Best of Suspense

Jimmy Stewart	Gene Kelly	Charles Ruggles	Alice Frost	Jack Webb
Alfred Hitchcock	Alan Ladd	Dane Clark	Cary Grant	Susan Hayward

This collection contains the "best of" episodes from the extensive Suspense Collection.

Everyone has their favorite programs, of course, but few OTR fans would put up much of an argument to the statement that Suspense was the best show of the Old Time Radio era. Sure, some fans prefer music or variety or soap operas or comedies, and we will not try to convince you to abandon your favorite. However, there are several factors we can point to that support our contention for Suspense being the Best of the Best.

Nearly every episode of Suspense has a high "Driveway Factor". That is a measurement of how long a listener is willing to sit in a parked, idling car to listen until the end of a show. Not every episode of Suspense was great, but throughout nearly a thousand broadcasts (more than 900 of which are still available), the producers and directors got things right more often than there were flops.

What made Suspense so great? The simple answer is that there were a lot of things going right for the program. Most of the stories were original radio plays created for Suspense , although some were adapted from short stories and other literary sources, a few were even adapted from other programs like Escape.

Listeners could expect something new every week, although some scripts were used more than once. For example, Agnes Moorehead played the panic-stricken call in Lucille Fletcher's "Sorry, Wrong Number" seven times. The show was popular enough to attract A-List talent who could expect a decent paycheck and usually a very good time playing against type; Lucille Ball got to play serious roles, Fibber McGee and Molly played hostages with a surprise twist, even Jack Benny appeared as a cold-blooded killer.

Students of Old Time Radio will point out that Suspense is important for more than its two-decade-plus broadcast run, it also marked the end of the Golden Age of Radio. After broadcasting Suspense and Yours Truly Johnny Dollar on September 30, 1962, CBS pulled the plug on its last two scheduled scripted radio dramas.

As great as Suspense is, a collection of more than 900 episodes is a lot of radio to get through. Most or nearly all the episodes are very good, but to be honest, not all of them are truly great. For this collection, we have selected just over one hundred of our favorite episodes, "well calculated to keep you in… SUSPENSE!"  Best of all, you will be able to turn the car off and listen to the endings inside!

Suspense was a highly popular and successful radio program with over twenty years on the air.  The show is widely considered to be the best radio program in the mystery and horror genre.  For other fang-tastic scary compilations, you won't want to miss: Boo Broadcasts, Halloween Scary Sampler, Horror Listener's Favorites, Monster Collection, Robots Collection, and Mystery Playhouse. See also: Comedians in Suspense and Christmas in Suspense.