The Whistler 1945-08-20 "X Marks the Murderer"

The basic setup: A housewife's idea for catching a serial killer hits too close to home. This script was reused with minor changes for the 1946 Whistler summer series, and was reworked years later with a darker feel as Suspense 1961-09-24 "Man in the Fog."

The Whistler 1945-08-20 "X Marks the Murderer"
Directed by George W. Allen
Story by Joseph Cochran, music by Wilbur Hatch
Announcer: Marvin Miller
Whistler: Marvin Miller (filling in while Bill Forman was in the service)
Cast (uncredited): Jack Moyles (Ben), Edmund MacDonald (Captain Shane), Charles Calvert (Patrolman / Sgt. Schmitt), Earle Ross (Police Commissioner / Plant Timekeeper), Sarah Selby or Adrienne Marden? (Mamie)
(Thanks, Karl Schadow and Keith Scott, for voice identification!)

The story: Mamie Kast chats with her husband Ben about the recent series of murders in the headlines: four women stabbed. The police think it's a working man, because the killings all occurred on weekends. The newspaper is offering a reward for any clue leading to the arrest and conviction of the monster. Ben seems put off by the word "monster," and is scornful that Mamie could have any idea about the killings. Mamie explains her theory: she marks the location of each killing on a map, forming a square. Theorizing that the killer lives near the middle of the square, she connects the opposite corners and finds that the diagonal lines cross right near their own block!

The next night, Wednesday, a woman is killed almost on the Kasts' doorstep. Ben comes home from the factory where he works nights, washes his hands, and asks for a drink of brandy—neither of which is his habit. He taunts Mamie about her fine theories: this time the killing didn't occur on a weekend, or far away in another direction.

Meanwhile, the police are getting desperate, and Detective Captain Shane asks his sergeant if, among all the screwball letters they've gotten, there's anything that he gave a second thought. The sergeant says Mamie's letter caught his attention because the day after it came in, the next murder took place within a hundred feet of the spot she'd indicated. Shane says he'll look into it when he has time.

Ben forgets his lunch box at home, and Mamie brings it to the factory for him. The timekeeper says Ben Kast didn't punch in tonight, and that he's missed work only once before—last Wednesday. When Ben gets home and starts washing his hands, Mamie offers him brandy and doesn't ask questions.

At the factory the next night, the timekeeper mentions Mamie's bringing Ben's lunch. Ben rushes home to confront Mamie, and overhears Captain Shane on his way out. When Ben demands to know what the police were doing there, Mamie says it was just routine. She didn't tell them he wasn't at work last Wednesday. It comes out that she knows. Ben picks up a knife, but Mamie convinces him that he needs her because only she can tell the police he was at home those nights. She can be his alibi.

Days later, a heavy fog rolls in and, despite Mamie's pleading, Ben is compelled to go out and strike again. Shane brings Ben in for questioning and lays out the circumstantial evidence against him. Ben says he has an alibi. Shane says Ben's alibi is worthless!

The twist: Shane explains that after questioning Mamie again he knew that she both feared Ben and loved him enough to protect him, and unless she broke down and helped the police, they'd never be able to prove Ben was guilty. Then Shane has Mamie brought in... on a stretcher. "Tonight she ran out after you, probably to try to stop you, and walked right into your trap. It was your wife you killed tonight, Mr. Kast."

Suspense, sixteen years later:

Suspense 1961-09-24 "The Man in the Fog" (at The Suspense Project here) has essentially the same sequence of events as "X Marks the Murderer" until the final scenes, and the main characters even have the same names. (It's a little funny that the announcer says the script was "written especially for Suspense by Joseph Cochran"!) The Suspense episode is set in England, the cops have different names, and the story has a new ending—but I think the most significant difference is that "The Man in the Fog" feels like a darker story than "X Marks the Murderer." It focuses more on the mind of the murderer, and I think is also a little more explicit about the nature of the crimes.

The opening narration of "X Marks the Murderer" says, in part:

It was a long series of murders which baffled and terrorized the city. Not only because of their fiendish quality, but because of their apparent lack of motive. I say apparent lack because you can't expect the police to find and recognize a motive deep in the mind of a man who simply enjoys killing, a man who rationalizes his feeling into a sort of righteous cause.

The briefer announcement before the first act of "The Man in the Fog" also says the murders "are without pattern and apparently without motive." But by 1961, crime fiction audiences probably did expect the police to make use of psychology. The Suspense episode adds a new scene before the last murder in which the detective, Mr. Britt, discusses the killer's compulsion to strike again and even correctly links the murders to the weather; and has a new ending in which Britt uses his understanding of the killer's psychology to get a confession.

In this version, Mamie is not murdered, but goes to the police on the night of the last murder and asks them to take Ben in. Britt explains that Mamie can't testify against her husband (a legally dubious plot device), and he'll need a confession. Again he questions Ben and Ben says Mamie is his alibi. Britt expresses doubt about having a woman for an alibi, because of how sneaky and greedy women are. He pretends to confide in Ben: "I hate women too." Then Britt lets Ben see Mamie talking to the sergeant, apparently selling Ben out.

"X Marks the Murderer" ends on the revelation that Ben's alibi is broken, implying that he now has no choice but to confess. In "The Man in the Fog," Britt convinces Ben that he understands, and we actually get to hear Ben tell him about it. "...I could hear a soul wailing in the body of a woman, begging to be freed from the claws of the flesh, and then my hand would lift the knife, and in a minute the soul would be free. And then my head would stop hurting." Ben also talks about freeing souls in the scene with Mamie before the last murder, and calls it his "mission." These speeches expand on the "righteous cause" that the Whistler cynically posited in the earlier episode—in which the closest thing to an explanation of Ben's motive was his remark that the murder victims are "better off anyway. We'd all be."

"The Man in the Fog," even before the explicit misogyny in the final scene, is also much more persistent than the original Whistler episode in directing the listener's attention to the fact that these murders are specifically murders of women: "A man walks in the fog. And a woman dies." In "X Marks the Murderer," on the other hand, Mamie talks in the first scene about the victims having all been women, but the narration and dialogue tend to refer simply to "murders" or "killings," without giving much weight to the obvious pattern of the victims' gender.

For instance, in The Whistler, each of Mamie's four crosses "marks the place where a killing occurred," and she assumes the killer "goes out in a different direction from where he lives every time he wants to do away with somebody" because "it's just natural not to do something like that in front of his own house." In Suspense, each cross "marks the spot where a woman was killed, and Mamie assumes the killer "goes in a different direction each time" because "it stands to reason he's not going to kill a woman in front of his own house." The patrolman who finds the fifth victim in The Whistler says "Another one!" but doesn't specifically say anything to indicate gender (though we do hear later that a woman was killed); the patrolman in Suspense calls the victim "dearie" as he tries to wake her. There even seems to be a faint hint of the threat of sexual violence in the Suspense episode, when the timekeeper tells Mamie she ought to take the bus home: "You shouldn't be out alone in this fog, with that fellow still at large. I guess you know... what I mean."

A lost Whistler version:

Dr. Joe Webb has recently discovered a script for the Whistler summer series 1946-09-04 "Where the Lines Cross" by Joseph Cochran, of which no recording is known to survive. This script is almost identical to "X Marks the Murderer," with the main difference being some additional bits of dialogue—generally comparable in length to bits of dialogue that I've seen cut from other Whistler scripts. Dr. Webb points out that, since the Whistler summer series was a sustaining program, this additional dialogue may have been restored and/or added in order to fill the time taken up by commercials in the original Signal broadcast.

There's some brief additional action after the patrolman finds the fifth victim, including a woman screaming "It's him again. He's killed her. I can see her. It's a woman lying there and she's been stabbed." I think going straight from the patrolman's exclamation to Ben arriving home is more effective—but this scene would have put a little more emphasis on the killing-of-women angle.

The 1946 script also continues to develop the psychological elements that are prominent in the later Suspense episode. There's a little more dialogue between Ben and Mamie about Ben being compelled to go out in the fog, and there's some additional dialogue at the beginning of the interrogation scene in which Captain Shane explains that he's studied murderers like this and planned his interview accordingly. In the 1945 episode, Ben says, "Can't a man wash his hands when they need it?"—and in 1946, he then adds, "Can't he make himself clean without his wife yelling about it?" That phrase "make himself clean" is also heard in "The Man in the Fog."

In the 1945 episode, when Ben comes in after Shane leaves, Mamie exclaims, "Ben! You're home." The 1946 script has "You! You're home?" [underlining in original]. In 1945, the Whistler's narration after the last murder begins, "So the monster struck again. For the last time. You didn't know that, Ben, but it was for the last time." The 1946 script has, "So, Ben...you struck again. For the last time. You didn't know that...but it was for the last time."

In the 1946 script, we also learn that Ben is short for Ebenezer!

Further notes:

• "X Marks the Murderer" is the first Whistler episode after Japan's surrender was announced on August 14, 1945, marking the end of World War Two. (Nowadays, we tend to think of the war as ending with the formal surrender on September 2.) The Signal commercial at the first break begins:

  "Now it can be told!" is on everyone's lips these days, with all sorts of news breaking. For wartime security, American industry has had to maintain secrecy about many of its most amazing projects. For instance, Signal Oil Company, who brings you The Whistler each week, would like to have been able to tell you about Signal's new super-fuel as it was being developed. For during the last few years, petroleum chemists have found ways of completely changing the composition of gasoline, giving new performance undreamed of before the war. But the big news tonight is that soon these ingredients that have been helping us win the war will be in a new Signal gasoline!

  The commercial at the second break says, "Where are you going? I mean, with that unlimited supply of gasoline you can enjoy from now on," but warns that you'll still have to make your current tires last a while longer.

• The Whistler's narration in this 1945 episode is moving towards the familiar pattern of later years: setting the scene in third person past tense, and then narrating most of the episode in second person present tense. One striking difference from this later pattern is that instead of addressing one main character throughout, he switches to a different main character about halfway through! "Yes, Mamie. Now you're beginning to understand. And you know your plan was too good. Too good. But what about you, Ben, what are you thinking?"

  There are other Whistler episodes from this era that address multiple characters, or that switch back and forth between second and third person; earlier Whistler episodes are also more likely to address the listener, and some early episodes are narrated almost entirely in third person. I hope to do at least one general post in the future about the different modes of narration on The Whistler.

• Whistler episodes reused on other programs often replaced the Whistler's narration with more conventional first-person or third-person narration. "The Man in the Fog" omits the narration entirely and bridges the scenes with eerie music. This makes for some abrupt transitions, like going straight from Britt's "We'll have to make a routine call on Mrs. Kast" to Mamie's "Are you the timekeeper?", but the slighly disjointed feel works well with the sense of Ben's mental "fog" that pervades the episode.

Additional listening:

1945-06-25 "Death Watch" is another Whistler episode by Joseph Cochran involving a murderer with a compulsion—in this case, the compulsion to return to the scene of the crime—and a detective who plans to play upon the psychology of the murderer. (And, like "X Marks the Murderer," this episode also has Earle Ross as the detective's boss and Charles Calvert as his sidekick.)

See 1946-03-11 "Boomerang", based on a story by Nancy and Alfred Seel, for another story in which a woman apparently suspects her husband of being a serial killer.

The Whistler 1948-03-31 "Bird of Prey"

The basic setup:  A writer steals the identity of a novelist known only by a mysterious pen name.

The Whistler 1948-03-31 "Bird of Prey"
Produced by George W. Allen
Story by George & Gertrude Fass, music by Wilbur Hatch
Whistler:  Bill Forman / Announcer:  Marvin Miller
Cast (credited):  Wally Maher, Sarah Selby
Cast (from script):  Jay Novello, Pat McGeehan, Lois Corbett, ?
Cast (ear):  Bill Bouchey as Lt. Driscoll

The story:  Freelance writer Eddie Smith has come to Havana on the trail of the mysterious bestselling novelist known only by the pen name J. C. Raven.  He asks Raven's agent Barkly Wells for an interview, and Wells refuses to let him see Raven, but agrees to meet again at Wells's apartment.  Eddie begins to suspect that Wells himself is really Raven.  As they leave the bar, Wells is attacked and Eddie apprehends the assailant, but Wells is already dead.  Eddie heads for Wells's apartment, where he finds an offer letter from a Hollywood studio and a complete synopsis for a new J. C. Raven novel.

Eddie takes the offer letter to the studio and presents himself as J. C. Raven, all the while insisting that his name is Edgar Smith—which, after all, it is.  The studio boss Mr. Rosamund takes him on and assigns him an assistant, mousy little Veronica Corbie.  Eddie writes a script from the stolen Raven outline, changing the ending to suit his own taste, and hands it over to Veronica to type up.

Rosamund is thrilled with Eddie's script, especially the ending—and Eddie realizes he's describing the original J. C. Raven ending, not the new ending that Eddie wrote.  Eddie confronts Veronica, who admits that she changed the ending because she thought Rosamund would like it better.  She wanted Eddie to make good after the risks he's taken, pretending to be J. C. Raven.  She says she won't tell anyone Eddie isn't J. C. Raven.  He couldn't be J. C. Raven... because she is.

Veronica explains that she used to work with Barkly Wells at the studio, and, having been unsuccessful in her literary efforts, hit on the idea of creating the mystery author and using Wells as a front.  She would send him outlines, and they would work on the Raven novels together.  Veronica says she'd like to continue the arrangement with Eddie.

Eddie plays up to Veronica for some weeks, taking her out on dates, intending to put up with her for a couple of years until he makes enough money to quit.  Then one day Eddie takes a phone call from a police detective asking to speak to Veronica.  Later, Veronica asks Eddie what happened in Havana the night Barkly Wells was killed; and then Eddie overhears her on the phone agreeing to meet the detective the next day.  Eddie is convinced that Veronica was in love with Barkly Wells and thinks Eddie murdered him, and that she intends to turn Eddie over to the police and ruin everything.  He kills her to silence her.

The twist:  Eddie is about to leave Veronica's apartment when the doorbell rings.  He drags the body behind the davenport and answers the door.  It's the police detective.  When he spoke to Veronica on the phone this afternoon it was just routine, but now it isn't.  They've received a wire from the Havana police that the killer of Barkly Wells has confessed—and he was hired by Veronica Corbie.

Spotlight on George and Gertrude Fass

Consider this exchange in the first scene of "Bird of Prey":

EDDIE:
Now listen, why don't you fix up an appointment for me to talk to this guy Raven...

WELLS:
Guy?  Mr. Smith, has it ever occurred to you that J. C. Raven might be a woman?

EDDIE:
Sure.  I've kicked the idea around... but I won't buy it.  Take that last novel-Undertow.  Could a dame have written it?

Well, "Undertow" was also the title of the Whistler episode of 1948-02-24... also written by George and Gertrude Fass!  It's no wonder, then, that in "Bird of Prey," the mysterious author of Undertow turns out to have been a woman collaborating with a man.

I always think it's a little funny that a husband-and-wife writing team would write a story about a male/female writing team... in which the man steals credit for the woman's ideas and each half of the team at one point murders their collaborator!

And several of the Fasses' other radio scripts involve dysfunctional marriages, infidelity, and/or spouse murder.   Another one that seems potentially close to home for a creative couple is Mollé Mystery Theater "Solo Performance," about married actors:  she dreams of being a husband-and-wife team, but his professional and romantic jealousy lead to murder.  I can only assume that the Fasses must have felt comfortable in their marriage and their creative partnership to keep writing stories about these kinds of themes!  (See also Mystery Time "The White Curtain" for a suspenseful and atmospheric story with an unexpected take on the eternal triangle.)

George Fass, born in Manhattan in 1907 of Russian Jewish parents, was a New York lawyer who wrote plays in the 1930s and early 1940s—including winning a short play prize in 1941 for his radio play "Lincoln, the Lawyer."  Gertrude Kossoff, born in the Bronx in 1909 of Russian Jewish parents, graduated Hunter College in 1930 and was a high school teacher and artist.  The two married around 1942 and collaborated on scripts for radio and television.

The Fasses were particularly highly regarded for their work in television in the 1950s, writing scripts for shows including Colgate Theater, Fireside Theater, Foreign Assignment, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and Peter Gunn.  A piece in Variety of 26 Apr 1950 quotes Kendall Foster, TV director of the William Esty agency:  "'There are not yet any perfectly trained TV writers as such,' Foster believes, 'because the medium is still too new.  However, there are many who are doing fine jobs.'  Among those he cited were George and Gertrude Fass, Jack Bentkover, True Boardman, William Kendall Clarke, William L. Stuart, Lawrence Klee, Margaret Wilder and Lee Roggow."

A piece in Writer's Digest of September 1951 describes the Fasses' creative process:

In the Fass team, there's no division of labor between "idea man" and "technician"—one writer supplying the story line and the other putting it into shape for TV—as there is with some collaborators.  Both George and Gertrude get story ideas and both write scripts, dividing the work according to a special system of their own.  "I understand our method of working together is unusual," George says, in explaining how their team operates.  "Our system is to write every script three times.  When one of us gets an idea for a story, we talk it over together and then the one whose idea it was writes a first draft.  The other one takes this first draft and revises it into a second draft.  Then we talk over the story some more and, finally, the original writer sits down and turns out the final script.  This is a lengthy procedure, but the system works well for us.  And we feel we get a better finished product."

After George's death in 1965, Gertrude Fass taught high school English, wrote children's stories, and was successful as a sculptor.  This two-part profile from the Cybis Porcelain Archive has photos of Gertrude Fass's sculptures as well as some of her paintings and drawings.

Photo and profile of Gertrude Fass from the 1976 Tenafly (New Jersey) High School yearbook

Other notes on "Bird of Prey"

The J. C. Raven story that Eddie steals is called The House in the Swamp, and Rosamund praises "the scene between the old man and the little girl at the edge of the swamp"; the script has "Rosalyn" crossed out and "the little girl" penciled in.  As far as I know this does not correspond to any actual George and Gertrude Fass story, but I wouldn't be surprised!

The script for "Bird of Prey" has some lines that were cut for the final production, including more of Mr. Rosamund praising Veronica's previous work with successful screenwriters, and a deleted scene in which Veronica calls Eddie with her concerns about his script.  The episode works better with the cuts, keeping Veronica more of a non-entity until the dramatic reveal after she changes the story back without consulting Eddie.

The scan of the script in the SPERDVAC library also has handwritten notes in red pencil, apparently from George W. Allen, that identify some of the supporting players!  "Jay" is written next to Rosamund's first line, confirming the distinctive voice of Jay Novello.  Wells's first line is marked "Pat" and he sounds like Pat McGeehan.  Rosamund's secretary is marked "Lois" and she sounds like Lois Corbett; the house manager in the last scene is likely also Corbett.  ("Corbet" is also written on the title page of this script and crossed out.)

Script page 6.  "Joe"?

There's a word or name I'm not sure about next to the first line of the Man who calls the police when Wells is killed; it doesn't quite look like (or sound like) "Jay," but it could conceivably be "Joe."  Whoever he was, he probably doubled as the airline representative on the phone.  (In the script, that character is called "Girl"!)

A note next to Eddie's first line says "Eddie"!

There's no note on Lieutenant Driscoll, but it sounds like frequent Whistler cop Bill Bouchey.

Further listening

Other episodes of The Whistler involving literary plagiarism and/or author identity theft:

• 1946-02-25 / 1947-12-17 "Murder in Haste" by Eleanor Beeson (script also used on Murder by Experts 1950-02-06 and on Mystery Time)
• This story also involves a renowned but personally obscure author returning from Latin America, and also ends with the revelation that the woman the protagonist killed because she was a threat to him was herself wanted for murder.
• 1946-08-12 "Stolen Murder" by Eleanor Beeson
• 1948-04-21 "The Silent City" by Gilbert Thomas
• This episode also features Wally Maher and Sarah Selby.
• 1950-02-05 "Ladies' Man" (no author credit on surviving recording)

The Whistler "Caesar's Wife" (1947-06-02 / 1950-06-04)

The basic setup:  A big-time racketeer with a secret is suspicious of his wife.  I always love this episode for the character dynamics between Gerald Mohr as the racketeer and Willard Waterman as his loyal right-hand man.

1947-06-02 "Caesar's Wife"
Produced by Gordon T. Hughes, music by Wilbur Hatch
Story by David Victor and Herbert Little
Whistler:  Bill Forman / Announcer:  Marvin Miller
Cast (credited):  Gerald Mohr, Barbara Luddy, Willard Waterman
Cast (ear):  Hy Averback as Alan?

1950-06-04 "Caesar's Wife"
Produced and directed by George W. Allen, music by Wilbur Hatch
Story by David Victor and Herbert Little
Whistler:  Bill Forman / Announcer:  Marvin Miller
Cast (credited):  Gerald Mohr, Willard Waterman, Vivi Janiss
Cast (ear):  Wilms Herbert as Solly and Alan

The story:  In Frank Conway's luxurious hotel suite, Frank has his hair trimmed by his personal barber and then shaves himself with an electric razor.  Kirby Morton, Frank's press agent, remarks that Frank is an enigma:  a guy who can swing elections and collect payoffs, but can't stand the sight of blood or the feel of a razor against his face.

Frank is unusually irritable, and Kirby says he's acting like he's got woman trouble.  Frank's wife Gloria interrupts their conversation to tell Frank she's got a lunch date with a female friend.  Soon afterwards, a man arrives to report that he followed Gloria like Frank said, and Gloria is having lunch with a good-looking man.  Frank indicates that he intends to kill the man, and Kirby says wait, they're not sure.  Frank says he'll be sure.

Frank and Kirby go to the restaurant to see for themselves:  the man is good-looking, and the scene appears romantic.  Back at the hotel, Frank taps Gloria's phone.

Kirby tells Frank that Judge Faulkner, recently elected thanks to Frank's finagling, is waiting to see him.  Frank keeps the judge waiting.  Frank's tailor comes in to fit him for a suit, and Frank blows up at the tailor for leaving a pin sticking out of the basted lining.

Frank listens in on a phone conversation between Gloria and the man, Alan.  Gloria says she has the money for him.  Alan says he was thinking of going away this weekend, and Gloria asks him not to.  It means so much to her just to know that he's around.  Alan agrees to stay, and tells her he's been moved to room 1438 of the hotel.  He'll be there until after six, and then he'll go out to dinner.  Gloria says she'll slip away and meet him at the restaurant with the money.

Frank hangs up in a rage, and takes out a gun.  Kirby protests that Frank has never used a gun, that if this thing has to be done Kirby can just drop a word...  Frank refuses to listen.  Frank admits Judge Faulker, who has dropped by to thank him for the way everything worked out.  Frank tells the judge just how he can show his appreciation.  They'll have dinner together at the judge's home tonight, at six.  He's going to be late—but as far as Judge Faulkner and his wife are concerned, Frank arrived at six sharp and stayed all evening.

His alibi thus arranged, Frank goes to room 1438 a little before six and shoots Alan.  The wine glass in Alan's hand shatters when he falls, and a shard of glass cuts Frank's hand.  Frank notices the blood with horror.  This was the secret behind his strange fears, the reason he's always had things done smoothly and avoided violence:  hemophilia.  He'll bleed to death!

The twist:  An hour later, Frank's personal physician tells Frank to relax, they just have to wait.  He explains that Frank has a very unusual blood type, and needs a special type of blood for a transfusion.  The doctor and Gloria knew that if they had to find it in a hurry, they'd never have a chance.  Yes, Gloria knows.  It was she who...  The doctor takes a phone call, and then gives Frank the bad news.  The man Gloria hired just to be near Frank, the man with the rare blood needed to save Frank's life, is dead.  They've just found him murdered in his room, room 1438.

Comparison:

This is one of my favorite Whistler episodes, and it's tough to decide which version I prefer!  The ending of the second act is much improved in '50:  it's smoother and more dramatic for Frank to notice the blood on his hand immediately, so that the act ends on a cliffhanger in the murder room, rather than pausing the action and having Frank notice the blood as he presses the elevator button a few minutes later.

On the other hand, I think '47 is a stronger episode overall, because the first act narration in '50 is weaker.  Compare the openings of the two episodes:

(1947)  It made a strange picture that morning:  Frank Conway standing in front of the mirror in his luxurious hotel suite.  Strange because Joe, his personal barber, who had just finished trimming his hair now, did nothing but stand there behind holding a towel, watching as Conway shaved himself with an electric razor; wondering what to do with his hands; feeling as awkward and helpless on this occasion as on every one of the many other Monday morning routines.  The weekly command performance at eight o'clock sharp in Conway's suite.  Kirby Morton, the other man in the room, was more relaxed.  After many years with Conway he'd learned to accept anything.

(1950)  They were starting the day, the three of them.  Just as they had begun every Monday morning for as long as any of them could remember.  But that was because none of them had any premonition of what was going to happen in the next twenty-four hours.  Frank Conway, the Caesar of the rackets, was standing in front of the mirror in his luxurious hotel suite.  Joe, his personal barber, who had just finished trimming his hair, did nothing but stand there behind him holding a towel.  He watched as Frank Conway shaved himself with an electric razor.  Joe was wondering what to do with his hands, feeling as awkward and helpless on this occasion as he did on many other Monday morning routines.  The weekly command performance at eight o'clock sharp in Conway's suite.  Kirby Morton, the other man in the room, was more relaxed.  After many years with Conway he'd learned to accept anything.

And again in the Whistler's second speech (underlined text is heard only in 1950):

You have a right to be irritated with Kirby, haven't you, Frank?  Yes.  In the years he has served you he certainly should have learned that your strange fear of sharp objects, of things that cut and scratch, is something no one asks about ever.  The big secret, the thing that makes you a walking question mark, belongs to you—and only one other man in the world.  A secret terror other people will learn about within twenty-four hours, but, you have no way of knowing that, Frank.  A few minutes later as you and Kirby are about to settle down to work he gets on another subject just as irritating.

In '50, the Whistler tells the audience things that we don't need to be told.  We understand that Frank is the Caesar of the rackets from the episode title and from his discussion of the quotation, the narration doesn't need to spell it out immediately.  And I don't even want to be told that something is going to happen within twenty-four hours!  Something's going to happen sometime or there wouldn't be a story; it's more suspenseful to have to wait and see how this strange situation is going to play out.

These two points are the most significant differences between the two scripts.  Of the other minor changes, I want to call attention to one short line in '47 that is not heard in '50:

FRANK.
What makes you think I'm nervous, Kirby?

KIRBY (1947).
I don't know.  Woman's intuition, maybe.  Just got the idea from the way you talked to Judge Faulkner yesterday.

KIRBY (1950).
Oh, I don't know.  I just got the idea from the way you talked to Judge Faulkner yesterday.

A man claiming to have woman's intuition?  There might be a little subtext there about Kirby's relationship with Frank!  See also, for instance, the "woman's intuition" line in North By Northwest (1959), which was reportedly added to the script after Martin Landau made the decision to play his character as gay and in love with his boss.

Further notes/commentary:

1947-06-02 "Caesar's Wife" is the first credited appearance of Willard Waterman on The Whistler.  The word with in the end credits—"Featured in our cast were Gerald Mohr and Barbara Luddy, with Willard Waterman"—is unusual.  At this period the program only credited the leading actors, which often meant naming only the male and female leads.  The "with Willard Waterman" here seems to acknowledge how important his supporting character is to the story!  For the 1950 production, which still doesn't have full cast credits, he's moved up to second billing:  "Featured in our cast were Bill Forman, Gerald Mohr, Willard Waterman and Vivi Janiss."

For me, the Kirby Morton character really makes this story!  I'm always drawn to the tragedy of his trying and failing to save Frank from himself—and his last scenes in particular really drive home that aspect of the drama.

Kirby defies Frank three times in the second act.  He presses him on his reaction to the tailor's pin; he tells him it's foolish to shoot Gloria's lover himself; and he refuses to admit Judge Faulkner while Frank is in his current emotional state.  After Frank admits Faulkner himself and arranges the alibi, Kirby remarks that it's a good thing Frank's making use of Faulkner now, because it won't take long for the people to find out he's a phony.

Frank says, "Now look, Kirby, if you're trying to stop me..."

"No, Frank.  I know better than that.  You've made your decision.  Nothing I can say will stop you now."

Sure enough, this is Kirby's last line in the episode, and from this point on Frank hurries toward his doom.

The quotations:

"Stay me with raisins, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love" is, as Kirby says, from the Song of Solomon, 2:5.  This exact translation of the line was popular as early as the 1870s; the King James Bible has "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples:  for I am sick of love."  Some Biblical commentaries say that the word translated as raisins or flagons was actually a cake of pressed raisins.  "Sick of love" has also been translated as "sick with love," "faint with love," or "lovesick"; the phrase sick of didn't originally have the sense to which Kirby perhaps facetiously applies it.  (In the 1947 episode, Kirby says "stay with me raisins"—presumably a misreading on Waterman's part, but he doesn't let it throw him one bit!)

"Caesar's wife should be above suspicion" is a proverb originating from Plutarch's Lives.  A young man named Publius Clodius was in love with Caesar's wife Pompeia, and snuck into her household during a women-only religious festival in order to seduce her.  Clodius was caught and tried for sacrilege.  "Caesar divorced Pompeia at once, but when he was summoned to testify at the trial, he said he knew nothing about the matters with which Clodius was charged.  His statement appeared strange, and the prosecutor therefore asked, 'Why, then, didst thou divorce thy wife?' 'Because,' said Caesar, 'I thought my wife ought not even to be under suspicion.'"  (tr. Bernadotte Perrin)

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's [and unto God the things that are God's]" is from a story related in three books of the New Testament (Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:17, and Luke 20:25).  Jesus is asked whether Jews should pay taxes to the emperor by enemies who hope to trap him into saying no, so that they can hand him over to the authorities; instead, he points out the emperor's head on a coin and gives this famous reply.

Connections/additional listening:

This is the only known Whistler episode by David Victor and Herbert Little Jr.  The two collaborated on scripts for other radio and television programs, including most episodes of Let George Do It between 1948-04-05 and 1949-06-06, after which most episodes were written by David Victor and/or Jackson Gillis.  Victor and Little wrote another, otherwise dissimilar, story about a man with a genetic secret for Let George Do It 1948-09-06 "The Impatient Redhead".

A 1949 Whistler episode by Robert Eisenbach and Jackson Gillis (title/date hidden behind hyperlink to avoid casual spoilers) has essentially the same twist as "Caesar's Wife":  commit the perfect murder because a man's been seeing your wife, only to find out your wife was conspiring with the man to help you, and you've only doomed yourself.

The Whistler 1950-12-31 "The Big Jump" / 1952-06-15 "Last Message"

The basic setup:  An ex-con who faked his death and made a new life for himself is recognized and threatened by one of the old gang.

1950-12-31 "The Big Jump"
Produced and directed by George W. Allen
Story by Joel Malone, music by Wilbur Hatch
Whistler:  Bill Forman / Announcer: Marvin Miller
Cast (credited):  David Ellis, Jeanne Bates, Bill Conrad
Cast (known):  Larry Dobkin

story reused as 1952-06-15 "Last Message"
Produced and directed by George W. Allen
Story by Joel Malone, music by Wilbur Hatch
Whistler: Bill Forman / Announcer: Marvin Miller
Cast:  David Ellis, Virginia Gregg, Bill Conrad, Larry Dobkin

The story:  Dave Leonard starts to buy a plane ticket to flee San Francisco, but is stopped by Tommy Northcote, who's been following him for three days.  Tommy has recognized Dave as Marvin Knowles, who pinned a suicide note to his coat and apparently jumped off a bridge seven years ago back East.  Dave explains that even though he had done his time, he couldn't get anywhere as an ex-con.  Tommy says it'd be a shame if people found out Dave's true identity.  And going to the police wouldn't be smart, because if the old gang knew Marvin Knowles was still alive, they might figure he knew too much.  They might even figure he'd told his wife too much.  Tommy says he'll let Dave know how and when he can help him.

Dave's wife Sue asks him what's wrong and where he was all afternoon.  He snaps at her and then spends the evening walking around alone, thinking things over.  Looking at the Golden Gate Bridge, Dave realizes he could get rid of Tommy Northcote the way he got rid of Marvin Knowles seven years ago—only this time, the apparent suicide will really be murder.

Fortuitously, Tommy tells Dave that he's on the run from the old gang.  He wants Dave to drive him north to Seattle, because he'll be harder to trace if he's traveling with a man and his wife.  Dave suggests that Tommy drop out of sight the way he did:  write a suicide note and fake his own death.  Tommy goes for it.

On New Year's Eve, Sue asks Dave again what's been bothering him, then asks if it's another woman.  Dave finally tells her that Tommy is blackmailing him, that he'll probably force Dave to work on a job with him.  Sue says they should go away where no one will find them.  Dave says it wouldn't work, but there is a way...  Sue says Dave couldn't kill a man, and Dave concedes that he couldn't.  They decide to make a break for it.

But as they're putting the suitcases in the car, Tommy catches up with them.  He makes Dave stop by his boarding house before heading north, and when he goes in to grab his stuff he takes the car keys with him.  Sue talks Dave into leaving the car, and the two of them walk the streets together talking things out.  In spite of the danger, they finally decide to tell the police everything.

The twist:  At the police station, Dave gives the desk sergeant his name, then starts to correct himself.  But the sergeant says oh, yes, David Leonard, he's got the report right there, stolen car.  There was a gun battle with a couple of hoods who were after a man named Tommy Northcote, and this Northcote stole Dave's car to get away.  Now Northcote is dead, the hoods are in custody, and Dave's car is a wreck.  Funny thing is, the guys who killed Northcote didn't know he was planning to kill himself anyway—he had a suicide note in his pocket. 

 

Comparison:

There are only minor differences between these two scripts, the most significant of which is that "The Big Jump" is set on New Year's Eve and "Last Message" is not.  The funniest thing about this change is that when Dave and Sue try to skip town in "The Big Jump," they're delayed by their neighbor trying to get them to stop in at his New Year's party for a drink; but in "Last Message," the neighbor tries to get them to stop in at the drunken party he's having for, apparently, no particular reason!  (And Dave makes the excuse that they want to get to Carmel before midnight, which is now sort of an arbitrary deadline.)

On a less facetious note, I do think the earlier episode is a little better.  The theme of starting over at the new year works well for the story, and I like how the score sadly or tensely quotes "Auld Lang Syne" three times during the second act, and then brings the song in more distinctly at the last break.

The last scene is also better the first time—it makes more sense for the sergeant to immediately volunteer the whole story, instead of being prompted by Dave asking whether the hoods got away and what happened to the man who stole the car.  Anyway, I really miss the line "He... this Northcote is dead?" / "Yeah, and so is your husband's car, lady."

Some other differences between the two episodes:

• Tommy Northcote's name is changed to Tommy Prentiss.

• In "The Big Jump," Tommy says the old gang are after him and he's got to get away from them.  In "Last Message" the threat is more specific and immediate:  Duke Watson and Frankie Dawson are here in town and he's got to get away from them—and he sounds more desperate about getting away, and more pleased about Dave's help, than in the earlier episode.  Duke Watson and Frankie Dawson are later named as the hoods who killed Tommy.  In "The Big Jump," the sergeant says that Tommy's note gave the names of the men who were after him, but we don't hear what their names were.

• In "The Big Jump," the Whistler's narration says that Sue is the only one who knows about Dave's past.  In "Last Message," the Whistler doesn't mention that she knows, although we later gather that she does.  Perhaps relatedly, in "The Big Jump," when Dave admits he's in trouble, Sue says "Dave, you haven't done anythi... I mean...?"; while in "Last Message" the line is slightly more explicit:  "Dave, you—you haven't done anything again, have you?"

• In "The Big Jump," the Whistler's narration refers to Tommy as Dave's "old friend"; in "Last Message," he's only an "old associate".

• In "The Big Jump," Tommy tells Dave not to try skipping town again, because he "wouldn't wanna have to get rough with" him; in "Last Message," he "wouldn't wanna have to take care of" him.

• In "The Big Jump," Tommy says it's been nearly seven years, and Marvin Knowles will be legally dead New Year's Eve.  In "Last Message," it's been seven years, but nobody mentions the question of being legally dead (which makes sense, because it's not exactly important or relevant.)

• The phrase the big jump is heard in both episodes—but the phrase last message is heard only in "The Big Jump"!

   

Miscellaneous notes:

Beginning in 1951, the credits of The Whistler apparently list all the actors in the episode—so "The Big Jump" is the last Whistler episode which credits only the main characters.  But we do have confirmation of one supporting player in "The Big Jump," thanks to a line in Walter Ames' column in the Los Angeles Times of 18 Dec 1950:  "...Larry Dobkin says he's developing a case of holiday flatfeet.  He plays a cop on both the Christmas and New Year's Eve episodes of 'The Whistler'..."  Dobkin doubles as the airline clerk; I don't recognize Brad the neighbor.

(There are quite a few later episodes in which the surviving recording is missing all or part of the credits; and 1951-03-25 "His Own Reward" has no credits—and is strange for other reasons!)

"The Big Jump" opens with Marvin Miller announcing:  "And now, stay tuned for the program that has rated tops in popularity for a longer period of time than any other West Coast program:  the Signal Oil program, The Whistler.  Transcribed by the Signal Oil Company for New Year's Eve, to enable the entire production staff of The Whistler to spend New Year's Eve with their families and friends."

Other episodes noted as having been transcribed for special occasions include:

• 1949-12-25 "Letter from Cynthia":  "Transcribed for Christmas by the Signal Oil Company to enable the cast and the entire production staff of The Whistler to enjoy Christmas Day at home with their families."
• 1950-12-24 "Three Wise Guys": "Transcribed by the Signal Oil Company for Christmas Eve, to enable the entire production staff of The Whistler to spend Christmas Eve at home with their families.
• 1951-06-17 "The Man in the Trench Coat" and
• 1951-06-24 "The Murder of Byron Blake":  "Signal Oil Company has asked me to explain to you why tonight's Whistler and last Sunday's Whistler were transcribed.  This was done, friends, in order to give all the members of The Whistler's cast, orchestra and production staff a well-deserved two-week vacation with pay.  I'm sure you'll be glad to know, however, that although this is the season when so many popular shows go off the air for the summer, there'll be no vacation for the Whistler program itself..."
• 1951-12-23 "Christmas Gift":  "Transcribed by the Signal Oil Company to enable the entire production staff of The Whistler to spend the Christmas weekend at home with their families."
• 1951-12-30 "Fatal Step":  "Transcribed by the Signal Oil Company to enable the entire production staff of The Whistler to spend the New Year's weekend at home with their families.
• 1952-06-08 "Man in the Way":  "Transcribed by the Signal Oil Company to enable the entire production staff of The Whistler to enjoy a summer vacation." 

Connections/Additional Listening:

The script of "The Big Jump," by Joel Malone, has several echoes of 1946-07-08 "Confession" by Fred Hegelund and Harold Swanton.  Compare the opening narration of "Confession":

Only a week before, Marty Heath had thought to himself how wonderful it was to be a part of New York in the spring, with the grass turning green in Central Park, and the crocuses blooming in the flowerbeds.  Just a week ago.  Now it was different.  It was a cold city, a city without a heart.  Yes, something had happened to Marty Heath that had taken the heart out of everything.  Life had lost its purpose, nothing had meaning anymore....

to that of "The Big Jump":

Only a few days before in the midst of the Christmas season, Dave Leonard had told himself that there was no place quite like San Francisco.  It was thrilling to be a part of it.  The hills, the bay, the clanging cable cars.  Only a few days before Dave had been happy with his job, his surroundings, his home, his wife.  Now suddenly that was all changed.  Wiped away somehow.  The city was a frightening place; his job, something that was threatened; his home, his wife, things that he must give up, be put behind him as rapidly as possible lest they be threatened too....

And another similar line of narration, early in the story:

("Confession") ... Yes, Marty, it's a cold city, full of cold people.  And you can't even confide in the one person who means everything to you.

("The Big Jump")  ... One man who can ruin your life, strike terror in your heart, cause the old familiar warmth and friendliness of the city you've come to love to turn into a chilled atmosphere of menace, despair.  And back at home you can't even bring yourself to talk about it to the one person who's brought you more comfort and understanding than you'd ever dreamed possible....

In both stories, the protagonist's wife called his office and found he was gone all afternoon, and after snapping at her he suggests they go out and forget about it.  (In "Confession," they actually do go out together, unhappily; in "The Big Jump" he storms out alone and she waits up.)  In both stories, the wife asks if it's another woman and the protagonist assures her it isn't.  And in both stories, the wife convinces the protagonist to skip town, and then in the end they decide to go to the police.

In your typical Whistler episode, the protagonist gets retribution for their crimes, usually in some ironic twist caused by their own decisions.  But sometimes, as in this story, a Whistler protagonist makes the right decision and is rewarded in some ironic twist by which everything turns out okay!  Other episodes in which the protagonist plots or attempts murder but changes their mind, and then the intended victim dies but the protagonist is innocent, include:

• 1948-10-17 "Package for Emily" (Robert Stephen Brode)
• 1950-03-26 "Lady in the Snow" (Nancy Cleveland)
• 1954-05-30 "That Cutlerville Affair" (credits cut off on surviving recording)
• 1954-10-03 "Stolen Letter" (no credits on surviving recording)

Other episodes in which the protagonist decides to tell all, and then things work out so they don't have to, include:

• 1947-03-31 "The Blank Wall" (no writer credit; 1955 TV version credited to Joel Malone)
• 1954-05-30 "That Cutlerville Affair"
• 1954-03-21 "Perilous Weekend" (no credits on surviving recording)
• 1954-08-01 "Borrowed Future" (Adrian Gendot)

And see 1950-10-15 "Smart Boy" by Norman Kramer for an episode in which a man living a new life under a new name is threatened with being ratted out to the old gang, but does not make the right choices.


For another holiday episode reused minus the holiday, see 1949-12-25 "Letter From Cynthia", set on Christmas Eve, which was reused as 1952-04-07 "Saturday Night", set on... Saturday night.

Tangent:  for an example from a different show, see Broadway's My Beat 1949-12-31 "The John Lomax Murder Case", whose story was reworked as Bold Venture e46 "A Backstabbing at Shannon's Place"—here, the last scene especially doesn't work as well when it isn't New Year's Eve.

For a non-holiday Whistler episode reused as a holiday episode, see 1947-03-17 "Mavis Cameron Disappears" / 1948-12-26 "Delayed Christmas Present" / 1951-12-23 "Christmas Gift".

1947-12-31 "The First Year" was reused on 1955-06-02—but the story still takes place on New Year's Eve.

The Whistler 1947-03-17 "Mavis Cameron Disappears" / 1948-12-26 "Delayed Christmas Present" / 1951-12-23 "Christmas Gift"

The basic setup:  An office worker goes into hiding as a nightclub singer after becoming an unwilling accomplice in a fatal holdup.  This script was substantially improved when it was reworked as a Christmas episode the following year, and that episode was reused three Christmases later with further refinements.  Radio writers reusing their own ideas was sometimes a very good thing!

1947-03-17 "Mavis Cameron Disappears"
Produced by George W. Allen
Story by Edward Bloodworth, music by Wilbur Hatch
Announcer: Marvin Miller / Whistler:  Bill Forman
Cast (credited):  Isabel Jewell, Tony Barrett

script reworked as 1948-12-26 "Delayed Christmas Present"
Produced by George W. Allen, directed by Gordon Hughes
Story by Edward Bloodworth, music by Wilbur Hatch
Announcer: Marvin Miller / Whistler:  Bill Forman
Cast (credited):  Joan Banks, Jack Petruzzi
Cast (ear):  Bill Bouchey as Fontaine, Harry Bartell (?) as Spanish Pete and Bill the bartender

which was in turn reused as 1951-12-23 "Christmas Gift"
Produced and directed by George W. Allen 
Story by Ed Bloodworth, music by Wilbur Hatch
Announcer: Marvin Miller / Whistler:  Bill Forman
Cast: Betty Lou Gerson, Bill Conrad, Bill Bouchey, Marvin Miller, Britt Wood (harmonica)

The story (1947):  After bank worker Mavis Cameron sings a number on a night out with friends, gambler Dan Spinelli compliments her voice and talks her into going with him to a club where he can introduce her to some show people.  She's skeptical, but they have a good time, until Mavis hears a song that reminds her of her fiancé, a doctor who's still overseas.  On the way home, with Mavis at the wheel of Dan's car, Dan complains of a headache and asks her to stop at a sandwich shop so he can get some aspirin.  As she waits, she hears shots, and then Dan jumps back into the car with a gun in his hand and tells her to get going.

Mavis offers to trade Dan her silence for her life.  Dan says he doesn't want to kill her, he wants to marry her so she can't testify against him.  Mavis won't break her promise, and she knows her story would sound phony.  But she won't marry Dan, and she won't get her fiancé mixed up in this mess.  She decides the only thing to do is to to skip town.

Six months later Mavis is singing at a nightclub in Brooklyn under the name Doris Trent when Dan show up.  He accuses her of sending a note to the police about the holdup, and insists on marrying her tonight.  And in case she's thinking of a double-cross, there's a written confession in his pocket telling how she helped him pull the job.  Mavis calls the police, but Dan stops her before she can say anything.  As he prepares to kill her after all, Mavis's manager appears and offers to call the cops on this guy who's bothering her.  So that Dan won't shoot the manager, Mavis says no, he's just another wolf, and the manager tells Dan to beat it.  As Dan waits for her out front, Mavis slips out the back.

Five months later, Mavis is singing at a night spot south of the border under the name Lily Grey.  The proprietor tells her that an American gentleman wants to buy her some champagne.  The American says he's finally caught up with her... Mavis Cameron.

The twist (1947):  Mavis says her name is Lily Grey.  The man says his name is Detective Sergeant James Fontaine, and he knows the false names she's used.  Mavis says she used to work with Mavis Cameron, and the customers used to mix them up too.  She could tell Fontaine about her.

After hearing the story, Fontaine calls Mavis "Miss Grey" and asks if she thinks "Miss Cameron" will ever come back to clear things up.  Mavis thinks she will, some day.  Fontaine remarks that he always figured the confession they found on Spinelli was a phony.  Dan Spinelli died in a shootout with the Brooklyn police about five months ago, when the police came to investigate a mysterious phone call from a nightclub.

The story (1948/1951):  Mary Winslowe (Mary Winston in 1951) is a hostess at a night spot in Panama City under the name of Candy Porter, hiding from her past.  The proprietor tells her to let an American gentleman buy her some champagne.  The gentleman, Mr. Fontaine, says he came here after her... Mary Winslowe.

Mary insists that her name is Candy Porter, but she used to work with Mary Winslowe, the customers used to mix them up too.  She could tell Fontaine about her.

Mary begins her story, and the events play out as in 1947:  a year ago, Mary sang a number at a company Christmas party and then got picked up by a gambler named Joe Clarke (or Joe Collins).  They had a good time until the music reminded her of her absent doctor fiancé; as Mary drove home, Joe held up a drive-in and killed a man; Mary traded her silence for her life, and then skipped town.  This time, the car belonged to Mary's fiancé, increasing her concern about getting him involved; and Joe didn't propose marriage until he caught up with her in Brooklyn, saying at first only that she was guilty too and they were partners.  After the run-in in Brooklyn, Mary's manager helped Mary escape and got her a job in Denver.

"Candy Porter" finishes her story by telling Fontaine that that's where she met Mary Winslowe, in Denver, billed as Gladys James.  Mary left one day and she never saw her again.  Fontaine doesn't seem to believe her.

The twist (1948/1951):  Fontaine calls Mary "Miss Porter" and asks if she thinks "Mary Winslowe" will ever come back and clear things up.  Mary thinks she might, some day.  After Fontaine tells her of Joe Clarke's death, Mary says if she ever sees Mary Winslowe again, she'll tell her about the Christmas present she got from a swell cop named Fontaine.  Fontaine says he's not a cop.  He's a private investigator working for Mary's fiancé, who's in love with her and just wants her to come home.

 

Evolution of a Christmas Episode

The most significant improvement between "Mavis Cameron Disappears" and "Delayed Christmas Present" is the change to a flashback structure.  The last act of "Mavis Cameron" is pretty weak:  it's a little tedious listening to Mavis give a summary of a story we've just heard, and it's hard to buy that Fontaine would come around so quickly.  In the later two episodes, it makes for a better story to open with Mary in hiding, quickly get to the suspense of her being found out, and then learn her story as Fontaine learns it.

The Christmas angle also works well, adding poignancy to Mary's being lonely and far from home.  It's particularly effective in 1951, with the Whistler's opening narration about the Christmas spirit touching even a place like Pete's Cantina, and the addition of the character of Sailor Reynolds, who has no dialogue but plays "White Christmas" on the harmonica and brings back memories for Mary.

This latter change reflects how the song takes on a more important role in the story each time.  In "Mavis Cameron," we hear "You Belong to My Heart" on the piano in the last act while Mavis tells Fontaine her story; but the dialogue and narration don't mention her hearing the song after the night of the shooting.

In "Delayed Christmas Present," there are church bells playing "Adeste Fideles" during the opening narration.  We hear "White Christmas" on the piano under the beginning of Mary and Fontaine's dialogue at the beginning of the second act, without the song being mentioned; and then again at the beginning of the third act, as the Whistler says "And as the piano player across the floor plays the tune he's played a thousand times in the last two weeks..."  Both times, the piano plays only the second stanza, and in the last scene the song ends under the dialogue "Like it here?" / "No." / "That's what I figured."

In "Christmas Gift," we hear the harmonica playing both stanzas of "White Christmas" during the Whistler's opening narration, and the narration mentions the strolling soloist Sailor Reynolds playing a Christmas melody that brings back memories of happier Christmas Eves.  The harmonica comes in again under the opening narration of the last act, and the Whistler says:  "'White Christmas.'  If Sailor Reynolds knew what that song did to you, the memories it brings back, he'd play something else, wouldn't he, Mary?"  The solo harmonica rendition of the song is more plaintive and more present to the ear than the piano in the previous episode, and again Wood plays the whole song.  The penultimate line ending merry and bright is heard as Fontaine calls Mary "Miss Porter"; the song draws to a close and then ends with a flourish ascending two octaves—as Mary's voice rises in pitch on "And you... believe me?"

Another striking improvement between the two similar Christmas episodes is the ending of the second act.  In "Delayed Christmas Present," Fontaine ends the second act with "You know something, you ought to be writing stories for the movies."  This is a weirdly harsh thing to say when he's going to be on her side after the break!  The dialogue at the end of the second act in "Christmas Gift" still presents an apparent defeat, but leaves more room for Fontaine to go along with her story after all:  "You don't believe me, do you?" / "If you were in my position, would you believe a story like that?" / "No, I don't suppose I would."

The last words of "Mavis Cameron Disappears" are "Funny thing about it was they never did find out who put in that call to the police."  Again, this is weak, especially since we understood at the beginning of the line that it was Mavis's aborted phone call—Dan being dead is an okay twist, but this sentence doesn't make for a very dramatic ending.  The additional twist of Fontaine's being a private detective hired by Mary's fiancé is a definite improvement in the later episodes.

Some of the dialogue at the very end of "Delayed Christmas Present," though, is more effective than in the later "Christmas Gift," especially the very last line:  "But I think maybe, before next Christmas...  Well, I think I'll find Mary Winslowe again."  The 1951 episode ends on the less poignant and less interesting "Merry Christmas, Miss Porter.  Happy New Year."  And it's odd that the second time, she doesn't ask Fontaine to bring her back to the States, so we're left without a definite idea of how or when she's going to prepare herself to return home.

One more interesting change between the two flashback episodes.  The narration of both starts out following what I've spoken of as the general pattern for this era of The Whistler, speaking to the protagonist in second person present tense.  In "Delayed Christmas Present," the Whistler sets the scene of Mary's flashback in second person past tense and then shifts back into second person present tense, narrating most of the story in present tense as usual.  But in "Christmas Gift," he switches to past tense for the flashback and stays there until the action returns to the present, narrating all Mary's past actions in past tense as she remembers how she got to where she is today.

(Bloodworth's script for 1949-12-25 "Letter From Cynthia", reused as 1952-04-07 "Saturday Night", also has an extended flashback, which the Whistler opens in past tense and then narrates in present tense both times.)

Further comparison/notes:

• The "Mavis Cameron Disappears" script in the SPERDVAC library shows some interesting penciled changes, including deleted lines which did make their way into one or both of the later episodes!  In the opening narration, "annual bank party" is replaced with "night when Mavis and four of the girls at the bank had dinner"—and in the later episodes, it was a company Christmas party.  There's about a page of dialogue between Mavis and Dan at the cocktail bar which was cut from "Mavis Cameron"; most of that dialogue is used in "Delayed Christmas Present," and it's used again minus a couple lines in "Christmas Gift."

• In "Delayed Christmas Present," Mary suggests that the note to the police about the holdup might have been written by one of Joe's enemies trying to get him in trouble.  This is the only episode of the three that proposes any explanation for the note, since Mavis/Mary didn't write it and apparently nobody else could have.

• One point on which I prefer the 1947 episode to the later two is the casting of Tony Barrett as the gangster—mostly just because I think he's got the cutest voice, so it's easier for me to believe the heroine would let him pick her up!  The "Mavis Cameron" script introduces Dan as "(A GANGSTER..BUT A SUPER SMOOTHIE)", and later has the dialogue direction "(NOW THE DEFINITE GANGSTER)"; Barrett does well with that switch from friendly to deadly, whereas I feel like Petruzzi and Conrad come off as more tough from the beginning.

  

  Script page 2 / page 10.
  A "smoothie" is a guy who is smooth in the sense of being suave and a good talker.... although nowadays a "super smoothie" sounds like something that probably has açaí in it.

  
  

• In all three versions of this story, Mavis/Mary offers Fontaine a cigarette when they first meet, and he turns her down; then, just before he calls her by her assumed name, she offers again and he accepts.  It's a subtle accompaniment to his rejecting and then accepting her story, and in the two flashback episodes it works as a nice bit of bookending.

• The nostalgic song in "Mavis Cameron Disappears" was a popular hit in Mexico, written by Mexican composer Agustín Lara in 1941 as "Solamente una vez."  The Walt Disney studio had decided as early as May 1943 to use "Solamente una vez" in their second Latin-American film, and the song took off in the United States after it was heard in Disney's The Three Caballeros (Dec 1944, US premiere Feb 1945) with new English lyrics as "You Belong to My Heart."

• In 1947, Dr. Clint Rogers, M.D., is "still overseas."  In 1948, Dr. Frank Wilson, M.D., is "in the Philippines.  Research."  In 1951, Dr. Frank Wilson is "in Korea. ... Army doctor."

Personnel notes: 

Episode writer Ed Bloodworth was production supervisor of The Whistler for the Barton A. Stebbins Advertising Agency, which handled the Signal Oil radio account.  Bloodworth was instrumental in selecting scripts to be used on the program, so it makes sense that he would end up writing (and using!) some scripts of his own.  I haven't found any mention of Bloodworth's writing for programs other than The Whistler, but his script for 1950-04-02 "Lady with a Key" was reused for the first episode of the weekly Masters of Mystery program on Mystery Time, 1956-05-02.  (Radio Mirror of August 1956 says "the program highlights the best of crime fiction authored by America's foremost mystery writers:  George Fass, Edward Bloodworth, Jerry McGill, John Shaw and Louis Estes."  Really??)

Britt Wood, the harmonica player in "Christmas Gift," was born in 1893 and entered showbiz at the age of five.  Often billed as "The Boob and His Harmonica," Wood performed regularly as a vaudeville single from the early 1910s up through the late 1930s, and did some vaudeville as late as 1951.  He became a film actor in the late 1930s and primarily played supporting roles in Westerns, including comic sidekick Speedy McGinnis in five Hopalong Cassidy pictures.  Wood has few known surviving radio credits, but I'd be surprised if he didn't do additional radio acting (such as uncredited Whistler appearances which I didn't catch).  He starred in the musical variety radio program Rhythm Inn in 1944.

On The Whistler, Wood was sometimes heard in folksy-old-guy roles such as the lunch counter man in 1951-11-25 "The Clay Tree" and the bartender in 1952-01-06 "Episode at Thunder Mountain"—and, as a composer, he collaborated with Ed Bloodworth on the songs performed by Roberta Linn in 1952-11-30 "So Soon" and 1954-09-19 "Song Team".  (The song "So Soon" was, by some accounts, composed expressly for the sake of Bloodworth's story about a composer murdering a lyricist.  The song in "Song Team" was released as a record the same month the episode aired, and I expect Bloodworth reused the story for the sake of the new song.  After Signal Oil's sponsorship of The Whistler ended in October of '54, Bloodworth worked on Linn's new program.)  Wood and Bloodworth also wrote the song "Slade" for the 1953 Western movie Jack Slade, and that song was used in The Whistler 1953-11-15 "Fading Star".

The 1950 film Hollywood Varieties features a bit of vaudeville from "Mr. Show Business himself, Mr. Britt Wood!"  His act begins at about 35:49 in this YouTube video of the movie.

"Mavis Cameron Disappears" is the first known Whistler episode with Tony Barrett.  Born Martin Lefkowitz to theatrical parents in 1916, Barrett was a professional dancer before switching to acting sometime between 1942 and 1944.  He was a very busy New York radio actor (reported to have done as many as six shows in one day!) and was noted for his facility with different accents.  Barrett came to Hollywood in January 1946, where he became a contract player for RKO and continued as a prolific and versatile radio actor.  He also wrote some radio scripts, and later became successful as a television writer.  To my knowledge Barrett is in a total of seven surviving Whistler episodes, including 1955-06-23 "The Cliffs of Weyrum" (credits missing from surviving recording), and was likely also in the missing episodes of 1953-01-25 and 1953-04-05.

Before threatening her in "Mavis Cameron Disappears," Tony Barrett romanced Isabel Jewell in his second motion picture, Born to Kill (until both got murdered less than ten minutes in).  The movie was filmed in May–June 1946 but was released on 3 May 1947, a month and a half after the pair were heard on The Whistler.

Tony Barrett, Isabel Jewell, and Claire Trevor in Born to Kill (RKO, 1947)

A point of law:

After Dan proclaims his intent to marry Mavis in "Mavis Cameron Disappears," the Whistler's narration says:

Now you're beginning to see what you're up against, aren't you, Mavis?  Of course what Dan told you about wives not being permitted to testify against husbands isn't true.  Not when the action occurs before marriage.  But you don't know that, do you...and it wouldn't help much if you did.

It's unusual during this era of The Whistler for the Whistler to tell the protagonist information they don't know—and it's even more unusual for him to just go around imparting general knowledge!

The Whistler is correct here because the shooting took place in Chicago.  Spousal privilege in Illinois law is (and was in 1947) a confidential communications privilege, similar to attorney-client privilege.  It applies to confidential communications between spouses (which essentially includes any communication between spouses outside of certain narrow limits, and may also include acts performed in the spouse's presence).  The privilege applies only to communications made while the parties are formally married, and (as with the attorney-client relationship) continues to apply to those communications even if the marriage has since ended.  Even if Mavis married Dan, they were not married when she found out about the shooting, so she could be a witness against him in an Illinois court.

California law, on the other hand, had marital testimonial privilege, holding that "neither husband nor wife is a competent witness for or against the other in a criminal action or proceeding to which one or both are parties, except with the consent of both..."; exceptions included crimes by one spouse against the other or against their children.  This privilege applied based on whether the parties were married at the time of the criminal action or proceeding.  In "Delayed Christmas Present" and "Christmas Gift," the shooting took place in Los Angeles, which means that if Mary were married to Joe, she could not be a witness against him, even though they weren't married when the crime occurred.  As of 1967, the new California evidence code only protects one spouse from being forced to testify against the other.

The line quoted above does not occur in the two later scripts—but I expect this change wasn't so much because of the different setting, as because it just adds unnecessary confusion.  (And that's without even getting into the question of whether a marriage under coercion would be valid, or how readily one could get out of such a marriage!)  As the Whistler points out, when a murderer's trying to get you to marry him or else, the legal details don't make much difference.

Additional listening: 

There's another trio of surviving Whistler episodes with a similar pattern, fairly close to these three in time.  1947-03-31 "The Blank Wall" was significantly reworked (including an entirely different ending) as 1948-10-31 "Letter From Yesterday", and then that story was reused with smaller changes as 1951-09-09 "Guilty Conscience".  The two later episodes are credited to Edward Bloodworth.  Oddly, the credits in 1947-03-31 "The Blank Wall" do not list a writer; the 1955 Whistler TV episode "The Blank Wall" (which sounds like it was based on the 1947 radio episode, not the later two) is credited on IMDb to Joel Malone.

The Whistler 1949-08-21 "Confession" / 1954-10-17 "Last Request"

The basic setup:  A wanted gangster, traveling on an ocean liner under an assumed name, blackmails a doctor into aiding with an unusual escape plan.

1949-08-21 "Confession"
Produced by George W. Allen, directed by Sterling Tracy
Story by Joel Malone and Adrian Gendot
Whistler: Bill Forman
Announcer:  Marvin Miller
Cast (credited): Ira Grossel [aka Jeff Chandler], Herb Butterfield
Cast (ear):  Larry Dobkin (as Seletti and James Roark), Wilms Herbert (as McHale and the second steward)

story reused as 1954-10-17 "Last Request"
Produced by Joel Malone, directed by Sterling Tracy
Story by Brian Thorne
Whistler:  Bill Forman
Cast:  Lawrence Dobkin, Herb Butterfield, Jean Tatum, Jack Moyles, Paul Dubov

The story:  Old Dr. Roark, lying on his deathbed, wants to be alone with his son, young Dr. James Roark.  There's something he has to clear up.  It isn't really his own story, but that of one Tony Delgano, former Public Enemy Number One.

Tony Delgano embarks from San Francisco with a new passport under a new name.  He's ready to enjoy a new life free of the police as David Delmas, especially after he hits it off with fellow passenger Sharon Phillips at a cocktail party on board.  Sharon introduces "Mr. Delmas" to a friend of hers, Dr. Roark.

Roark recognizes Tony, but Tony reminds Roark that he can mess up Roark's life too.  Roark once fixed up Tony's shoulder after a "hunting accident," and didn't find out until later that it had been a bank job.  Roark's son is also a doctor.  How would young Dr. Roark's associates feel if it came out that his father had helped a criminal and never said anything?  Tony is sure Roark will keep his secret and do whatever he says.

Some days later, a ship's steward interrupts a romantic moment between Tony and Sharon.  The steward tells Tony he recognizes him, and hands him a radiogram addressed to David Delmas, warning that he's been betrayed and can expect a police reception in Australia.  But the steward has a plan.  He's seen Tony talking to Roark, and he knows that Roark is escorting a friend to his final resting place—said friend's body being in a casket in the hold.  Well, what's to stop Tony from taking the place of Roark's quiet friend, and getting ashore that way?  And in exchange for the steward's help, Tony can smuggle some diamonds into the country for him.  After thinking it over, Tony agrees to the plan, and the steward brings him the package of diamonds.

Tony opens the package and finds a handful of dime-store glass.  The steward planned to hide Tony from the police only to lead them to him and collect the reward.  Tony throws the steward overboard.  He kind of hated to do it, he tells Roark the next morning, especially after he gave him that bright idea.  Roark is horrified at the plan, but Tony reminds him that he can make things difficult for Roark's son.

The day before the ship is to dock, there's been a radiogram from the San Francisco police, and a ship's officer comes to arrest Tony.  Tony knocks the officer down, flees, and hides out in Dr. Roark's room.  They've got to do it now, he tells Roark.  Roark tries to protest, but Tony insists, and Roark gives in.

The twist:  As old Dr. Roark's story draws to a close, young Dr. Roark is shocked that his father let Tony Delgano get away.  But Tony Delgano didn't get away.  He took the place of Roark's friend in the casket, but what he didn't know was that Roark's friend had requested a burial at sea.

Personnel notes:  "Confession" is attributed to Joel Malone and Adrian Gendot, and "Last Request" is attributed to Brian Thorne.  The covering sheet for "Last Request" lists the author as Joel Malone, and when the story was used again on the Whistler TV program in 1955 as "Favor for a Friend" it was attributed to Joel Malone.  I'm not sure why Malone and his collaborators would use a pseudonym, or why only sometimes.  The Whistler story "A Woman's Privilege" was attributed to Brian Thorne on the 1947-02-17 Signal and 1947-03-12 HFC broadcasts, but to Joel Malone and Harold Swanton on the 1949-10-02 and 1955-06-09 broadcasts.  Brian Thorne is also given as the writer of the Whistler episodes 1947-02-10 "Safety in Numbers" and 1947-04-14 "Maid of Honor" (neither of which has any striking similarities to other surviving episodes); there are no other known radio credits associated with the name. 

The name "Brian Thorne," as spelled in the "Safety in Numbers" script

Larry Dobkin, who plays Tony in "Last Request," can be heard as Seletti and young Dr. Roark in "Confession"—his first of over 40 Whistler episodes.  His calling Herb Butterfield "Dad" in the last scene sounds just like old times:  Dobkin played the title role in Ellery Queen from February 1947 to April 1948, and Butterfield took over the role of Inspector Richard Queen when the show moved from New York to Hollywood in late November of '47.

Comparison:  There are only minor changes to the script between the two productions of this story.  Personally, I'm biased towards "Last Request" because I'm a huge Larry Dobkin fan—but I do think the Tony Delgano character is legitimately more interesting in the later episode!

For instance, the last scene of the second act has exactly the same narration and essentially the same dialogue in both episodes.  In "Confession," we know Tony's had a few—but in "Last Request" he actually sounds tipsy, and then he gets a little unhinged on his last line.  There's a sense of his anxiety at the prospect of being shut up in a casket in the hold, which doesn't seem to be there in "Confession."

Another improvement:  the script for "Last Request" adds some additional casual remarks to Tony's dialogue during the scene where he tells Roark the plan over breakfast ("How do they keep the toast warm all the way to the cabin?"), really playing up the contrast between Roark's agitation and Tony's cool assurance.

Other differences include:

• In "Confession," two of Tony's henchmen see him off at the dock.  McHale has fixed up the passport, and it's McHale who sends the radiogram warning about Seletti's singing.  In "Last Request," only Seletti sees him off, and McHale's lines explaining Tony's new name are given to Tony instead; we don't know who sends the warning.
• "Confession" ends with the line: "... That my friend had chosen as his final resting place a burial at sea, somewhere near Australia."  In "Last Request," the line ends with the words at sea.  It's more dramatic, although maybe less informative.

Narration and point of view:  The narration of "Confession"/"Last Request" is a little unusual, in an inconspicuous way.  By about 1946–47, the narration on the Signal Whistler program has found a fairly consistent pattern.  The Whistler opens a typical episode with narration in the third person past tense, the default for storytelling in English.  Before long he shifts into second person present tense and addresses his narration to one character throughout the episode; he may switch back to third person for the last act, if the main character has died.

In "Confession"/"Last Request", the Whistler opens the narrative in third person past tense as usual, and does not address any character in the first scene.  As Dr. Roark begins his story, the Whistler sets the scene of the flashback in third person past tense, and then shifts to addressing Tony in the present tense.  If you think too hard about it, it's a little odd that, while Roark is telling his story in the frame story, the Whistler narrates the same story from a different point of view, including information that Roark had no way of knowing.

While I can't think of any other surviving Whistler episode with one character telling another character's story like in "Confession"/"Last Request", there are other flashback episodes where the Whistler's narration speaks in present tense to a character who is already dead at the time of the first scene.  1947-03-10/1951-06-24 "The Murder of Byron Blake" (Gene Fromherz) and 1948-10-24/1955-04-07 "Search for an Unknown" (Gendot) both have opening scenes with major supporting characters remembering how the main character met his doom.  1947-02-17/1949-10-02/1955-06-09 "A Woman's Privilege" (Malone/Swanton), 1950-03-12 "Strange Meeting" (Malone), and 1949-05-22/1954-01-10 "Fatal Fraud" (Gendot) all open in police stations, without any important characters heard, and flash back to the circumstances leading up to the crime.

(In the early years of The Whistler, the narration is much more varied, and occasionally downright strange—but that's a whole other discussion.)

Caveat:  1943-01-31 "The Confession" is a story by J. Donald Wilson about a lawyer's daughter getting involved with a bad guy;

1946-07-08 "Confession" is a story by Fred Hegelund and Harold Swanton about a terminally ill man falsely confessing to a murder;

and 1949-08-21 "Confession," also announced without the article, is this story by Malone and Gendot about a doctor and a gangster on a ship.

[This post updated 2026-01-01 with info from the script cover pages of "Last Request," confirming Brian Thorne's identity and correcting the spelling of Roark and Seletti.  (I still think it sounds more like Saliti.)  Thanks, Dr. Joe Webb!]