Suspense Sundays (66) Momentum

Suspense was a radio series from 1942 to 1962.  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.  For Suspense Sundays I'll give a short review of an episode.   {My archive list of episodes}

"Momentum"

Air date: October 27, 1949
Starring Victor Mature

>>Episodes here<<

The story begins very dramatically with Richard Paine waiting for a train - with a gunshot wound in his neck.  And as he reminisces the listener discovers that Richard is a little lazy.  His wife bugs him to go out and find a job because she's been supporting him, but Richard has a plan.  He helped invent a type of wrench at his old place of employment and he tries to go to his old boss and ask for some royalties.  But the discussion goes wrong and Richard ends up killing his old boss.  After that it only escalates to more and more murders.

This is such a strange story!  Richard is such a loser, and his self-delusion has got to be heard to believed.  That aspect of the story amused me greatly, because his reasoning progressively got more and more erratic and unfortunately he acted on his thoughts way too hastily.  The story doesn't have much in the way of suspense, because we know things are only going to get worse for Richard, and in the end there is a sad ironic twist that really just made me dislike Richard even more.