 31, 1949

Suspense #334, "You Can't Die Twice," stars Edward G. Robinson as Sam Brown, a struggling milkman whose mundane life takes a shocking turn on April Fool's Day. When police call to inform Sam's wife Katie that her husband has been killed by a hit-and-run driver on the Clinton Turnpike, the couple initially dismisses it as a cruel prank. But the news is confirmed on the radio, and they soon realize Sam's wallet was pickpocketed the night before. The body in the morgue, identified only by that wallet, belongs to someone else entirely.

Katie sees an opportunity too tempting to pass up: with Sam's life insurance policy offering twenty thousand dollars with double indemnity for accidental death, she proposes that Sam disappear to Chicago while she collects the money. Despite his moral reservations about the scheme, Sam reluctantly agrees under pressure from his desperate, money-hungry wife. What begins as a bizarre case of mistaken identity quickly transforms into a dangerous game of deception as the couple attempts to exploit a tragic accident for financial gain.

Originally Aired: March 24, 1949

Suspense #333, "Dead Ernest," stars Pat O'Brien in a harrowing tale of life and death hanging by a thread. Ernest Bowers, a 34-year-old man suffering from catalepsy, is struck by a car at a busy intersection. The accident appears minor—just a cut on the forehead—but Ernest's condition mimics death so convincingly that the ambulance doctor pronounces him dead at the scene. What no one realizes is that Ernest carries vital identification explaining his rare disease: a letter in his jacket pocket and a silver bracelet warning "Do not embalm me. I am not dead." But in the chaos following the accident, both items vanish from the scene.

Two young boys, Robert Manelli and Tommy Stoner, find the bracelet and melt it down to sell for baseball money, destroying the warning. Meanwhile, Honest Jerry Murdoch from a local swap shop picks up Ernest's blood-stained jacket and quickly sells it to an unsuspecting customer for five dollars. As Ernest lies in the hospital morgue, pronounced dead and headed for autopsy, his wife remains unreachable. With his identification gone and the clock ticking toward the moment doctors will begin their work, Ernest's only hope for survival slips further away with each passing minute.

Originally Aired: March 17, 1949

Suspense #332, "Murder Through the Looking Glass," stars Gregory Peck as Jeffrey Bruno, a Greenwich Village mystery writer who awakens on a train to Philadelphia with no memory of how he got there. When Jeffrey checks his wallet, he's shocked to discover identification and personal effects belonging to someone named John Blake, an insurance agent he's never heard of. His confusion turns to terror when he spots a newspaper headline screaming "Killer Blake Escape!" alongside a photograph that appears to be his own face. Jeffrey has no recollection of the past three days or why he was traveling under another man's identity.

Racing back to New York, Jeffrey learns from his neighbor Rosalie that these unexplained disappearances have happened before—days when he vanishes completely and awakens with no memory of where he's been or what he's done. Now, with police hunting for a murderer who looks exactly like him and carries his face, Jeffrey must uncover the truth about John Blake and discover whether he's being framed for murder or if something far more sinister is happening during his mysterious blackouts.

Originally Aired: March 10, 1949

Suspense #331, "Three O'Clock," stars Van Heflin as Paul, a watch repairman consumed by jealousy who plants a bomb in his own basement, set to explode at three o'clock when his wife Francie returns from shopping. After wiring an alarm clock to a box of explosives, Paul heads back to his shop to establish an alibi. But before he can leave, two burglars break into the supposedly empty house. Duke and his partner discover Paul in the cellar and, despite his desperate attempts to warn them, tie him up and gag him before fleeing with their loot. Now Paul finds himself bound to a pipe in his own basement, helpless and alone, watching the clock tick toward three o'clock.

With over an hour until detonation, Paul frantically tries to free himself while wrestling with conflicting emotions about his wife. As the minutes slip away, he vacillates between justifying his murderous plot and desperately hoping Francie will return home early to save him. The irony of a watchmaker being at the mercy of time itself creates unbearable tension as Paul realizes the only people who knew his location have abandoned him to face the consequences of his own deadly scheme.

Originally Aired: March 3, 1949

Suspense #330, "The Lovebirds," Martha has reached her breaking point after seven long years of marriage to her ailing husband Sam. While everyone in their small town admires them as the perfect couple, calling them "the Lovebirds," Martha harbors a dark secret: she has been waiting for Sam to die so she can inherit his money and escape to the exotic destinations she secretly dreams about. When guests discover her hidden collection of travel folders during their anniversary party, and the doctor declares that travel is "out of the question" for Sam's fragile health, Martha realizes she can no longer endure her role as the devoted caretaker.

That night, when Sam asks for help reading the directions on his new sleeping pills because he cannot find his glasses, Martha sees her opportunity. She deliberately gives him false information about the dosage, telling him to take six pills instead of two. As the clock strikes through the early morning hours, Martha waits downstairs before finally going to Sam's bedroom to check if her plan has succeeded.

Originally Aired: February 24, 1949

Suspense #329, "Where There's a Will," Charles Ridgway finds himself in desperate financial straits, owing gambler Mr. Jepson ten thousand pounds with only four weeks to pay. His salvation appears to lie in his elderly Aunt Mary's newly revised will, which names him heir to her forty thousand pound fortune instead of his cousin Miriam. When Dr. Minnell warns that Aunt Mary's weak heart could fail from any sudden shock or fright, Charles conceives what he calls a "whimsical practical joke." He installs a radio in his aunt's home, insisting it will keep her mind distracted as the doctor ordered, then secretly rigs a microphone and wire from his old amateur radio equipment.

One evening, while Aunt Mary sits alone listening to a Beethoven program, Charles speaks through the hidden microphone, impersonating her dead husband Patrick and claiming he's coming for her from beyond the grave. As Charles watches his plan unfold from the shadows, the line between practical joke and cold-blooded murder becomes dangerously blurred, with his mounting debts driving him toward an increasingly sinister solution to his financial troubles.

Originally Aired: February 17, 1949

Suspense #328, "Catch Me If You Can," features Jane Wyman as Margot Weatherby, a woman who has just murdered her wealthy husband Phil at an isolated Colorado mountain inn. After suffocating him with a pillow, Margot faces an immediate crisis: Phil had warned her that he called his old friend, a detective named Rocky Rhodes, and hidden pills as evidence of her earlier poisoning attempt. Now she must find that evidence before the detective arrives. Her desperate search is interrupted when three unexpected strangers appear at the supposedly closed inn during a rainstorm: Mike Sheldon, a newspaperman from Chicago; Charlie Miller, a man with a telephone reservation; and Susan Quinn, a woman Miller met on the bus.

Margot realizes that one of these three guests must be Rocky Rhodes, the detective her husband summoned. As she tries to maintain the appearance of a devoted wife tending to her sick husband, she must also determine which stranger poses the real threat and find the incriminating pills before her crime is exposed. With Phil's body upstairs and multiple suspects watching her every move, Margot's carefully planned murder begins to unravel.

Originally Aired: February 10, 1949

Suspense #327, "De Mortuis," Dr. Raggen finds himself in a compromising position when two neighbors, Greg and George, arrive at his home unexpectedly. They discover him in the cellar, having just finished filling in a section of the floor with fresh concrete. When Dr. Raggen claims his wife Irene has gone to visit friends, the neighbors grow suspicious, especially since they've been seeing Irene around the village with Harry Manning, a traveling salesman staying at the local inn. The situation escalates as the men debate details about the depth of the clay beneath the house and inconsistencies in Dr. Raggen's story about where Irene has gone.

Greg and George, believing the doctor has murdered his unfaithful wife and buried her beneath the concrete, offer to help cover up the crime. They sympathize with Dr. Raggen, knowing Irene's reputation in the village and feeling somewhat responsible for not warning him before his marriage. Just as they're devising an alibi involving Irene running off with the traveling salesman, an unexpected voice calls out from upstairs, threatening to unravel everything.

Originally Aired: February 3, 1949

Suspense #326, "Backseat Driver," stars Fibber McGee and Molly in a harrowing tale of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary danger. Joe and Ellie are driving home to the San Fernando Valley after seeing a movie in Beverly Hills, listening to radio news about Lewis Matrick, a vicious mass murderer who escaped police in downtown Los Angeles earlier that day. The couple discusses the killer's description and crimes, with Ellie worrying about their children at home while Joe reassures her that such terrible things happen to other people, not to them. As they travel through the dark, quiet Cold Water Canyon, their comfortable evening takes a terrifying turn when a man with a gun suddenly appears in their backseat, pressing the weapon against Ellie's neck and ordering Joe to drive.

When headlights from a passing car illuminate their unwanted passenger, Joe catches a glimpse in the rearview mirror: light brown hair, pale eyes, and a slanted nose. The violent criminal they'd just been discussing on the radio is now holding them hostage, and Joe must navigate this deadly situation while keeping his terrified wife alive.

Originally Aired: January 27, 1949

Suspense #325, "The Thing in the Window," Martin Ames, an actor with too much time on his hands, becomes obsessed with what he believes is a corpse sitting motionless in a window across the street from his apartment. For days, he watches the gray-suited figure slumped in a high-backed chair behind blue draperies on the tenth floor. When his housekeeper Mary can't make out what he sees, Ames takes matters into his own hands, approaching the building superintendent Mr. Anson with his grim discovery. The window belongs to apartment 9B, home to the Landis sisters, two prim former schoolteachers who live alone.

Despite Anson's reluctance and assurances that the elderly spinsters couldn't possibly be harboring a dead body, Ames persists and eventually involves the police. The refined Miss Landis sisters react with shock and indignation when officers arrive at their door with a search warrant, insisting they live completely alone. As the confrontation escalates and the door is about to be breached, the question remains: what exactly has Martin Ames been watching in that window, and what will the police find inside the Landis apartment?