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Either way, I may as well tell you right up front that this weeks ‘Friday Video’ is not a video at all but an old time radio show called “Suspense”.
Suspense was a big time show in it’s day. It aired spine tingling radio dramas on CBS Radio for 20 years from 1942 to 1962. Incidentally, I was born in 1962. Yes ladies, I’m 48 years young but you’d swear I was 47.
Getting back to the show, some of the more famous actors to voice characters on ‘Suspense’ were Orson Welles, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and Lucille Ball.
Our show today is called Donovan’s Brain. The story is about a physician, Dr. Patrick Cory, who is experimenting with keeping brain’s alive outside the body.
As the plot progresses a very rich W.H. Donovan crashes his private plane in the desert near the home of the good doctor. Unable to save Donovan’s life, Dr. Cory removes his brain in hopes that it might survive. As you all can guess, Dr. Cory puts the brain in one of those glass jiggers not unlike the ones you see on Futurerama.
As things progress Dr. Cory successfully attempts to contact the brain via telepathy. Eventually the brain begins to influence him and things get sticky and not in a super glue sort of way.
Influenced by Donovan’s Brain were the Star Trek episode “Spock’s Brain”, and the Steve Martin comedy “The Man with Two Brains” among others. In fact there are several various adaptations of the original 1942 book written by Curt Siodmak.
There’s something about this old time radio stuff that if given a chance, draws you in. So sit back, relax and allow yourself to be swept away into another world, a world of Suspense!
Adapted to radio in 1944 and starring Orson Wells is Donovan’s Brain:
If you enjoyed this, there’s more free old time radio here: Old Time Radio Archive
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