Chadzilla ROARS!!! (The Official Blog of Chadwick H. Saxelid, Writer)

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: A Very Private Miracle (Ep. 191 - December 24, 1974)

"Goodnight, my extra special Santa."

The milk of human kindness has curdled inside Jasper Crown.  His wife, Emily, is long dead.  His son Robert, tired of his father's inflexible ways, has left, refusing the family business.  His daughter Mary has married a 'foreigner' (one named Blumenthal, so there is some implied anti-semitism) and Jasper doesn't want anything to do with the baby she will be having in nine or so months.  So bitter and mean spirited has Jasper become, his housekeeper of 25 years walks off the job before dinner on December 23rd.

The little Jennifer Swallow arrives on Jasper's door stop.  She has a proposition for the cantankerous old man.  Jennifer has won the Booty (some kind of game show grand prize) and will be handing out Christmas presents at her church's Christmas party, but she needs a Santa and, for some strange reason, she thinks that Jasper would be a good one.

When Jasper hears that he must rent a Santa Claus suit for himself, he throws Jennifer out, telling her she must rent the suit herself, or it is no soap.  Jennifer is resolute, though.  She breaks open her piggy bank and, armed with 61 cents (after bus fare) she finds an establishment with the sign "Santa Claus suites for rent, dirt cheap."  Jennifer rents a worn out and tattered suite from the store's rotund and kindly owner.  She returns to the shocked Jasper, who puts it on and...

The spiritual rebirth of some old grouch by the pure soul of a child is one of those stories that pop up every few days, with Christmas being the preferred time to tell such a redemptive tale.  This is one of the most lighthearted and touching of the Radio Mystery Theater's offerings that I have heard.  It features some nice banter between Jenny and Jasper.  It also nicely charts Jasper's change from mean and self-pitying old to a kind and generous soul that freely admits to his poor ways.

The third act plays out exceptionally well, especially when the suit has to be returned.  Jasper becomes terrified that his turn for the better will be undone and he becomes desperate to keep the suit.

A Very Private Miracle is a wonderful little Christmas fantasy that chokes me up every time I listen to it.

"Until next time... pleasant dreams... and Merry Christmas."

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: The Cask of Amontillado (Ep. 203 - January 12, 1975)

"...put in the last stone..."

Arno Montressor is deeply in debt to the Amontillado guzzling Fortunato Benini.  When Arno cannot supply Fortunato with the amount of Amontillado desired, Benini, who believes that Montressor is holding out on him, demands that all of Arno's debts be repaid within a week.  Repaying the debt so quickly would ruin Arno, and would lead to the loss of both his vineyards and his home.  However, Fortunato would be willing to grant an extension if Arno would only allow him to "have dinner" with the lovely Mrs. Montressor.  Arno would rather be financially ruined than be disgraced by having to prostitute his wife.  Benini shrugs off his insult and demands payment by the week's end.  Arno's wife discovers the blackmail and, unbeknownst to Arno, agrees to "have lunch" with Benini.  The clandestine meeting is discovered by Margarita, Fortunato's daughter, and she informs Arno.  Arno confronts his wife about her infidelity and, consumed by rage directed at both her as well as Margarita and Fortunato, he attacks and, he believes, kills hers.  He then hides her body in the catacombs beneath his home, by walling it in one of the many crevices.  But Mrs. Montressor isn't dead yet, and the rage and guilt over what he has done drives the now insane Arno to complete his revenge against Margarita and Fortunato Benini.

Poe's The Cask of Amontillado is a story of gruesome and terrible revenge, but Poe never revealed just what the horrible insult Fortunato made that drove Montressor to bury him alive within the catacombs beneath his home.  Playwright George Lother does an excellent job of expanding the scope of Poe's tale to include the insult, which is quite credible.  As he did with The Tell-Tale Heart, Lother manages to completely reinvent Poe's story while still remaining quite faithful to it.  The entombing sequences are actually quite horrific, as each of the three individuals are well aware of the fate that awaits them.  The only quibble I have is the inclusion of a Colombo style police detective in the third act, which leads to a pedestrian "gotcha" ending that ruins the gooseflesh inducing conclusion of Poe's original tale.

"Until next time...pleasant dreams...?"

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: The Tell-Tale Heart (Ep. 202 - January 11, 1975)

"True, I am nervous. Very nervous. But why do they say I am mad?"

Charles Daring and his family have fallen on hard times.  Suffering from a debilitating nervous disorder, Charles is incapable of finding work and now his family has nowhere to live.  Charles's Uncle Jonas, a seemingly kindly old man, agrees to take them in, if they would only work on his isolated farm to earn their food and board.  The Darings arrive there just in time, their car breaks down, effectively trapping them with Jonas thirty miles from the nearest town.  It soon becomes apparent that Jonas intends to work them hard, very hard, for he has his own selfish motives for allowing the Darings to live under his roof.  Underfed and overworked, nine year old daughter Ruth dies...and the first crack in Charles's sanity appears.

The Tell-Tale Heart was adapted from the Edgar Allan Poe classic especially for the Mystery Theater by George Lother, and starred Fred Gwynne and Robert Dryden.

Like the previous episode reviewed, The Masque of the Red Death, the source material does not invite a dramatic narrative.  A mentally unbalanced man becomes so obsessed with his elder guardian's sickly eye that he decides to murder him.  After the deed is done and the body hidden, the man's insane obsession switches from the old man's eye to his heart, which he can still hear beating.  The incessant sound driving him to reveal his crime to the police.  It is not really enough to fill out on hour long three-act radio play.  Writer George Lother, as he did with Masque, again fleshes out the characters, adding psychological background and motivation, weaving a dramatic narrative that flows smoothly into the story's famous ending.

Lother does a decent enough job, although his story can easily be crippled with a "Hey, wait a minute" logical question, or two.  Unlike Masque, Lother does not set the story in any particular year, so it could take place at any time in the 20th century in which automobiles exist (though I imagined it best taking place in the past war 1940s, but that's just me).  Lother also manages to pull off a very intriguing narrative trick, reinventing the ending of Poe's story to fit his new narrative while still managing to faithfully recreate it at the same time.

What really makes the play work, though, is the acting.  Fred Gwynne (most well known as the kind-hearted, albeit intelligence challenged, Herman Munster) is simply incredible.  Charles goes from nervous uncertainty to complete work exhaustion to grief stricken to enraged to the point of madness, and Gwynne's performance captures each emotional nuance.  The listener cannot only easily visualize Charlie's emotional rollercoaster, but can feel it as well.  Uncle Jonas is the boxing glove to Charlie's punching bag, and Robert Dryden could not have been more perfectly suited for the role.  With his nasal voice and faint drawl, hearing Jonas speak is like fingernails on chalkboard.  Intentionally so, Dryden is a frequent CBSRMT performer and he usually plays laconic authority figures with that same nasal drawl and is never so irritating as he is in this particular episode.  When Charlie is sobbing over his daughter's corpse and Jonas says, "Come on now Charlie, can't go to pieces, got to act like a man."  You not only feel the icy contempt that the man has for his nephew's "nervous condition" and his utter lack of feeling for the Daring family - well, save for Charlie's beautiful wife Dora - but you also want to take a baseball bat and knock his teeth out.

This was a difficult episode for me to listen to and enjoy, because Charlie's suffering is communicated so effectively, but that doesn't stop it from being one of the series best, strictly from an acting standpoint.

"Until next time...pleasant dreams...?"

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: The Masque of the Red Death (Ep. 201 - January 10, 1975)

"Remember your place.  Remember who and what you are!"

The year is 1996 and wealthy industrialist Milo Manderson has built a special retreat atop Lookout Mountain to house and hide a small and very select group of friends and family (and those descriptive terms are used very loosely) from the Red Death, a hemorrhagic disease where the victim literally sweats blood before dying.

Manderson's guests are son-in-law Jack (an organic farmer who violently resents being forced to stay in the house while so many others die), daughter Doreen (who worships her father, but still manages to love Jack, which is why Milo forces Jack to stay) and Milo's fiance (and future Trophy Wife #4) Flossy.  New arrivals Nils and Magda (a deaf mute) don't really count, as they are just servants.

With the doors and unbreakable windows locking the group inside the house, the view grim and the news reports even grimmer, nerves begin to fray.  Jack becomes more and more insistent that he be released "to do something," while Doreen can't keep quiet about her disdain for Flossy and her jealousy at the friendship growing between her husband and her father's fiance.

Then Magda collapses while serving the bickering group dinner drinks...she has the Red Death.

As effective and brilliant as they may be, few, if any, of Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the macabre do not lend themselves to dramatic adaptation.  Poe considered himself to be primarily a poet, and I think that many of his stories reflect that.  The emphasis in his tales are mostly on emotion rather than any kind of dramatic complexity.  His story The Masque of the Red Death really isn't a story at all, it is more of a narrative tone poem.  A decadent Prince walls himself and his compatriots into a wing of his castle, to hide from the scourge of the Red Death.  But the Red Death finds them anyway.  Poe spends most of the story describing the various rooms in which the Prince's final masque is being held.  A great deal of attention is given to a clock.  No attention is given to the Prince, his guests, or any sort of connection to reality.  Poe's tale is a described phantasm.  A dream of Death crashing a party that attempts to forget that Death even exists.  Not exactly prime ingredients for a plot driven audio play adaptation.  So the adapter needs to flesh out the background, the setting, and the character's motivations...

Author George Lother (I hope I am spelling that correctly, I currently do not own a copy of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater series guide) sets his adaptation in the then (1975) distant future year of 1996, with the cause of the Red Death hinted at being pollution.  The only futurist touch is the oddity of Manderson's house being able to rotate at the turn of the button.  When I first heard the episode broadcast back in the early 1980s, I turned it off (big mistake) because I was wanted a more traditional take.  The strange touch that Manderson has a house he can rotate with a press of a button, so it can face whichever point on the compass he so chooses, seemed silly to me at the time.  Today it still seemed silly, because, after its mention in the opening, nothing is made of it.  It certainly illustrates, albeit in a very ham fisted way, Manderson's need to control his environment, but it drops from the story, never mentioned again.  Pity, for when Jack points out the dead animals in the farms in the foothills, or the gradually failing lights in the nearby town, Manderson does not callously turn the house around to make a "better view" for himself.  Such touches would have given the barking and snarling between Jack and Milo (and later between Nils and Manderson) a sharper edge.  

The play does give Flossy a nice character arc, as she goes from callous and shallow gold digger to a more thoughtful and caring woman, and Manderson and his daughter Doreen have some nice human shading.  The aforementioned view of the dead animals and failing lights, and a second act news broadcast that has a television news anchorman succumbing to the disease, keeps the Red Death at the center of all conflict until its literal arrival in the third, when Manderson holds his Masquerade, and the identity of which guest is the Red Death is revealed.  Yes, one of the guests is the Red Death.

While there are some obvious construction weaknesses, the play overcomes them with a nice, gloomy atmosphere, well developed characters, and a punchy moment or two of horror that make for a solid and entertaining episode.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: Come, Fill My Cup (Ep. 672 - June 27, 1977)

"As a rule, people don't get murdered on trains."

Frank Doran, Conductor for commuter train 749, has his steady routine, one that has lasted for 45 years, disrupted when one of his regular, and very unpopular, passengers is poisoned.  Who did it, and how?

Come, Fill My Cup was written for the Mystery Theater by Sam Dann, and starred William Griffis, Larry Haines, Russell Horton and Earl Hammond.

This nifty little murder mystery earned a place on my favorite episode list by virtue of its tightly constructed plot (one that only required one tiny little descriptive "cheat" in order for the story to work), its very well developed characters, and the excellent performances by the entire cast.  William Griffis is an avuncular delight as the grizzled old Conductor, Frank Doran, who narrates the story in lively fashion.  His enactment of the description of the train rounding a sharp turn and throwing narrator Doran and victim to be Gerry Garland off balance is simply wonderful.  He also makes Doran's attention to detail seem so natural that, by the tale's end, when the Conductor becomes an amateur detective that is able to put all the baffling clues together into a theory that fits all the known facts, it plays as credible.  Also deserving mention is CBSRMT regular Larry Haines, as victim Gerry Garland.  Haines manages to make supposedly friendly chit chat sound condescending and irritating.  Although Garland's distasteful personality is more described than actually shown, perhaps the one big flaw in Sam Dann's script, Haines manages to make the man sound like someone the other passengers tolerate out of civil necessity, because they are stuck on a train with him for well over an hour each and every work day.

Come, Fill My Cup is an excellent episode to introduce yourself, or a friend, to the long running radio drama's distinctive "Adventures in the Macabre."

Until next time, pleasant...dreams?

Episode information courtesy of the CBSRMT database.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: Return to Shadow Lake (Ep. 278 - May 22, 1975)

Ken and Martha Harris get an unexpected visit from their friend Stu Ralston one cold winter's evening.  While looking for his missing wife Claudia at his summer cottage on Shadow Lake, Stu saw lights and what he thought were the shadows of people at the Harris's cottage next door.  Ken Harris becomes concerned to the point that he is willing to risk his life driving through a blizzard to find out what is happening at his summer cottage in the dead of winter.  Although reluctant to make the trip in such dangerous weather, Martha does agree to come along.  When the couple arrive at the cottage they find it just as they left it...empty.  Or so it seems at first.  Trapped by the blizzard raging outside, Ken and Martha Harris soon discover that they are not alone in their summer cottage on Shadow Lake.  Their cottage is now haunted...

Return to Shadow Lake was written for the Mystery Theater by Fielden Farrington, and starred Nat Polen, Joan Lovejoy, Robert Maxwell, Joan Loring, and Robert Kaliban.

Although Return to Shadow Lake gets off to an uneven start in the suspension of disbelief department (Why didn't Stu call the police about the possible break-in at the Harris cottage?  Why didn't he call the Harris's instead of driving all the way back to speak with them personally about what he saw at the cottage?) once the Harris's begin their journey and the story gets moving, Return becomes a suspenseful build to an uncertain and disturbing ending.  One that may or may not leave the listener satisfied. 

The ending worked for me, because Return to Shadow Lake is really about the build-up to the Harris's arrival at the cottage and their discovering the haunting and its cause.  Shaky starting point aside, the episode works beautifully as an exercise in suspense building.  The ending can be seen as an extension of that exercise.  Because it makes the listener think outside of the standard entertainment box, forcing him or her to not only mull over the events and revelations in the story, but how the primary characters reacted to them as well.  Return to Shadow Lake then turns into something akin to a Rorschach test, refusing to neatly tie itself up at the end of the third act and leaving whatever fate awaits its characters to the imagination of the listener.

Until next time, pleasant...dreams?

Episode information courtesy of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater database.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: The Summer People (Ep. 367 - October 24, 1975)

"It's my duty to keep our summer people well fed."

Mike and Jane Slater think that they have found the perfect working vacation retreat in Granville, an isolated upstate community whose elderly citizens are surprisingly youthful in appearance.  What the Slaters and the other summer people do not know is just how important they are in keeping the citizens of Granville looking so young.

The Summer People was written for the Mystery Theater by Bob Juhren, and starred Tony Roberts, Jennifer Harmon, Leon Janney, Grace Matthews, and William Redfield.

What we have here is yet another small and off-the-beaten-path-town with a dark secret story.  If you have read Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home (or have seen the mini-series version, The Dark Secret of Harvest Home), or Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives (or have seen either of the movies based on it, or the sequels/spin-offs), or Stephen King's short story You Know They Have A Hell Of A Band (or have seen the adaptation done for the limited run television series Nightmares & Dreamscapes, from the anthology of the same name), or have seen either version of The Wicker Man, then you'll know exactly what to expect from a summer spent in Granville.  But if you have seen The X-Files second season episode Our Town, then you've already heard The Summer People, because it's almost the same story.  It just doesn't have Mulder and Scully coming to the rescue.  The Slaters are left to fend for themselves. 

Being constructed from such sturdy genre stock makes The Summer People a fun and gruesome little horror story.  Just don't think about the logistics of it too much.  If you do, then the contrivances and plot holes in Bob Juhren's script will be as clear as a midsummer afternoon's sky.  Yes, it's the old "If A didn't do B then C couldn't happen, and it must happen or there wouldn't be a story" problem.  If you can get past some questionable actions/behavior done in service to the plot, then I think you will be able to enjoy your stay in Granville every bit as much as I did.

Episode information courtesy of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater database.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: The Five Ghostly Indians (Ep. 358 - October 6, 1975)

"Put down that accursed arrowhead and stand back Weymouth!"

While vacationing in Maine, Professor George Weymouth finds a moss encrusted arrowhead on the shoreline.  This discovery awakens the angry spirit of a Native American medicine man.  An angry spirit eager to avenge the five brutal murders committed by one of the Professor's ancestors in 1605.

The Five Ghostly Indians was written for the Mystery Theater by Roy Winsor and starred Robert Dryden, Jay Gregory, Suzanne Grossman, Court Benson, Ann Pitoniak and Guy Sorel.

My favorite CBS Radio Mystery Theater episodes were the ghost stories and tales of the supernatural.  They were, more than any other, perfectly suited for the "Theater of the Ear" because, like the format itself, they relied on atmosphere, imagination and subtle suggestion to work.

The Five Ghostly Indians mixes those three key ingredients beautifully.  The sound of the wind swooping off of the ocean and the waves crashing onto the shore in the opening scene helps to set a mood that feels both isolated and desolate.  Although things do quiet down a bit when the setting switches to the Lodge that the Professor is vacationing at.  Well, it's quiet until Weymouth picks up the arrowhead again and the angry spirit of the Native American medicine man comes to enact his revenge.

Mystery Theater had a rather sizable "old-fashioned" streak running through it.  This was something that could be to an episode's detriment or its benefit, depending upon the nature of the tale being told.  In the case of The Five Ghostly Indians it works, because the episode is a traditional ghost story.  The characters spend a great deal of time talking, usually over a cup of coffee while sitting before a roaring fire, about what they have seen or experienced, how it relates to Weymouth's finding the arrowhead and its ties with the man's family history.  This "smoking room" style invokes the classic ghost stories of M. R. James and others, and is perfectly suited for a Halloween evening.  Preferably one spent relaxing in a favorite chair and with a cup of hot coffee, or tea, in hand to help fight off the chills.  Enjoy.

Episode information courtesy of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater database.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: Sleepwalker (Ep. 339 - September 9, 1975)

"I do want to kill John, I really do."

35 year old Olivia Worster is not only walking in her sleep, but tampering with the brakes of her 70 year old husband's brand new sports car.  When she is done, Olivia returns to the house and is awakened by her husband, John.

With no memory of her middle of the night tampering, Olivia climbs behind the wheel of the very same sports car the next morning, to drive into town and see their doctor about her fits of sleepwalking.  The short trip ends in a car crash that nearly kills her.

While undergoing treatment for her sleepwalking, Olivia finally admits that she has grown to hate her husband.  It is that repressed hatred that is causing her to walk, and attempt murder, in her sleep.  Rather than divorce the man, and thus be denied over half of his sizable fortune, Olivia begins to formulate a plan that can see her sleepwalking outings rewarded...

Sleepwalker was written for the Mystery Theater by Sam Dann, and starred Tammy Grimes, Robert Dryden, Carol Teitel, and Sam Gray.

Sleepwalker tries to have it both ways, presenting Olivia Worster as both a cold-hearted, calculating murderess and as a somewhat innocent victim of an out of control psyche.  But Olivia Worster is not Norman Bates, and Sam Dann is not Robert Bloch, a writer that could have written this tale in his sleep.  Olivia's plan has more holes in it than swiss cheese and the episode doesn't explore the full potential of her violent sleepwalking tendencies until the third act, when the stress of trying to cover up her crime brings about the very mental breakdown that her well meaning but ineffectual doctor had been warning Olivia about all through act two.  Another problem with Sleepwalker is that it is far too obvious that the characters actions are being controlled by the story.  If X doesn't do Y, then Z cannot happen, and Z must happen, or there would be no story.  (To be fair, this was a routine problem with almost all of Mystery Theater's scripts, but it is a big enough issue in Sleepwalker to warrant mentioning.)

Not that these problems ruin the episode, they just trip it up enough for it fall short of being all that it could have been.  But on the positive side of things, future Mystery Theater host Tammy Grimes gives an excellent performance as Olivia, especially in the third act, where all the clumsy build-up pays off wonderfully.  Robert Dryden also does a great job of getting across just how cluelessly annoying John Worster is, without being obvious about it.  They play off each other beautifully and it is that acting chemistry, coupled with a nicely done third act, that inches Sleepwalker ever so slightly above the average.

Episode information provided by the CBS Radio Mystery Theater database. 

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: The Ideas of March (Ep. 341 - September 10, 1975)

One night, in early March, Cassandra Marrow's sleep is disturbed by a vivid nightmare, one that seems far too real to be just a dream.  She sees her self and her husband, Ted, arguing on the morning of March 12th.  She pleads with Ted to delay his business trip.  He refuses and storms out of the house, determined to catch his plane flight to Chicago.  Cassandra gives chase, but Ted drives all the faster...and dies in a horrible car accident.

Cassandra awakens and is consoled by Ted.  Yet the very next day, Cassandra learns that Ted has received a promotion.  One that necessitates his making a trip to Chicago in ten days.

On March 12th.

The Ideas of March was written for the Mystery Theater by Sam Dann, and starred Nina Foch, Les Tremayne, Bret Morrison, and Lou Krugman.

Can future events be changed?  Or, simply by trying to do so, would an individual who attempts to do that very thing actually be helping to bring about those dread events?  Those are the questions at the heart of The Ideas of March, a story weighed down by both inescapable tragedy and bitter irony.  Readers/listeners with even a limited amount of knowledge in regards to Greek mythology will understand the subtle meaning of the lead character's name, Cassandra; and those that don't will, after the story's conclusion, get a brief lesson about her courtesy of host E.G. Marshall.  Cassandra was a woman gifted with the ability to foresee the future, but cursed with the inability to convince those around her that what she saw would indeed come to pass.  Whether or not Cassandra Marrow falls victim to her namesake's curse, or if she brings about the tragedy by her very own actions, is something that Sam Dann's excellent script leaves the individual listener to decide. 

No matter what decision the listener might make at the end of the matter, the build-up to the moment when the nightmare finally becomes a reality is a suspenseful one.  The Ideas of March is yet another fine exercise in "what if" from The Fear You Can Here.

Episode information provided by the CBS Radio Mystery Theater Database.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: Dressed to Kill (Ep. 99 - May 30, 1974)

Peter Vincent, a part time actor and full time con artist, has devised a devilishly clever way in which to defraud his insurance company.  He is going to fake his own death and have his wife collect the $50,000 dollar benefit.  There is just one, very minor problem with his almost full proof plan.  Peter Vincent isn't married.  So the deceitful actor casts his self in the role of the bereaved Mrs. Vincent.

Dressed to Kill was written for the Mystery Theater by Bob Juhren, and starred Robert Morse, Michael Tolan, Dan Ocko, Bryna Raeburn, and Earl Hammond.

This an episode perfectly suited for the theater of the ear, because the visual trick of having the lead actor successfully pass as a woman for most of the story is unnecessary.  All the actor really needs is a convincing female voice, the listener's imagination can do the rest.  I don't know if it was an intentional part of the production or not, but the female voice used by Robert Morse (I'm assuming that he played Peter Vincent, but it could have Michael Tolan) sounds just a little off, at first.  By the episode's end, however, the listener is as comfortable with the sound as Peter Vincent is playing the part.

The story itself is a wonderful little caper comedy.  One that manages to build a good level of suspense as Vincent and his reluctant partner plan, practice, and then try to get away with both murder and the cash.  Knowing that Vincent's ruse can be discovered at any moment, with just a slip of the tongue, or an inappropriately masculine response, moves the listener to the edge of his or her seat all the quicker.  This one is a winner.

Episode information courtesy of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater database.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: Where Fear Begins (Ep. 110 - June 25, 1974)

Amanda Shepherd is awakened from a sound sleep at two o'clock in the morning by a phone call from her sister, Vera.  Vera, who is agitated about something, pleads for Amanda to drive the fifty miles to her apartment in the city to help her.  Before Amanda can get any more more information from her sister, Vera lets out a blood curdling scream and the phone line goes dead.  Amanda races into the city and, with the aide of Curt Davies, a kindly neighbor of Vera's, breaks into her sister's apartment.  The two find Vera dead...an expression of utter terror on her face.  Although the cause of death is revealed to be a heart attack, Amanda suspects foul play.  She decides to stay in Vera's apartment and investigate...and is soon plagued by nightmares so vivid that they are impossible to separate from reality.

Where Fear Begins was written for the Mystery Theater by Henry Slesar, and starred Kim Hunter, Mason Adams, Alan Hewitt, Phoebe Dorin, and Ian Martin.

For those visitors that were beginning to think that the CBS Radio Mystery Theater didn't have a lot of, well, mystery stories in its repartee, then I offer Where Fear Begins, an honest to goodness mystery.  (The first of what will be many.)  Was Vera Shepherd murdered?  If so, how?  More importantly, why?  And exactly how do you scare someone to death?  Where Fear Begins answers all those questions in a story that seems to be grown straight from a pulp magazine.  (Truth be told, 90%+ of its stories seemed to come from a pulp story tradition.)  Outside of a few goofy stumbles in the story, like having Curt and Amanda not introduce themselves to each other until they are standing outside of Vera's apartment door, when they should have done so back at the bar, Where Fear Begins manages to be a nifty little amateur detective story.  It's not all that complex, but it is a lot fun.

Episode information courtesy of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater database.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: Escape! Escape! (Ep. 109 - June 24, 1974)

"We're not in Louisiana, we're in Hell."

Hank and Will escape from an Army stockade, killing a guard in the process.  The two convicts then jump into the waiting car of Dolly, Hank's wife, who attempts to drive them to freedom.  But Dolly takes a wrong turn and the group quickly becomes lost in a maze of wooded back roads.  They eventually find a cabin, and decide to hide there and nurse Hank's injured leg.  However, the old woman who lives in the cabin, which is filled with a sizable collection of both cats and bubbling cauldrons, refuses to help them.  When the trio discovers a sizable chunk of hidden money in the cabin, the woman attempts to force them out.  One of the woman's beloved cats is killed in the process.  Furious, the old woman flings powders into a cauldron and the cabin quickly fills with a horrible, choking smoke.  Hank, Dolly, and Will stumble outside and into the woods.  Strange woods that are like something out of a nightmare...

Escape! Escape! was written for the Mystery Theater by Bob Juhren, and starred Teri Keane, Robert Dryden, Bryna Raeburn, and Robert Kaliban.

The stories of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater were all over the map, content wise.  There were comedies, criminal suspense, murder mysteries, and all sorts of tales of the weird and supernatural.  Escape! Escape! is definitely one of the latter, being a gruesome and suspenseful story of crime and punishment suitable for Tales from the Crypt.  Keane, Dryden, and Kaliban are simply phenomenal in their roles, moving from scared to tough to confused to terrified and, in one or two cases, absolute agony with seeming no effort at all.  Bob Juhren, author of more than a few CBS Radio Mystery Theater classics (Hickory, Dickory, Doom and You're Going To Like Rodney, to name just two), contributes a script that has characters as well developed as its spine tingling chills and thrills are potent.  Even better, the chills hold up to repeat listening, thanks to the coupling of the strong performances with some truly unsettling sound effects.

It was the chance of hearing an episode like Escape! Escape! that kept me away from the TV and in front of the radio, attentively listening to the "Fear You Can Hear" just about every night, at nine o'clock.  And keeps me listening to it, to this very day.

Episode information courtesy of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater database.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: All Living Things Must Die (Ep. 82 - April 29, 1974)

"Somebody love me, please.  Somebody love me or I'll die."

Barbara, a timid and withdrawn housewife, only has her beloved plants (various kinds of ivy she has named Annabelle, Arthur, Mary-Ann, Michael, and Kenneth) to talk to and fill her time.  Her psychologically abusive husband Frank has no use for Barbara, other than for her to cook his meals.  When Barbara pleads with Frank for a baby, or at least a dog, to help fill the empty time, so that she might have some kind of affectionate company, he cruelly rejects the idea.  Desperate for any kind of sympathetic attention, Barbara has taken to calling the police about phantom prowlers and crank callers.  Detective Ed Johnson sees the wonderful and beautiful woman that Frank does not.  One night, when Frank plans to leave Barbara alone yet again, she finally snaps.  "I hate you, I wish you were dead," she tells him.  Frank just happens to be standing among Barbara's plants when she finally admits her true inner feelings.  The plants, it seems, have soaked up more than just Barbara's affection.  They have soaked up her rage and lonely frustration, as well...and they are quick to choke Frank to death.

All Living Things Must Die was written for the Mystery Theater by Elspeth Eric, and starred Mercedes McCambridge, Larry Haines, and Ralph Bell.

For me, the CBS Radio Mystery Theater worked best when its stories were set in the outer limits of the twilight zone.  There is something about the Theater of the Ear that enhances tales of the fantastic more than any other kind.  Where else could a story that features homicidal house plants grow and thrive?  While it is certainly a fantastic yarn, All Living Things Must Die is, at its heart, about being needed, loved, and appreciated.  Rather than focus on the fantastic, scriptwriter Elspeth Eric instead focuses almost exclusively on Barbara.  (My synopsis just describes the play's first act.)  As her life changes, so do her feelings about, and her relationship with, the plants.  Oh, she still loves them, but she is also just a little bit afraid of them.  Things get further complicated when Barbara marries the kindly Detective Johnson and they finally decide to have a baby.

All Living Things Must Die manages to be not only a dramatic character study, (McCambridge is nothing short of fantastic as Barbara, and Haines and Bell are superb as Frank and Detective Johnson)  but a tale of the supernatural and a touching love story.  It's CBS Radio Mystery Theater at its very best.

A special thanks to the CBS Radio Mystery Theater Database for the episode information.

The CBS Radio Mystery Theater Presents: The Ghost Driver (Ep. 79 - April 23, 1974)

Mel Stout and his wife, Liz, have used all the money they have to purchase the old Gromley house on Manitou mountain.  The couple plan to turn it into a Ski Lodge, with the help of Liz's ski bum brother, Rory.

Just before the Stout's first guests are due to arrive, Mrs. Gromley pays a visit, aided in her wheelchair by her son Jason.  Mrs. Gromley warns the Stouts that if they do not move out of the house, then they will meet the same fate that befell the previous owners.  That family died in a terrible crash when their car was forced off the road by an oncoming car driven by a skeleton.  If the final words of a dying woman are to be believed, that is.  Rory laughs off the spooky threat and goes to pick up the first guests of the Stout Ski Lodge.  While driving Michael Duncan and his wife back, Rory is forced off the road by a car driven by what looks to be...a skeleton!  Duncan is the only survivor of the crash and, while his wife's body is prepared for burial, he vows to drive up and down the winding road to the lodge all through the night, until he runs into the ghost driver again, this time literally.

The Ghost Driver was written for the Mystery Theater by George Lowthar, and starred Mason Adams, Augusta Dabney, Mary Jane Higby, Nick Pryor, Leon Janney, and Norman Rose.

George Lowthar's script wisely keeps its biggest reveal until the very end, until that moment it is unknown whether the ghost driver is really a ghost or not.  All the clues are there and, in retrospect, quite easy to see.  Like many a tale of the supernatural (or mystery and suspense, for that matter) The Ghost Driver falls apart when you stop to think about it, but while the story is unfolding, it is easy to get caught up in the drama and simply ignore, or even be made to overlook, a contrivance or two.  Several inventive twists and turns certainly help to keep the listener's attention, as well.

Norman Rose was a Mystery Theater regular and his performance is simply outstanding.  Duncan comes across as a decent, albeit driven (no pun intended), man.  My favorite moment is when, in the middle of a feverish explanation as to why he's compelled to hunt down and confront the ghost driver, his voice slows and cracks with emotion as he mentions his murdered wife.

A solid and satisfying episode of "The Fear You Can Hear."

Until next time, pleasant dreams...

Thank you to the CBSRMT database for show number and information.