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The Suspense radio program began in 1942 and was broadcast weekly from Hollywood. Scripts were generally of high quality and featured at least one well-known stage or film performer. Alfred Hitchcock directed the audition show (for the CBS summer series Forecast). This was an adaptation of "The Lodger," a story Hitchcock had filmed in 1926 with Ivor Novello.The famous broadcast of 1948 entitled "Sorry Wrong Number" starred Agnes Moorehead in a thrilling tale of an invalid woman who accidentally overhears a telephone conversation in which arrangements for her own murder are being discussed. For the rest of the program, she tries frantically to telephone someone for help. A stunning concept for the aural medium, the episode was later made into a film. In addition to such fine writing, the radio Suspense featured outstanding music by Bernard Herrmann and excellent production values. The program attracted a loyal following of listeners until September 1962. When it left the air, Suspense was the only remaining regularly scheduled drama on commercial network radio. The final broadcasts of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and Suspense, ending at 7:00 pm Eastern Time on September 30, 1962, are often cited as the end of the Golden Age of Radio.
Mrs. Moorehead starred on numerous Suspense programs including one of her most famous performances "Sorry, Wrong Number." (1943 and 1948)
Suspense Quotes:
"radio's outstanding theater of thrills!
"Tales well calculated to keep you in SUSPENSE!
"This is The Man in Black, here again to introduce Columbia's program, Suspense."
The Suspense television show, an anthology drama featuring stories of mystery and the macabre, was broadcast live from New York on Tuesday evenings from 9:30-10:00 P.M. over CBS. It was first aired on 1 March 1949 and continued for four seasons until August 1954. It was revived briefly between March and September 1964. The television version of this popular show attempted to create the atmosphere of the radio show by using the same opening announcement--"And now, a tale well calculated to keep you in. . . SUSPENSE!"--accompanied by the Bernard Herrmann theme played on a Hammond organ rather than by an orchestra. The television version, however, was not able to attain the generally high quality of the radio program. The TV version could not compete with the "theater of the mind."
Sorry, Wrong Number Story Line: One of the series' earliest successes and its single most popular episode is Lucille Fletcher's "Sorry, Wrong Number," about a bedridden woman (Agnes Moorehead) who panics after overhearing a murder plot on a crossed telephone connection but is unable to persuade anyone to investigate. First broadcast on May 25, 1943, it was restaged seven times (last on February 14, 1960) — each time with Moorehead. The popularity of the episode led to a film adaptation, Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), starring Barbara Stanwyck. Nominated for an Academy Award for her performance, Stanwyck recreated the role on Lux Radio Theater. Loni Anderson had the lead in the TV movie Sorry, Wrong Number (1989). Another notable early episode was Fletcher's "The Hitch Hiker," in which a motorist (Orson Welles) is stalked on a cross-country trip by a nondescript man who keeps appearing on the side of the road. This episode originally aired on September 2, 1942, and was later adapted for television by Rod Serling as a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone.
Purchased Suspense radio shows on CD.
Whatever happend to Agnes Moorehead:
She was a devout Presbyterian and, in interviews, often spoke of her relationship with God. She would read Bible stories to the children of the Bewitched cast. In one of her last films, What's the Matter with Helen? (1971), she played an evangelist. Shortly before her death, Moorehead, who embraced her Reformed Calvinist roots, sought conservative causes to benefit after her death through her estate. Moorehead died of uterine cancer at the age of seventy-three in Rochester, Minnesota. She left her family's Ohio estate and farmlands, Moorehead Manor, to Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.
