The long-awaited third collection of Suspense: The Lost Episodes will be released on March 17, 2009.
For more information about the upcoming release, head on over to TVShowsonDVD.com for the details. You can also read brief summaries of the episodes included in this set over at ClassicFlix.com.
As you can see, Rod Serling graces the cover of this collection because he wrote one of the episodes from 1953, "Nightmare at Ground Zero." I think they should have put Suspense's favorite crabby old lady, Ruth McDevitt, on the cover... but they chose to go with Serling.
Here is the list of episodes that we can look forward to:
Disc #1: Post Mortem (1949), Yellow Scarf (1949), Goodbye, New York (1949), The Case of Lady Sannox (1949), One Thousand Dollars to One for Your Money (1950), I'm No Hero (1950), The Bomber Command (1950), and Death at the Stock Car Races (1963)
Disc #2: A Pocketful of Murder (1950), The Mallet (1950), Go Home Dead Man (1951), Pier 17 (1951), The Spider (1952), The Red Signal (1952), Death Drum (1952), North of Shanghai (1952), and Night Drive (1952).
Disc #3: Four Days to Kill (1952), Her Last Adventure (1952), The Old Lady of Bayeux (1952), Set-up for Death (1952), The Blue Panther (1952), A Time of Innocence (1952), and Mutiny Below (1953).
Disc #4: F.O.B Vienna (1953), The Man Who Cried Wolf (1953), The Dance (1953), Nightmare at Ground Zero (1953), The Hunted (1954), and the Funmaster (1958).
"Help Wanted" is an episode that has to be appreciated on its own terms. Is it bad? No. Is it badly done? Yes but that adds to its charm.
Mr. Chester Crabtree is an unemployed accountant who is in trouble. He lives on practically nothing and can't pay his rent. What little money he has goes to the sanitarium that cares for his daughter. His landlady is tired of not getting her money, and she tells him that he has two weeks to pay his rent or leave.
She then reminds him that he wouldn't have to go if he would just send his daughter to a state-run mental facility. If he did, he wouldn't have to pay so much for her care. Mr. Crabtree tells her that he can't do that! He will find a way.
Fortunately, an answer to his problems arrives that same morning. A woman comes to his apartment with a job offer. She won't give him her name or tell him who his employer is, but she offers him $100 a week and an office of his own. It is too good to be true! Mr. Crabtree accepts.
When we next see Mr. Crabtree, he is at his new office for the first time. It is a small office on the very top floor of an office building. There is a huge window overlooking the street, furniture that is bolted down, and a cat in the closet with a note stuck into his collar.
The note tells him that the cat's name is "Discretion." He is there to keep Mr. Crabtree company, so he won't get lonely and use the phone to make personal calls.
Mr. Crabtree is happy in his new job, and he follows all of his employer's strange rules for six months. When we see him again, he is having a laugh with Discretion about the letter they got in the mail from a charity trying to revive Prohibition. Mr. Crabtree admires their optimism, but he throws the letter in the trash.
Then, he finally meets his employer! Mr. X arrives unexpectedly and dramatically. Now, Mr. Crabtree learns why the furniture is nailed down and the window is so big. Mr. X has set up everything on purpose! He wants Mr. Crabtree to commit a murder for him, and if Mr. Crabtree doesn't, he will take away his job.
Will Mr. Crabtree go through with it? Or will Discretion come to his aid?
"Help Wanted" reappeared during Season 1 of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1956. Of course, their version makes much more sense, but it lacks the zaniness of Suspense's version. Alfred Hitchcock Present's teleplay was based on the teleplay written for Suspense by Mary Orr and Reginald Denham. Hitchock calls this episode "a brilliant play, sneaky but brilliant."
John Qualen and Lorne Green star. (Radio actor Parley Baer makes a brief appearance as the detective.)
As some of you know, I broke my foot back in July. For that reason, I haven't been updating Suspense Television since then. It was too much work to keep both of my blogs going during that time.
I'm back on two feet now, so let's get things rolling again.
