Suspense Sundays! (7)

Suspense Sundays

Suspense was a radio series from 1942 to 1962, claiming to be "radio's outstanding theater of thrills."  I have a fondness for "Old Time Radio" as we call it now, and Suspense is my favorite show.  It sets up weird, dark, scary, or intriguing stories with a plot twist in the end, and all in half an hour.  And many of them had very famous stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.  I love the old-fashion story-telling and I thought it would be fun to give a short review of an episode every Sunday.  I'll have some fun with it too, since the stories can be silly and over-the-top to modern audiences, but I hope you, dear Reader, will give it a listen sometime if the story seems interesting.

"Moment of Darkness"

Air date: April 20, 1943

Starring Peter Lorre and Wendy Barrie

>>Episodes here<<

A group of people converge on good old Aunt Hester, who's husband has passed away and she has come under the power of a medium by the name of George Ravel.  Aunt Hester's niece Marjorie, the family solicitor Stephens, and his American friend Blake, are all on a train to Aunt Hester's residence on the French Riviera.  Stephens knows George Ravel is a fake, and is sure he can prove it.  If they tie him up like the medium, and have a seance, he'll show everyone that he can perform the same tricks.  So that's what they do.  In that moment of darkness though, someone screams, and when the light is turned back on Stephens has a knife in his chest. Obviously someone in the room killed Stephens.  And it must have been suspicious Ravel right?

Well, that's not right, as I'm sure everyone would guess.  I liked this story, though I thought the resolution was very quick (and surprising of course!) but, it was too hard to try and guess who might have done it because they didn't give enough hints.  But the twist on who George Ravel really was, was excellent.  Poor Peter Lorre, always the suspicious character.  Also, I got a kick out of the name of the solicitor - Toby Stephens! (you know, that English actor who played Mr. Rochester... anybody?  Nobody.)