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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 10, No. 28 |
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"SUSPENSE!"
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Thought it was "lost"?
Wrong: "Suspense" returns
of TheColumnists.com
I’ve always
wanted to see episodes of the classic CBS TV anthology series
"Suspense."
So, I rushed to the nearest DVD outlet to get a new boxed set
of "Suspense," a 12-disc set of 90 half hour episodes.
It’s from CBS and Infinity. And I can’t stop watching.
If I ever saw a live episode, I’ve long forgotten it. The
half hour drama aired live on CBS from March 1949 (when I was
three years old) to August 1954 for a total of 260 episodes.
In those long ago days, only one family on my Toronto street
had a TV set and every night the living room of the Cross family
was packed with neighbors.
TV didn’t come to Canada until 1952 so Torontonians in those
days had their antennas fixed on Buffalo where WBEN-TV started
up in 1948 and ran both CBS and NBC programs until a second channel,
WGR-TV, an NBC affiliate came on the next year.
"Suspense" aired live from CBS studios atop Grand Central
station in New York City. Like all “Golden Age” TV
programs, it boasted an amazing amalgam of youngsters coming
up (Paul Newman, Rod Steiger, “Eve” Marie Saint, even
Doris Roberts) and fading movie stars who just needed jobs (Joan
Blondell, Fay Bainter, Signe Hasso).
A film or "kinescope" copy was made of each live airing
by photographing the TV screen. This was shipped to Los Angeles
to run a week later–then the kinescope was sent to San Francisco
for the third airing. Many kinescopes got shipped back to CBS
headquarters but others simply disappeared.
As late as several years ago, CBS was officially insisting all
original kinescope masters had been destroyed. But a search of
one warehouse yielded 90 half hour programs which have been cleaned
up and are now out in a set of 12 DVDS from Infinity.
Of course some copies are murky and scratched but other shows
seem miraculously free of blemishes. Remember that each half
hour was shown live from a cramped studio, which means a few
basic sets, almost no action, and an emphasis on good acting
to put the story across.
Still, some weren't convinced TV’s "Suspense"
could ever possibly be as good as the original, long-running
radio version, which was on the air from 1942 to 1962. Thjat
original radio series included one of the most famous radio dramas
of all time: "Sorry, Wrong Number," featuring Agnes
Moorehead. It was so well-received it was restaged no less than
seven times on the radio series.
And here;s a classic trivia note: Alfred
Hitchcock directed the audition show for the series, an adaptation
of his 1926 silent film about Jack the Ripper, "The Lodger."
But the TV series does work. The more episodes I watched, the
more I valued the impact of live TV. So let’s record my
reaction: Make that a double "wow!"
Take the January 22 1952 telecast, Agatha Christie’s "The
Red Signal." That grand old trooper Isabel Elsom portrays
a fake medium who brings out the beast in one party-goer played
by Broadway star Peter Cookson. He suspects (quite rightly) his
beautiful wife, future Oscar-winner Beatrice Straight (for supporting
actress in 1976's "Network"), is having an affair with
his best friend (Tom Helmore from Hitchcock's "Vertigo")
and decides they must die.
Adapting a Christie short story means boiling down a complex
plot to a very fast-moving 25 minutes, all taking place in just
a few drawing rooms. It also requires aplomb on the part of the
actors and it adds to the interest to remember that Straight
and Cookson were married to each other in real life.
I jumped in my seat when I watched "The Bomber Command"
(Jan. 10, 1950) which starred George Reeves (later TV’s
"Superman") and Susan Douglas, who wound up living
in Toronto and married to tenor Jan Rubes. At the time she was
starring on CBS’s daily soap opera "The Guiding Light,"
which went out live every afternoon at 12:45.
The more I compulsively watched these episodes, the more I realized
how relevant and in-your-face live TV was. Yes, the actors do
make mistakes, the same sort we all make in daily life. The battery
of close ups is, at first, startling and not all the actors are
up to the challenge.
That grand old trouper Fay Bainter (supporting actress Oscar
winner for 1938's "Jezebel") initially seems very tentative
in an episode casting her as an American courier operating in
Nazi Germany. But early flubs are replaced by assurance as she
is hunted down by storm troopers. At the end she’s in complete
command, looking and acting every inch the frightened lady.
In another 1952 episode, Joan Blondell, playing a blowsy L.A.
landlady, has difficulties getting up to scratch only to shine
in final scenes–in a seedy rooming house she uses boyfriend
Stephen Elliott (later on TV’s "St. Elsewhere")
in a scheme where they prey upon and kill lodgers for cash. Blondell
certainly was used to redoing a scene in a film until she got
it just right. But you didn't have that opportunity in live television
drama.
In another 1952 episode, Robert Keith Jr.
(later Brian Keith) stars in "The Corsage" as an investigator
in a small town, menaced by a serial killer who is tracked down
because he has type “H” blood. Was this TV’s first
use of CSI techniques, I wonder?
In one chilling 1951 episode, John Forsythe and Mary Sinclair
are two young marrieds honeymooning in New England. Stranded
on a lonely road one night, they hear on the car radio of the
escape of a female mental patient from the local insane asylum.
They've run out of gas, so they take refuge in an abandoned farm
house only to hear pounding on the door from a distraught woman,
wonderfully overplayed by Mildred Natwick. Should they leave
her out in the storm or invite her in to possibly become her
next prey?
"Suspense" was only one of many radio hits that transferred
to early TV. Other examples include "Our Miss Brooks,"
"Gunsmoke," "Father Knows Best." Watch enough
episodes and you’ll see how TV drama emerged from a very
stilted presentation to flowing, effortless scenes with better
scenery and smoother acting. In 1949 TV dramas were basically
static radio shows with pictures.
CBS used these same TV studios for such live dramas as "Studio
One," "Man Against Crime," "Ford Theater."
Actor Ralph Bellamy once explained to me that the studios were
small by today’s standards and the cast would rehearse for
three days in a rehearsal hall, have a day of block shooting
in the actual studio and then go on live.
Joseph Cotten remembered being in CBS’s live broadcast of
"State of the Union" and having co-star Margaret Sullavan
freeze up and temporarily walk off camera leaving him to talk
to a script girl on the other side of a closed door.
Watching the likes of Paul Newman, Cloris Leachman, Rod Steiger
and Leslie Nielsen in early performances, it would be nice to
report their future stardom can be easily predicted. But here
they look like a bunch of frightened kids.
Not everybody enjoyed TV's "Suspense." Jack Gould,
the TV critic for The New York Times back then, was aghast
that corpses actually would be shown. I wonder how he’d
take to the blood flowings and decapitations on series like "CSI"
these days?
Watching "Suspense" is like time traveling back to
the earliest days of live TV before reruns had been invented
and when TV acting was very much akin to walking on the high
wire.
©2009 by Jim Bawden.
The DVD cover is courtesy of CBS and Infinity. This column first
posted Aug. 3, 2009.
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