I Love a Mystery: The Thing That Cries in the Night

I’d heard about Carleton E. Morse’s I Love a Mystery for a long time, but it was Neil Verma’s amazing book Theater of the Mind:  Imagination, Aesthetics, and American Radio Drama (2012) that convinced me to give the serial, popular during the late ‘40s and early ‘50s on US OTR, a whirl.  The serial I downloaded from Archive.org was The Thing That Cries in the Night, mostly because the title alone brought promises of hair-raising.   Like the soap operas or daytime serials that provided an indefinable something for their listeners, I Love a Mystery was broadcast in 15-minute slots five times a week.  Although the organ music theme tune sounded at first ludicrous and then quite bizarre against the backdrop of the story, I got used to it.  The theme “sting”—which I think was a siren, a car skidding to a halt, a clock chiming, followed by the organ music—seemed not particularly catchy by today’s theme song standards.  Nevertheless, it did provide good bookending. 

I Love a Mystery  followed the exploits of three amateur sleuths, the Cary Grant-like Jack Packard—serious, manly, debonair, but not unnecessarily chivalric—Doc Long, a somewhat slow-witted southerner meant for comic relief—and Reggie York, nominally an Englishman (and all that would have implied on 1940s US radio).   Jack was somewhat akin to a misogynist, Doc was a skirt-chaser, and Reggie was polite.  They all met during the failed defense of Manchuria from the Japanese, and then moved back to the US to set up their detective agency.  Reggie was written out midway through the run as the actor who played him, Walter Paterson, committed suicide (I do not know for what reason).  Morse, loyal to his memory, could not replace him and wrote in a new character to complete the trio.  By the time The Thing That Cries in the Night was broadcast in late 1949, Jack, Doc, and Reggie were on a plane headed to Hollywood to party hard after winning some prize money (I forget why).  The first episode really got my attention, as it was not only the first time I had ever heard the trio, but its mysterious hook absolutely enervated me.  The first episode brings in a flight stewardess who teases vainglorious Doc, but although the actress continues into a large role later in the 15-part story, the plot with the flight stewardess disappears rather ungracefully.

Much to their surprise, Jack, Doc, and Reggie are met in Hollywood by Mrs. Martin.  Mrs. Martin is one of the most annoying characters you could wish to meet in radio, priggish, prejudiced, and starched—yet her desperateness to clear her family name (presumably of some East Coast scion, perhaps a Daughter of the American Revolution) ultimately allows Jack to bring out the ugliest possible truths about the Martins.  Once at the Martins’ house, the trio meet Mrs. Martin’s three granddaughters, Faye, Hope, and Charity (called Cherry).  What quickly becomes clear is that Faye is a hard-scrabble dame, the Tartar of the family who says whatever she thinks; Hope has a penchant for seducing chauffeurs and basically can’t keep it in her pants; Cherry has a persecution complex; and the brother, Job, is an alcoholic (or, in the less euphemistic terms of the era, a drunk).  What is also clear is that Cherry has been hearing a baby crying in the house, while all the other residents are adamant not only is there not a baby in the house, but no one has heard it except Cherry.  The first episode ends eerily when the trio, and the audience, hear the baby. 

From now on it’s a race against time as various characters are killed off to solve the mystery.  Doc favors a supernatural explanation—“ a ghost baby!”—while Jack attempts to conduct an investigation in what is obviously a dysfunctional household.  Is it a ghost?  Is it a group hallucination?  Who kills the chauffeur?  Why is Job drunk all the time?  Is there a baby in the attic à la Jane Eyre?  I won’t reveal the solution, which kept me on the edge of my seat throughout a plane ride, though I will say it’s very Hitchcockian (and wonderfully apt for the medium of radio).  The whole thing is a fabulous window into the social mores of 1949; I didn’t, for example, expect discussion to be quite so bold-faced about Hope’s indiscretions, Cherry’s psychological problems, and Faye’s underwear drawer. 

Although I am unable to find credits for the actors, they were all top-notch.  Besides the regulars, the serial is notable for having so many strong and interesting female characters.  X is difficult to gauge, as is Hope.  The actress playing Cherry is very accomplished, her breathy voice and delivery conjuring up the image of a girl-woman, servile, frightened, yet in her own demented way trying to put the moves on Jack in one scene.  The actor playing Job also presents quite a complex character.  They all work hard to present a scene of utmost jeopardy.  The actress playing Mrs. Martin is obviously decades younger than the character, but she does her best to make the old bat prickly and irritating.  Verma specifically mentioned the spatial awareness Morse had when he wrote, directed, and produced his series, which is obvious in the care of the layout of this imaginary radio house, recreated in a no doubt cramped studio. 

Finally I would like to point out that, as I Love a Mystery was broadcast on the Mutual Broadcasting System, I suspect it was not a sponsored program, which would explain Morse’s only commercial interruption.  In this, he personally appeals to the listeners to adopt orphans from war-torn Europe, which is quite a contrast to Ivory Soap’s unending chorus in Against the Storm.