Welcoem to posts!!
in the future - u will be able to do some more stuff here,,,!! like pat catgirl- i mean um yeah... for now u can only see others's posts :c
Daily Suspense posts will resume tomorrow, instead of March 1. suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2024/01/suspense-proj…
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Daily Suspense posts are on hold until March 1. suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2024/01/suspense-proj…
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Daily Suspense posts are on hold until August 14. Some of the upcoming ones are requiring more research time than previous ones, which is slowing things down.
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From a listener request, the series Have Gun—Will Travel will debut here on August 12 at 10 am CDT (the first episode posted at 10:45). New episodes will be posted twice daily until all 106 episodes have been released (October 3).
The playlist/podcast is here: www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
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Upcoming releases:
07/08/2023 - Life on Red Horse Ranch (1935)
07/22/2023 - Blue Beetle (1940)
Future:
Have Gun - Will Travel (1958)
The Whisperer (1951) - on hold, waiting for better copies
Exploring Tomorrow (1957) - on hold, waiting for better copies
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Daily Suspense episodes will resume Friday, May 19 with "I Had an Alibi" from January 4, 1945.
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Daily Suspense episodes will be on a hiatus for the next 10-14 days while the project organizer takes a well-deserved break.
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The Suspense Project: Donovan's Brain
Today's Suspense is Donovan's Brain, presented in two broadcasts. Orson Welles delivers a serious, insightful, and engaging performance without bluster. These broadcasts were groundbreaking for radio drama. They demonstrated that a science fiction story could work for a general adult radio audience and that superior stories could be told over multiple weeks and still retain listenership. These two broadcasts further reinforced the rising stature of the Suspense series. The episodes will be released here at 8:00 AM and 8:15 AM CDT.
suspenseproject.blogspot.com/2023/04/1944-05-18-25…
Originally scheduled for October 1943, Donovan's Brain was delayed for months. The Republic Pictures version, The Lady and the Monster, fell behind its schedule and did not start filming until mid-October. The studio had rights to release its movie before a version could air on radio. The film was finally in theaters in very late March 1944 with full release in mid-April. As the Suspense production drew near, the studio promoted its movie aggressively, with large format ad space and heavy publicity. The promotion strategy also included simultaneous syndication of the 1942 Curt Siodmak book, chapter by chapter, in newspapers. The synergy of the media placements were designed to boost ticket sales as the Suspense broadcast date approached. After the radio broadcasts, many movie ads cited the Suspense productions to affirm the movie's entertainment value. If Suspense thought it was a worthwhile offering, the movie version must be worth seeing.
Listeners accustomed to typical radio mysteries had to think that this was an odd story for Suspense. It almost seems laughable: a doctor places a dead man’s brain in a tank and conducts experiments to keep it alive. That premise becomes almost unimportant as it's a mechanism to explore aspects of evil, morality, and personal responsibility, themes that were consistent in the best episodes of the Spier era.
Welles' gimmick of muttering to indicate when Donovan had telepathic influence over interactions and behavior of the doctor, rather than the doctor's own will, was very effective for radio. The gimmick was even used in the 1953 movie. It is the opinion of many that the Suspense broadcasts were the best of all the media interpretations of the intent of Siodmak’s vision.
Producer and director William Spier was in the control room for only the east broadcast of part one. He had a heart attack while dining with Welles after that broadcast. His command presence in the production studio, however, was very strong. It meshed with the instincts of Welles and the skills of the cast who continued a high production standard despite his absence.
The episodes are favorites among Suspense and many sci-fi fans. As classic radio enthusiasts in the digital age, we're lucky to be able to listen to episodes multiple times, rewinding and replaying interesting portions. We discover and savor subtle aspects of performances and sound effect artistry. Something special and different can be heard with each listening. Enjoy!
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The Suspense Project: Sorry, Wrong Number
Today's Suspense is the episode that changed three careers and created three durable franchises: Fletcher, Moorehead, and the Suspense series. It's the first broadcast of Sorry, Wrong Number.
otrr.cc/CZsjU (link to full blog post)
The myths around the broadcast are overdue for debunking, and its place in Suspense history needs to have a grander and more foundational context. Fletcher's script set her apart as a uniquely skilled scriptwriter and storyteller. Moorehead took a big step that separated herself from being a fine supporting actor to being an audience-drawing radio headliner as "the first lady of Suspense." She would perform this compelling Fletcher piece many more times on the air, and also create one of the most successful spoken word home record sets that was a best-seller for more than a decade. SWN become the centerpiece and mainstay of her many one-woman regional theater tours through the 1950s that drew audiences around the country.
For Suspense, the broadcast begins its separation from the Carr-style drawing room mysteries to a unique brand of storytelling with different dramatic pacing. The script itself challenged the accepted moral sensibilities of radio mystery drama. The ending of the story was shocking in a time when good always triumphed over evil in the very last minutes of most every radio drama, with characters summarizing solutions to crimes, and happily moving on to the rest of their lives... and next week's formulaic drama.
The "missed cue" at the end of this inaugural performance has been overblown by collectors for decades. Mrs. Stevenson is still dead. This was the broadcast that made Suspense attractive to advertisers and was a leap toward building its 20-year franchise. And no, there was no "clean" west coast broadcast that "fixed" the ending; this was a national broadcast. It was the shocking unconventional end that "confused" listeners -- many of them could not believe they just heard a vicious contract murder. And no one rushed in to stop it. Mrs. Stevenson was still very dead. And the audience wanted to hear the grisly event once more! Fletcher, Moorehead, and Suspense would never be the same.
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We have started releasing the Suspense episodes from the work done by the Suspense Project. They can be found on the following playlist: www.youtube.com/playlist?list....
Right now, a new episode is released every six hours. Once we're caught up with what has already been released, new episodes will be published once a day (when possible) into the summer of 2025.
Each episode will have some information on the plot and background of the episode, along with cast information when available. There will also be a link to the Suspense Blog post about the episode, which will provide even more background. The existing Suspense playlist and episodes will remain until this project concludes.
We hope you enjoy this multiyear project!
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The mission of the Old Time Radio Researchers Group is to accurately preserve classic old time radio series from the past in order for future generations to enjoy them. This channel contains only OTRR-certified/maintained releases of old time radios series across all genres. "OTRR-certified" or "OTRR-maintained" means the most complete and accurate version of a series at the time of its release, and represents many hours of work by our group researching each series. Enjoy!