Suspense Sundays (159) Yellow Wallpaper

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.

"Yellow Wallpaper"

Air date: July 29, 1948
Starring Agnes Moorehead

>>Episodes here<<

A woman narrates her move into a new house with her husband John, a Doctor, and her new baby.  The woman is nervous, with poor mental health, but her husband and her friend are dismissive, and try to convince her to shake off her issues.  For her health they give her a room with beautiful windows and a very ugly yellow wallpaper.  The woman becomes fixated on that wallpaper.

This is based on the famous short story by Charlotte Gilbert Perkins, which showed the attitude towards mental health at the time, and especially when women were dismissed as nervous and hysterical.  The story is more suspenseful in how deceptively worse the woman becomes, as she succumbs to hallucinations about that wallpaper.  As an adaptation of the story, I thought this did a great job - Agnes Moorehead was perfect as the narrator - sympathetic and unnerving in her gradual psychosis.