Suspense: The Mystery of the Marie Celeste (

Suspense: 06/08/53, episode 515
Brought to you by the Old Time Radio Researchers, courtesy of The Suspense Project
The final episode of the 1952-1953 season features Van Heflin in a fictional solution to the strange 1872 maritime mystery of a fully intact ship found drifting at sea about 700 miles west of Gibraltar. It still holds its untouched cargo and the personal belongings of the crew. That crew is nowhere to be found. Gil Doud is the writer whose fictional story is that a murderer attempts to escape detection by stowing away on board before the ship leaves port. He is found but is allowed to stay, however. You would think that the story would head toward his murdering of everyone on board and throwing the bodies overboard, but it is nothing like that. Everything is going relatively well, and they figure out that he is a murderer, and throw him in the brig. One morning he wakes up, still restrained, and hears a lot of noise of people outside, and then nothing. He realizes he is all alone on the ship as it starts moving again.
Listen for the background sound effects of the creaking of the ship almost throughout the drama as it sails.
The story speculates that a large sandbar suddenly formed from a river and caught the ship, and it is assumed everyone left the ship thinking it was an island. Then, almost as quickly as the temporary island formed, it was washed away, taking the crew with it. Heflin’s character is safely in the brig, and cannot see any of this happening. He eventually breaks free, writes what he knows on paper, and drops it in a bottle that he hopes will be found one day.
While such natural events of sand islands occur, it is highly unlikely that it explains this actual mystery. The Wikipedia page about the ship’s history explains the many theories. Some are better than others. One of the problems with the story is that there have been so many fictional accounts of the events that it is hard to determine what the hard and most certain facts are. Suspense does not advance that cause with this presentation.
Heflin’s performance is superb, as usual. His style offers a good example of how well long monologues can be delivered with both nuance and conviction. His performance is better than the story.
Lewis appears at the end of the broadcast to say that Suspense will return in the Fall. He announces the summer replacement series, Crime Classics. That series was one of Lewis’ favorite projects.
The cast: VAN HEFLIN (Sam Newcomb), Jeanette Nolan (Grace Briggs), William Conrad (Bowle), Paul Frees (Hubbard / Passerby), Joe Kearns (Officer / Captain Briggs), Dan O’Herlihy (Narrator), Hal Gerard (Lindley the Deckhand), Larry Thor (Suspense narrator)
COMMERCIAL: Tom Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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