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 1950-10-22 "The Wall" / 1954-08-29 "Quadrangle"

The Whistler 1950-10-22 "The Wall" (story reused as 1954-08-29 "Quadrangle")

The basic setup:  A man is bound to his aunt's old house by the fear that her renovations will uncover the deadly secret hidden inside the stone wall.

Produced and directed by George W. Allen, story by Adrian Gendot
Whistler:  Bill Forman
Announcer:  Marvin Miller
Cast (credited):  Don Randolph, Jean Tatum, Norma Varden

The surviving recording of "Quadrangle" has no credits, but it sounds like John Dehner in the lead.

The story:  Channing House, on the edge of Cartertown, with its wide, high surrounding wall, is a popular subject for artists.  Hypatia Channing lives there alone with her nephew Geoffrey since Colonel Channing's death five years ago.  A caretaker, Sam Lewis, also lives on the property, and Hypatia is always having him renovate the house and grounds, claiming that the sound of the hammer and saw keeps her husband's memory alive.

Geoffrey Channing's friend Ned introduces him to Leah Munsen, an artist who has come to paint Channing House.  Their conversation turns to the wall.  Ned tells Leah the stone wall is hollow, and he wonders when the old lady is going to get around to tearing it down.  Geoffrey hopes she won't go that far.  Because Colonel Channing really didn't drown while on a fishing trip with Geoffrey.  Geoffrey killed him in a rage and hid his body inside the wall.  The wall has been on his mind these five years, and he stays close to home in fear that Aunt Hypatia will demolish it and reveal his lie.

As the weeks go by, Geoffrey has fallen in love with Leah.  He doesn't want her to leave Cartertown, but she wants to travel and pursue her artistic career.  She wants him to go with her... if he can.  Geoffrey decides he must free himself of Channing House.  That night, he learns that Aunt Hypatia plans to begin demolishing the wall in the morning.

Rainy weather sets in, delaying work on the wall, and Hypatia puts Sam to work on the staircase instead.  After days of rain, Geoffrey seizes an opportunity to poison his aunt's bedtime drink with her own sleeping powders, knowing her death will be taken for an accidental overdose.  Some time after bidding her good night, he hears her scream as she falls down the stairs.  She's dead, and Geoffrey didn't do it.

Or did he?  He rushes upstairs to make sure.  The poisoned drink is untouched.  As he moves to get rid of it, he's startled by the doorbell and spills the drink on Aunt Hypatia's pillow.  He quickly hides the stained pillow in his room and goes downstairs to answer the bell.  It's Judge Fuller, Hypatia's attorney, who had an appointment to see her on a financial matter.  They call the police, and the sheriff pronounces her death accidental.

The twist:  The sheriff returns after a talk with Sam, and tells Geoffrey that Sam thinks Hypatia was pushed down the stairs, and Geoffrey pushed her.  It turns out Colonel Channing hid a large sum of money in the house before he died, and never got around to telling his wife where.  That's why she's been having the house torn apart—and she was sure Geoffrey was only sticking so close to home in order to get his hands on the money.  Today Sam found $50,000 in the staircase and handed it over to her, and now it looks like Geoffrey killed his aunt for the money.

Geoffrey protests that he didn't know about any money.  But no jury will believe that:  the police found the whole $50,000 right where he put it, stuffed in a bureau drawer in his bedroom closet, hidden inside his aunt's pillow.

Some changes between "The Wall" and "Quadrangle": 

• The aunt's name is changed from Hypatia to Agnes.

• Some of Ned's gossip is removed from the first scene, including his speculation that the old lady was happy to be rid of her husband.

• In "The Wall," Geoffrey apparently fought with and killed his uncle because his uncle didn't approve of the woman Geoffrey wanted to marry—and then they married after his death and the marriage didn't last.  In "Quadrangle," the dialogue between Geoffrey and Leah that reveals this backstory is omitted, and the Whistler's narration just establishes right away that Geoffrey killed his uncle because he refused to lend him $5000.

• In "The Wall," Geoffrey puts his aunt's sleeping powders in a hot buttered rum; in "Quadrangle," it's hot chocolate.  Her line "Then I could throw away my sleeping powders" makes a little more sense the first time!

• "Quadrangle" omits some other lines of dialogue from "The Wall," including the information in this exchange (dialogue in italics is heard in "The Wall" only):

NED.
The wall's hollow, right Geoff?
 
GEOFFREY.
Yes.  It is.
 
NED.
I helped Geoff and the Colonel put it up.  Remember, Geoff?  Matter of fact you finished it up alone, didn't you?  Not long after the old fellow died.
 
GEOFFREY.
That's right.  I finished the wall alone.
 
WHISTLER.
You want to scream the words, don't you, Geoffrey?

BUT—the surviving recording of "Quadrangle" is from a United States Air Forces in Europe broadcast, aired years after the original network broadcast.  Where multiple versions of Whistler episodes survive, the USAFE versions sometimes show significant cuts in order to meet different time requirements.  It's hard to be certain whether all the missing dialogue from "The Wall" was really omitted in the new script for "Quadrangle," or if some of the apparent changes were introduced later.

• The Whistler's final narration in "The Wall" includes the sentence "An accidental death, and in the sheriff's own words, you had absolutely nothing to do with it."—which sounds odd, because the sheriff didn't specifically say Geoffrey had nothing to do with it.  The narration is rephrased to make more sense in "Quadrangle":  "Aunt Agnes' death was an accidental one in the sheriff's own words.  While you had planned to poison her with an overdose of sleeping powders, you had absolutely nothing to do with it." 

Connections:  Gendot's later script for 1951-07-01 "The House on Hainsley Boulevard" hearkens back to "The Wall."  That story also involves a young man living in an old family home with his aunt, his uncle having walked out and disappeared eight years ago.  In "The Wall," the protagonist is afraid to move away because he actually killed the Colonel and hid the body on the property; in "The House on Hainsley Boulevard," the protagonist suspects that his aunt is reluctant to move because she actually killed the Captain and hid the body on the property!  He's apparently mistaken; this uncle presumably really did disappear of his own accord.

For another Adrian Gendot Whistler story involving the idea of preserving a landmark in order to conceal murder evidence, see 1951-11-25 "The Clay Tree."

And, going off on a tangent from that episode, see 1951-02-18 "Man in the Storm" for another Gendot story in which a man tries desperately to protect a piece of real estate, apparently from noble motives but really in order to prevent his own crimes from coming to light.

Additional listening:  Other Whistler episodes in which the intended murder victim dies before consuming the poison given them by the protagonist include 1944-12-18 "Windfall" by Harold Swanton and 1951-09-16 "A Matter of Patience" by George Adrian and Carol Nicks.

See also 1950-04-16 "Murder in Mind" by Dick Anderson for another episode in which the intended murder victim dies accidentally and the protagonist fears being blamed.