What is going on in the control room?

The Premise: The Producer in the Control Room is a Narcissistic Maniac

The strangest Suspense episode was broadcast on July 26, 1945, "Fury and Sound." A casual listener may find it odd at best and confusing at worst, but it's a unique episode that can be better appreciated when you know its secret: it's an inside-joke roast of producer William Spier by his radio pioneer mentors!

The nature of the program was teased almost four months earlier in the 1945-03-29 Daily Variety with a little item that said

If you happen to latch onto Suspense in the next few weeks and the title sheet reads "Fury and Sound," figure if you can who the character "Rochler" is. Story by some well-known radio writers deals with the death by sound effect of a composite of four geniuses of big time radio.

Spier was one of radio's most successful producers and directors. He started in the business in the 1930s, while in his early 20s. He worked on some of CBS' most innovative programs, learning from pioneers like Irving Reis (technician, director, producer, writer, a key person in the groundbreaking Columbia Workshop series) and writers Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. They would eventually write the famous Broadway play that became a movie, Inherit the Wind, and had many other successes.

Who were the "four geniuses" teased by Variety? Spier, Reis, Lawrence, and Lee. This production was no happenstance script. It was a happy and sarcastic conspiracy!

It was Spier who hired Orson Welles for his first radio acting job on one of radio's most important programs, March of Time. Like Columbia Workshop, that series was the platform to develop many acting, writing, effects, and production techniques. Spier was not just learning the industry, he was immersed in its development.

Spier took over Suspense when series creator Charles Vanda left CBS for the war effort to become part of the executive team that developed Armed Forces Radio. Under Spier's guidance, the series grew in popularity and reputation. He implemented an important change in strategic direction, moving the show to Hollywood to showcase movie stars as weekly guest performers. To draw interest of the audience and the stars, he placed them in very nontraditional roles compared to their usual ones. Spier also brought episodes like the ground-breaking Sorry, Wrong Number to the air. His reputation grew and grew, becoming known as "Hitchcock of the Airwaves," with the phrase "radio genius" often used to describe him. Over the years, he maintained his relationships with those who taught him and with whom he developed and shared his skills in writing, directing, producing. His little-known background in music as a composer and as a music critic helped guide the stunning music that made Suspense so noteworthy as he worked with composers and orchestral leaders as a proactive colleague.

At the time of this broadcast in Summer 1945, Spier's career was on the rise, but his best radio achievements were yet to be. Suspense was still climbing, and one of the biggest successes in radio, the highly popular Adventures of Sam Spade, would not start for another year.

His success was considered well-deserved by his mentors -- but some in the media and others in the back hallways of radio muttered that success was going to his head and he had become an unnecessarily stern tyrant in production. This was a caricature of his actual persona and opposite the high regard that Suspense cast and production members had for him. They enjoyed working and collaborating with him, and the notoriety it brought to their own careers.

The series was always hunting for scripts that were set apart from others, so why not create a script that lampooned Spier's reputation? Reis, Lee, and Lawrence developed a satire about it, likely resulting in a very odd presentation for the audience, but chuckles and guffaws in rehearsals and the control room. Spier joyfully plays along at the very end by joining the on-air production and personally admonishing the announcer, in line with the central character. And, since this was the Roma sponsored era, they got to do it twice, once for the east and once for the west, and they even had some time between broadcasts to go to dinner, and perhaps get on the verge of partying too much.

This became an undoubtedly self-indulgent episode that would tickle the in-crowd of radio and movie people in Hollywood, Chicago, and New York, but likely befuddled regular Suspense fans. In the future, the series would present other stories that had a radio insider perspective, but they were not as extreme. The 1951 Murderous Revision (and its 1957 remake Murder on Mike) was based around radio, but was still an accessible story for listeners. But Fury and Sound is fascinating because of the pedigree. Both Spier and William N. Robson bowed to Irving Reis as their mentor and thought he was the most brilliant man in radio. By this time Reis was more involved with film-making, but he wrote this fun roast of Spier to play on the common belief that he was a colorful bon vivant type but whom Reis knew as a skilled professional and as a friend.

Norman Lloyd, William Spier, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Suspense

Fury and Sound was originally planned with radio veteran Wally Maher as the star, but he was replaced with Norman Lloyd when he became available. Just a few weeks earlier, Lloyd appeared on the May 24, 1945 broadcast of My Own Murderer supporting Herbert Marshall. He and Marshall were in the movie The Unseen, in theaters at this time. In 1942, Lloyd's movie career was taking off with his role in Hitchcock's Saboteur. In 1945, he was in Spellbound and had roles in The Southerner, A Walk in the Sun, and Within These Walls.

Fury and Sound would be Lloyd's first and last as a Suspense leading star and also his final appearance on the series. Amazingly, Lloyd was still with us at age 105 when this summary was prepared; he died in May 2021. Check his Wikipedia page to get the full details of his amazing career. Deadline had an interesting article about him in Summer 2020.

One critical aspect of Fury and Sound is Lloyd’s magnificent performance, full of furious energy and definitely containing bits of Welles and John Barrymore in his interpretation of Kingsley Roeschler, the villain of this story. The connections of Lloyd, Spier, Welles, and Hitchcock are quite interesting. Spier hired Welles and he helped Spier build the Suspense franchise with newsworthy appearances such as the two-part Donovan's Brain. Many of Welles' fellow actors in the Mercury Theater had enduring relationships with Suspense, too. Lloyd was part of the Mercury Theater cast in its Broadway productions. Lloyd reported on Welles tantrums in various writings and interviews. In one interview Lloyd says he was at a testimonial of some sort for Welles and Welles saw him, gave him a massive hug, and said in his ear "you son of a....." which they laughed over, and that was the last he ever saw him. Lloyd made films with Hitchcock (Suspense was intended to include Hitchcock, and he named the series!). Spier became "The Hitchcock of Radio" and was in regular contact with the the real Hitchcock often. The famous film director would often call Spier after he heard that evening's Suspense performance.

The Production Featured Two Actors Who Didn't Exist

Part of the inside joke of Fury and Sound is that the names of two non-existent actors were listed in the cast. One of the names was used in the press release and picked up by the newspapers! The other name was mentioned in a magazine report of the episode! The two fake names were Mark Humboldt and Clifton Cromwell.

The cast for this show is interesting:

• Norman Lloyd as Kingsley Roeschler, maniac producer who always refers to himself by his last name

• Jack Edwards (alias “Mark Humboldt”) as Charlie Fowler (Jack was a very busy radio voice but did not often get on-air credit; radio fans may be more familiar with Edwards' brother Sam, a mainstay of Gunsmoke and other CBS westerns)

• Lurene Tuttle as Merle Fowler, and likely doubling as the nurse in the final scene (a year later she would become Effie the secretary on the Sam Spade series)

• Elliott Lewis (alias “Clifton Cromwell”) as Van the sound man and doubling as a radio actor (Lewis was in process of becoming a legendary radio powerhouse of writing, acting, directing, and producing, and in five years would become the producer of Suspense)

• Bill Johnstone as the Suspense narrator and doubling as the program announcer (one of radio's busiest and highly regarded actors)

• Bill Spier appears as himself... or as his caricature, and he refers to himself at the end of the episode by his own last name!

The Humboldt name was a fake one that Spier must have used as a joke now and then because the name is occasionally used in funny conversations in the Sam Spade series and never has a speaking part. The name was used at least three times on Sam Spade: in The Lazarus Caper (1948-09-12), and earlier in the series as an alias for Sam himself in the shows The Gumshoe Caper 1947-12-14 and The Nick Saint Caper 1947-12-21 . He may have used it other times on Spade as well as the Phillip Morris Playhouse and The Clock. Clifton Cromwell's last name may have been from a town in Spier's native Connecticut.

Official publicity pictures for the upcoming broadcast were taken and can be viewed at the Getty Images site.

A key and paradoxical part of the story is the ever-increasing sound of a heartbeat. Sound effects artist Berne Surrey recorded his own heartbeat for the effect. It's almost like Poe's Telltale Heart -- except rather than imagining it, real sound of an amplified heart is used to drive the hated character crazy. This is an interesting juxtaposition in Suspense history. Surrey was attending medical school while working at CBS. He became an MD in the early 1950s and continued his training to become a psychoanalyst. His medical career was focused on helping people deal with their mental issues and difficult problems of their days. Yet this episode Surrey's role in the story was to drive the despised character to insanity.

One of the Getty Images photos shows the cast with Surrey. He has his shirt raised to show the microphone on his chest.

The Reaction

The radio magazines reported on the episode, but they didn't really get it. The broadcast was noted in the August 1945 Radio Life magazine that the episode was "a spine-tingling satire on eccentric radio producers." The inside jokes run much deeper than they report it. The joke was on them, too... they mention Clifton Cromwell prominently in the story. They attribute the heartbeats to Surrey, but explain that Cromwell's heartbeat was tested along with Lurene Tuttle's to determine which produced the best sound for use in the production. The article mentions that CBS' Studio B had "an audience of onlookers" which implies a larger-than-usual attendance, likely a party atmosphere. This Radio Life story is the only account of the full performance that can currently be found... it seems the inside jokes stayed inside... except for that report. Fury and Sound was broadcast on Suspense only once.

Suspense Magazine Adapted Fury and Sound, but with a Different Ending

There is a copy of the script available, and the story was adapted for the first issue of Suspense Magazine. It has a different ending than the radio program, however. John C. Alsedek did a modern Suspense performance of it that can be heard at The Internet Archive. The new presentation is based on the magazine adaptation by Roby Wentz. Why Wentz used a different ending than the radio program is not known, but it is possible he did not have the final script or a recording of the program to work from! There are many aspects of the four issues of Suspense Magazine that are inconsistent with the actual broadcasts, even those programs were broadcast years earlier with their details certain and verified. This is why the differences between the magazine versions, the images used on the magazine covers, and the actual broadcasts are so confounding. It is like one hand did not know what the other was doing.

It is likely that Wentz worked from an early outline of the play and an early script, not the final production copy. The written story ends with a suicide, and that may have been considered unsavory for the broadcast by Roma Wines, CBS, Spier, or a combination of them. The broadcast concludes in an insane asylum, instead.

Wentz was a working as a part-time freelance writer at this time. He had written a screenplay for the 1937 movie Heroes of the Alamo but spent most of his career in public relations for a government agency, and as an editor of newspapers and industry publications. He would later be known for his knowledge of the printing industry, where he served as editor of Western Printing magazine. He also wrote history of printing firms and also typography. He was considered an expert on rare books. Fury and Sound occurred early in his writing and business career.

Fury and Sound Was Produced on Television, but not on the Suspense Television Series

The script was adapted for the syndicated TV series The Unexpected in 1952. There is a DVD available. The production stars Hans Conried. There's no hint of the real story "roast" behind it in that TV performance, and the ending is consistent with the radio script. The highly successful Suspense television series was on the air at this time, and it is curious that Fury and Sound was not used on that series.

A Ripple Effect?

Collector Keith Scott wonders if Fury and Sound inspired Hugh Kemp in Canada to write the show Life with Adam for the CBC the following year. Kemp’s script was a satire of Orson Welles with Fletcher Markle doing the Orson imitation. Markle sent a copy of the Canadian show to Welles, who could certainly take a ribbing just as good as he could deal one. He invited Markle to redo the show for an American audience on the Pabst Mercury Summer Theatre a few months later. It kick-started Markle’s U.S. career. The magazine Maclean's published an article about it in 1946.