Auto Light and its 96,000 dealers present Suspense.
Tonight, Auto Light brings you a story of love and hate.
A story we call Three Lethal Words, starring Miss Joan Crawford.
Hello, Mr. Wilcox.
Why, it's Oscar Otto, the loquacious limousine.
It's me, all right, Harlow, ready for the good driving days ahead.
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And now with three lethal words and the transcribed performance of Miss Joan Crawford, Auto Light hopes once again to keep you in suspense.
Mr. Lewis, a Miss Winters to see you. Miss Jane Winters.
Jane Winters? Jane Winters? Are you sure she said?
Philip, Philip, darling.
Jane? Jane I am.
Downstairs at the desk I said you must be mistaken. It can't be Philip Lewis. He's just a story analyst.
They said no, he's head of the studio story department now.
And I just couldn't believe it because I've always remembered you as just a reader.
One who used to make the most devastating criticisms of the scripts I wrote before I, well before I got sick.
I've been ill, you know. Did you know I've been ill? But everything's all right now.
Oh, good. I'm glad.
Sit down, won't you Jane?
Thank you. I'm exhausted. I've been shopping, shopping, shopping all afternoon.
I've been buying supplies for my hobby, you know. I do etchings now.
Do you know what's in this bottle? Acid. Nitric acid. Eats away the steel plates, you know. Amazingly powerful.
As a matter of fact, that's why I'm here. I was buying this and I got an idea for a story. I'd like to tell it to you if you have a minute.
Why, of course, Jane. Oh, Grace, if anyone calls I'm out.
Yes, Mr. Lewis. And tell Johnny Elman, no, wait a minute, I'll write it down for you.
Last time I was here Leo Burns was head of the story department.
Oh, he's producing now. Oh? Doing very well at Universal.
So many changes. Here, Grace, right away.
Yes. So many changes.
Ah, cigarette? Thanks.
It's been a long time, hasn't it, Philip? Yes. You're looking well, Jane.
I'm feeling all right now. I don't want to talk about me. I want to tell you this idea.
It's all worked out in my mind except the end. I don't like the end.
But, well, anyway, we open in the living room of a rather nice little house in the hills above the strip.
I don't know if you were ever in the place I once had up there.
Anyway, a place like that. It's around two in the morning and there's this girl pacing back and forth in this living room.
Call her Sally. Sally Summers. She's smoking a cigarette. Quick, nervous puffs.
Abruptly she flips the cigarette into the fireplace, hesitates a moment, and then picks up the phone.
Sally's a screenwriter, not a bad person.
If you knew her, really knew her, you'd see she's not a bad person.
All she wants is a little affection, a little love. That's all she wants.
She's a screenwriter and she's 43 years old and she's married to an actor and he's 19 years younger than she is.
It's two o'clock in the morning and she's all alone.
Hello, McCombo.
McCombo? Is Chris Summers there? Christopher Summers?
One moment, please. I'll see.
43 isn't very old. She's always taken care of herself. Looks ages younger than that.
She and Chris have been married almost a year and her whole life is wrapped up in the boy and it's been fine till recently.
Recently it... recently it hasn't been so fine.
Hello?
Chris, where have you been? I've been worried sick.
I'm sorry, Mr. Summers isn't here.
Not there? Thank you.
She's phoned everywhere. She can't find him. It's getting later and later.
And there she is in this empty house above the silent sleeping city and she's ready to scream.
And she hears this key in the lock.
Oh, you're still up?
Chris, where have you been? I just about decided to call the hospitals and the police. Where have you been?
I don't know, here and there. You shouldn't have waited up.
But it's almost three. I thought I... Oh, I didn't know what to think.
I said to myself, was he in an accident at the studio? But I phoned and they said no. You'd checked out when they finished shooting at six.
I've been driving around. I drove out to the beach and then I went for a walk.
Have you eaten, darling? Would you like something to eat? Or maybe a drink?
Don't fuss over me, Sally. That's all I ask. Please don't fuss over me like a... like a mother hen.
I like to fuss over you. Sorry, I... I didn't realize I was doing a mother hen, Beth. But you might have phoned me.
I didn't feel like talking to anybody. Not anybody.
Chris, what happened at the studio today? What difference does it make?
Tell me. You're letting it all out on me and it's not fair. I have a right to be told.
All right, I'll tell you. One of the grips had a valise full of greeting cards he was peddling.
Greeting cards for Mother's Day. And Harry Minch was on the set and you know what a kid a Harry is.
And he bought one for his mother and then he turned to me. I don't want to hear it.
You'll hear it anyway. He turned to me and he said, Chris, these Mother's Day cards are beautiful.
I said I don't want to hear it. They're beautiful. He said, why don't you send one to Sally?
And that's not all. I won't listen. Take your hands away from your ears.
Let me go! You're going to listen.
Chris! I've been getting these dirty dicks since we first started seeing each other.
Last summer. I was doing a scene with Ada Field last summer and someone asked me if I'd seen Sunset Boulevard
and Ada yelled, seen it, he's living it.
No! Please, please no more. Please.
So now you know.
Chris, look, we knew it wasn't going to be easy.
There's knowing and then there's knowing.
Leaving the lot this evening, I ran into Harley Duke and I braced him.
How much longer am I going to be kept in small parts? I said, how much longer am I going to play third man in the posse in G-Mom?
What's for dinner? He said, how can you be built into love's young green for the Bobby Soxers
while you're married to someone twice your age?
Get wise, kid. He said, get wise.
That was seven, eight hours ago.
Since then, I've got wise.
You what?
I'm leaving you.
Chris, no. No.
Chris, listen to me. It's not a perfect marriage.
All right, so it's not a perfect marriage, but it's the only marriage we have and you try to make it work.
For better or worse. That's what he said, for better or worse.
I'm leaving. That's what I came back to say goodbye to Sally.
Chris, no, I love you. You're all I have.
That's your problem. I've got my own.
Chris, I won't let you.
Get out of my way.
Chris, I won't let you.
Get out of my way.
No. Chris.
Ever play with a kaleidoscope when you were a kid, Philip?
Little doohickey filled with colored beads and stones.
You put it to your eye and you see a wonderful pattern.
You turn it a bit and you see a new pattern.
Same stones, same beads.
But now they make a new pattern.
Love changes to hate just like that.
Sally looks about the room after Chris leaves.
Her gaze falls upon a little ceramic dog he bought for her on their honeymoon in Mexico.
And suddenly she seizes it.
And the lamps they bought at auction, at antique shops, one by one in the coffee table.
The hutch table, the easy chair, the lamp seats, all the books on the shelf.
And straight pictures on the walls.
And in the morning when her maid comes in.
Miss, Miss Thomas?
I'll destroy him.
Miss Thomas, honey?
I'll destroy him.
Hello? Hello, Dr. Kobe's office?
I'll destroy him.
This Miss Thomas maid. Let me speak to the doctor.
I'll destroy him.
That's all she says for a long time to come.
Just those three words.
Maybe that ought to be the title.
Three lethal words.
A pun, you know.
Now the next part of the story is confused to me.
It's not clear in my mind at all.
There are doctors in it and people whispering to each other and looking at Sally.
And a long automobile ride ending at a gate.
She's taken to an asylum.
A large sprawling place like a country club with guards.
And they start to put her together again.
They're very kind and patient and good at their jobs.
And they put all the pieces in place.
All except one.
She hides that one from her.
Because there's something she has to do.
One night while playing canasta with one of the nurses in her room, she starts to do it.
Care to play another hand, Sally?
Isn't it time for you to go off duty?
Oh, another half hour.
Deal.
Okay.
Going to town?
Uh-huh.
Got a date?
Uh-huh.
Square dance.
Got a new dress I'm going to wear.
Nice?
Oh.
I'd show it to you, but it's my police.
My police is in the car.
Change at your sister's house, huh?
Uh-huh.
Fifteen.
Where are you going?
To get a hanky.
Oh.
They're very careful at the asylum.
There's nothing you can use as a weapon.
But the bureau in your room has three drawers, and you pull out one of the drawers all the way.
And raise it above your head and get behind the nurse while her back is turned.
And she's looking at the cards.
And then you carry her to the bed and take off her uniform and put it on yourself.
And cover her with the blankets.
Then down the corridor and down the steps and across the lawn to the parking lot.
There's only one bad moment at the gate.
But all the man at the gate can see is your white uniform in the dark.
And he knows the car.
So you just wave to him.
And he opens the gate.
And you drive through.
And once through, you step on the gas.
And you're free.
Free!
Jane.
What?
Sit down, Jane.
I got carried away.
Where was I?
Sally was driving away from the asylum.
Have a cigarette.
She's driving?
Oh, yes.
She drives through the darkness toward Hollywood.
She's filled with a terrible eagerness.
You see, she knows exactly what she's going to do.
She's not going to kill Chris.
Oh, no.
Oh, that's too good for him.
He's got to be destroyed.
But it's no good if he's not alive to appreciate that.
He's got to know he's been destroyed and go on knowing it.
So she's decided to change that handsome face of his.
Turn it into a scarred and pitted monstrosity.
Something that will never, never again face a camera.
Nor attract a woman.
Nor cease to remind him that once there was a wife named Sally.
Who loved him so much.
She reaches Hollywood at dawn.
Then she abandons the car on a side street.
And walks and walks until she passes a shop selling artist supplies.
Can I help you?
Yes, I am.
I'm doing some etching and I...
Want me to make some plates?
I've got some fine copper plates.
No, no, I have enough plates.
I'm out of acid, though.
What mordants do you have?
Let me see.
Got some Dutch.
Got the iron perchloride.
Got the nitric.
That's the best.
I'll take a bottle.
I don't seem to have it diluted.
I'll take it full strength.
Yes, ma'am.
Oh, I don't suppose I have to warn you to be careful about handling it.
No, I'll be very careful.
Here you are.
Thank you.
I'm doing landscapes?
No.
No, as a matter of fact, I'm doing a portrait.
Portrait of a man.
From life.
And there she was, out in the street with a bottle in her hand.
A bottle just like this one, Philip.
She's been a writer and she's known the joy of creation.
But it can't compare to the exaltation she feels now.
Now, as she goes forth to experience the joy of destruction.
I'll destroy him, she says.
I'll destroy him.
Auto Light is bringing you Miss Joan Crawford in Three Lethal Words.
Tonight's production in radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
Ready for Easter, Oscar Otto?
Sure am, Mr. Wilcox.
With an auto light staple battery under my hood, I'll be the jauntiest jitney in the parade.
Well, you can't miss if you've got the battery that needs water only three times a year in normal car use, Oscar.
Why, that auto light staple has over three times the liquid reserve of batteries without staple features.
And it has those great fiberglass retaining mats.
It sure has, Oscar, and they prevent shedding and flaking and keep the power producing materials in place.
That's why the auto light staple gives longer life, as proved by tests conducted according to accepted life cycle standards, eh, Mr. Wilcox?
And you're not just banging your hubcaps, Junior.
So, friends, see your auto light battery dealer for your auto light staple, the battery that needs water only three times a year in normal car use.
And remember, you're always right with auto light.
And now auto light brings back to our Hollywood soundstage Miss Joan Crawford in Elliot Lewis's production of Three Lethal Words.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Sitting here talking to you. It's like old times, isn't it, Chris?
Philip.
What?
You, you just called me Chris, the name of the young actor in your story. You called me Chris instead of Philip.
Philip?
Oh, yes, it's Philip, isn't it? For a moment, I...
Jane, why don't you put the bottle down on the desk?
Why?
Well, just put it down on the desk, huh?
Why should I?
Well, you might accidentally spill some, gesturing with it in your hand, and it does contain a powerful acid.
Don't you think I know that? Do you think I'm irresponsible or something?
No, no, no, of course not.
I don't think I care for your attitude, my young friend. What makes you think I can be spoken to like that?
What makes you think you can treat me like this, Chris? What makes you think you can get away with it?
You listen to me, Chris!
Philip, Jane, not Chris. Philip. Chris is the young man in your story.
Go on with your story, Jane. Yes, I'm enjoying it.
Story?
Yes. Sally Summers had just left the shop with a bottle of nitric acid in her hand. What did she do then?
Huh. You really enjoy it, don't you?
It is rather good, isn't it? Except the end. I don't like the end. It's not the end I want.
I, uh, that is she, Sally, sets out to locate Chris. She enters a drug store, goes into a phone booth.
Hollywood 95264.
Hello. This is Mr. Summers' housekeeper. Is it possible for me to speak to Mr. Summers, Christopher Summers?
One moment, please.
Hello.
Hello, Mr. Summers is with the Lucifer Labs unit. They're shooting out on the back lot today. I can't put you through to them. Get a leave of message.
No. It can wait. Thank you.
Sure you don't want to come in for a drink, huh?
Oh, no. I want to shower first. Chris, is there any word on her?
Oh, no. I'm worried, aren't you?
Not for myself, no.
Well, you don't have to worry about me.
Chris.
Now go shower. I'll pick you up for dinner. Where are we going tonight?
Well, Zelda and Charlie expect us at their place. Chris.
I don't look so worried. It's all right. I'll see you soon, isn't it?
Hello, Chris.
Sally.
Long time no see.
Well, Sally, I...
Sit down, Chris. Sit down.
Well, how are you, Sally?
I want to look at you. I'd almost forgotten how good-looking you are.
You really are, you know.
How's the career? The career, how goes it?
Oh, all right, I guess. Sally...
Are they starring you?
Beginning with this one. Sally...
Good. Are you happy? No more dirty dicks?
I'm happy, I guess.
This is the picture of the lucky girl? She's lovely.
So young.
I'm very pleased, Chris.
This is just the way I wanted you for the moment.
Successful, happy, in love.
Sally, I want you to know I never meant to play the heavy in your life.
I know.
Don't think I never felt badly about everything.
I know.
Words aren't much good, but I want you to know I didn't mean for you to be hurt.
I know.
And if there's anything I can do for you...
There's one thing you can do for me.
Just name it.
Look at me.
Take a good long look at my face.
Why?
Because I want it to be the last thing you're ever going to see!
Oh!
That night, back at the asylum,
she enjoys the first untroubled night's rest she's had in a long time.
No sedatives, no wet packs, nothing.
She just sleeps.
And after that, she gives them the part of herself that she's kept hidden.
And now they have a real chance to make her whole and well again.
But it takes time.
Two years, three years, four.
And one day they tell her she's as well as they can possibly make her and fit to leave.
If she avoids strain, avoids shocks,
remembers all that she's learned about herself,
there's no reason why she cannot go out and make a place for herself in the outside world.
One evening, shortly after they tell her that,
she finds herself in the reception office,
police packed, waiting for the car that will take her away.
Her doctor is with her, saying goodbye,
and there's a small radio on one corner playing a waltz.
Write to me occasionally. I want to hear from you.
I'll keep in touch.
And if you ever wish to see me...
I won't hesitate.
I think I hear your car coming now, yes.
Goodbye, Sally.
Goodbye, doctor.
Break any rules if I kiss you?
After this long friendship, I'll be silly.
Thank you.
And now the moment for which you have all been waiting.
The announcement of the winner of this year's Blaisdell Prize.
Any chance of your ever winning the Blaisdell Prize?
I've been planning to write the great American novel for some time.
And so, without further ado,
our guest of honor and the recipient of this year's Blaisdell Prize
for the best American novel.
Ready, Sally.
Wait a minute. I just want to hear this.
Ladies and gentlemen, I take great pride in introducing to you
Mr. Christopher Summers.
Sally.
Thank you.
The pathway leading to the literary life is a rocky one,
and in my own case, a sunless one.
And were it not for my Lisa and her helping hand,
I doubt that I should ever have found it.
Some years ago, my sight and my career
in an entirely different field of endeavor were destroyed.
Sally.
Nurse, turn that off.
Sally.
Sally, listen to me.
Sally.
Oh, oh.
But she couldn't stop laughing.
For all I know, the car that came to fetch her is still waiting.
Isn't that funny?
Isn't that the funniest thing you've ever heard?
I don't know why I'm laughing.
Because it's really sad in a way.
Really awfully sad in a way.
Sit down, Chris.
Sit down.
Not Chris, Jane.
Philip. Philip.
I'd almost forgotten how good-looking you are.
You really are, you know.
How's the career?
The career, how goes it?
Jane, Jane, listen to me.
Are they sarring you?
I'm not Chris, Jane.
I'm Philip. Philip Lewis.
Are you happy?
No more dirty digs?
Jane, Jane, I want you to listen to me.
Listen to me very carefully.
This the picture of the lucky girl?
She's lovely.
So young.
I'm very pleased, Chris.
It's just the way I wanted you for this moment.
Successful, happy, in love.
Jane, sit down.
You're not well, Jane.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
I know.
You sure you understand?
I know.
I'm your friend.
You and I have been friends for a long time.
I know.
Jane, let me have that bottle like a good girl.
There's one thing you can do for me.
Jane, the bottle.
Let me have it.
Jane, don't open it.
Look at me.
Take a good long look at my face.
Jane, Jane.
Because I want it to be the last thing you'll...
Take that, Jane.
Hmm?
Thank you.
Now give me the cap.
Give it to me, Jane.
There we are.
Doctor?
Yes, it's all right, Jane.
I'm here, I'm here.
Nobody loves me.
Shh.
It's all right, Jane.
Nobody in the whole world.
Shh.
Ha ha ha.
Are you all right?
I think so.
I'm sorry about this.
It's the second time in six years she slept away.
Mind if I sit down?
I expect you're going into shock.
Do you feel cold?
She wanted to sell me a story.
Yes, I know.
She writes it down over and over again.
Paints it when we give her paints.
Why did she come to you?
Any idea?
Yes, I knew her in the old days.
Are you a writer too?
No, I'm head of the story department here.
I find stories to make into movies, you know.
That must be very interesting work.
It has its moments.
Music
Suspense.
Presented by Autolite.
Tonight's star, Miss Joan Crawford.
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Music
Next week on Suspense, our star will be Mr. Jack Carson in Death Pitch.
And on April 5th, you will hear in his first appearance on this program
and only dramatic appearance of the season, America's favorite comedian, Mr. Jack Benny.
Following Mr. Benny, you will hear such famous stars as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz
and James Stewart all on Suspense.
Music
Suspense is produced and directed by Elliot Lewis with music composed by Lucian Morawek
and conducted by Lut Bluskin.
Three Lethal Words was adapted for Suspense by Walter Newman from a story by Charles Behan.
Portions of this program were transcribed.
In tonight's play, High Aberback was heard as Chris and Joseph Kearns as Philip.
Others in the cast were Ted D'Cossia, Lillian Vyoff, Don Diamond, B. Benaderet and Sylvia Sims.
Joan Crawford will soon be seen in the Warner Brothers production, Goodbye My Fancy.
And remember next week on Suspense, Mr. Jack Carson.
As a man who talked to death all those who stood in the way of what he wanted.
A story we call Death Pitch.
You can buy auto light staple batteries, auto light resistor type or standard type spark plugs,
auto light electrical parts at your neighborhood auto light dealers.
Switch to auto light. Good night.
This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.
Music